"The obese were not always considered monsters. On the contrary, until recently they were often revered. Historically, in most societies, obesity implied wealth and health - expensive epicurean habits and no tuberculosis, cholera, or other wasting illnesses. Only now, when fat people outnumber the lean by two to one in many countries, has obesity become the last acceptable target of public discrimination."
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"But the typical four-year-old boy does not control his diet or exercise; his nutrition and activity are usually closely supervised. He cannot nip out for a burger any more than a goldfish can. His obesity partly reflects his mother’s lifestyle when he was in utero, and his family’s lifestyle after he was born. He has had obesity thrust upon him, and with it a dysfunctional metabolism, insulin resistance, chronic illness, and a shortened life. He already has enough problems without society ganging up on him for being a fatso.
Yet researchers have found that children as young as six years old, even those who are overweight themselves, use words like “lazy”, “stupid”, “cheats”, “liars”, “sloppy”, “naughty”, “mean”, and “ugly” to describe their obese peers. Similarly, recent studies of college students show that respondents rate obese individuals as less attractive potential partners than embezzlers, cocaine users, and shoplifters.
Obese people often share society’s low opinion of them. Of one group whose members lost weight after surgery, 42 per cent claimed that they would rather go blind than regain it. Most would rather lose a leg, and all would prefer deafness, dyslexia, diabetes, severe heart disease, or acne.
Even today, some doctors partake in the ubiquitous anti-obesity discrimination that feeds such sentiments. To be sure, most recognise that obesity is a multifactor chronic disease requiring medical, societal, environmental, and political interventions. But that enlightened approach did not stop Hamish Meldrum, chairman of the British Medical Association (and one of Britain’s most outspoken physicians), from recently offering this assessment of the obese: “They are just greedy.”
Meldrum’s remark reflects a widespread view of those who are overweight. But it is not the people maligned by such calumnious statements who are the monstrous ones."
I agree.
They all act like we choose this which is sickening.
That is so sad. I can remember some people referring to fat kids as "fatty" when I was young but I don't think it was quite that mean. The real meanness didn't come in until the late elementary years. I remember as a kid playing with other kids of all sizes and not thinking a thing of it. I liked someone if they were nice, didn't like them if they were a jerk--simple!
ReplyDeleteSo many people are searching for a scapegoat. It's pathetic, really.
I think the teasing has gotten worse. The Fat kids still had friends and an occasional hey you fatty but now they get ostracized. I saw this as a teacher, an extra 20lbs keeping a kid from any invovlement with peers and it was sad. I played with kids of all sizes too. I think fat people are the ready scapegoat in this society which is a narcissitic society making scapegoats over and over instead of dealing with reality.
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