Some days I have to wonder
Is there any bigotry which is more socially acceptable these days than anti-fat person bigotry? Perhaps that is me just looking through the cultural blindness of being white, but I just had to wonder after reading this – a repost of a comments to a Salon article by a man who *gasp* is married to a fat woman and doesn't hate her!:
I guess since I am not skinny I should just quit bothering with bathing or brushing my hair, because I'm not fooling anyone, right? I'm still a gross fat pig who should starve myself to please the masses! And my fat has nothing to do with genetics, needing to keep this decently-paying but sedentary job to survive, a history of anti-depressant use (which is known to cause weight gain) or being on the pill (also which causes weight gain), arthritis which makes it painful for me to move some days, the ubiquitous placement of high fructose corn syrup in American foods, or any mental or emotional issues I may have. No, its all a matter of my personal discipline and self-control!
I'm sure if I looked a bit I could find equally bigoted statements made about other groups of people made by commenters to major magazines, but this one just kind of jumped out and slapped me in the face.
June 23, 2006 at 2:46 pm
I can think of one parallel: the people who say homosexuality is a choice.
June 23, 2006 at 3:00 pm
Oh, yeah, there is that.
Of late I’ve seen some lesbians writing about how being a lesbian can be a choice, I don’t really think I agree so much with that. But they aren’t coming at the idea with the nastiness of the people whom I am sure you are talking about – those being the fundamentalist religion types who say all gays will burn in hell.
June 23, 2006 at 5:13 pm
Possibly, maybe, it is a choice for some people. Possibly, maybe, some people’s sexuality changes over the course of their lives. It doesn’t matter: no one deserves to be mistreated because of it.
June 23, 2006 at 5:17 pm
A lot of people do have their sexuality change over the course of their lives, but I feel to say its a choice, like waking up and choosing whether or not to wear a red dress or a blue skirt, is overly simplistic. I don’t think anyone just wakes up one day and says “You know, I think I’ll change my sexual orientation today because it really just OUGHT to be this way”, and proceeds to be able to do so. Some people try over many years to change and end up making only a surface change, which often results later in shattered families and hurt feelings as the suppressed longings break through at last. Some people are able to change, which, being bisexual myself, makes me wonder if they ween’t really bi in the first place and therefore weren’t giving up much of anything by sticking to just one.
June 23, 2006 at 8:19 pm
I’m so relieved! Now I can skip all that time I spent showering, and washing my hair. And I’m really looking forward to throwing away my toothbrush and floss. Woo-hoo! Thank goodness I’m fat!
June 23, 2006 at 8:21 pm
Indeed! We wouldn’t want to make anyone sick by grooming our fat bodies, now, would we?
June 25, 2006 at 3:56 pm
I heard a fascinating radio piece on kboo streaming on the web (portland orgegon — it should be up in their archives soon under Friday, 9 am) by an author who posits that obesity an all its ills (high bp, diabetes, etc.) can be traced back to the huge rise in corn as the basis for american agriculture and food supplies. From food additives to the fact that our meat, poultry, eggs and milk are all based on a corn diet. His information was quite compelling. It’s making me avoid high fructose corn syrup like the plague, but did you know corn is also the basis of citric acid in most packaged foods? Lecithin? Even “sugar” on a label is not necessary what we consider to be sugar (from cane), unless it specifically says “cane sugar”, beware!
Here’s a link that discusses much of it http://www.rotten.com/library/medicine/corn/
I’ve been working on gradually reducing the amount of packaged food my family eats, and this is motivation to cut even more. I’m overweight, and I thought it was mostly due to hypothyroidism which went undiagnosed for so long I finally was having the beginning sof muscle wasting from lack of activity. I’m better now a few years later, but the weight has been very slow coming off.
Anyway, I agree it’s a major discrimination, and fat women are more hated than fat men. (as usual in patriarchy)
Now I’m not uptight proposing we all must be grossly thin. But this is a health problem. It’s effecting my well-being, and we know the statistics show that obesity related illnesses are skyrocketing in our country. Fat kids are all around (remember growing up there was just one fat kid, now 1/2 to 2/3 of kids are fat). It’s a real problem, and it’s killing u!
We are the children of the corn. And it’s all a right wing conspiracy! Yes it is. It’s due to the the multi-billion dollar agriculture subsidies that artificially support a corn fiasco, and how they changed under Nixon and continued since then. Okay, probably both major political partis are to blame, but I like slamming the republicans (those bastards).
Watch that corn intake!
June 25, 2006 at 6:26 pm
It is hard. THe main way to avoid it seems to be either buying organic foods (expensive) or cooking everything at home (time consuming). Most people I know work fll time whether or not they are married and have kids. We buy organic when we can and probably cook more than many people, but sometimes when we all are just getting home at 6:30 at night it is easier to just make some convenient pre-packaged thing.
June 28, 2006 at 7:08 pm
I too am fat. All my life I stressed over this to the point of obsession and what kills me is that when I stressed the most I was thin. I don’t know if it’s because I’m older or what, but now when woman around me freak out over their weight I just smile. I really don’t care about being fat anymore. If I lose weight cool, if I don’t, oh well. At least I know I have a fighting chance against shit like The Avain Flu:)