Many skinny Americans are fed up with obesity, reports the Los Angeles Times:
“Americans as a society are getting fed up with the matter of obesity. No doubt about it,” said Douglas Metz, chief of health services for American Specialty Health, a San Diego-based company that offers wellness programs to employers. “Some pockets of society are taking positive action, and unfortunately others are taking negative action. That’s what happens when a society hasn’t figured out what the fix is.”
Recent notable actions include:
* A recent and ultimately unsuccessful plan at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania sought to take the body mass index of every enrolling student and require the obese to lose weight or take a fitness class before they could graduate.
* In Mississippi, legislators tried to pass a bill to let restaurants prohibit obese people from dining.
* In an interview with the New York Times last August, Toby Cosgrove, chief executive of the Cleveland Clinic, one of the nation’s largest medical centers, provoked national outrage when he said that, if it were up to him, he would stop hiring the obese. He later apologized for his remarks.
* Last summer in Florida, animal rights activists at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) took aim at heavy women in a “Save the whales” billboard campaign that featured an overweight, bikini-clad woman. It read: “Lose the blubber. Go vegetarian.” Angry reactions caused the organization to remove the signs.
Statistics about obesity are being assessed in the current debates on how to reduce the nation’s health care costs:
A report by Emory University researchers projected last November that by 2018 the United States could expect to spend $344 billion on healthcare costs attributable to obesity. Obesity-related costs would account for 21% of healthcare spending, up from 9.1% today, said the report, sponsored in part by the United Health Foundation and the American Public Health Assn.
Providing a different take on the issue, it’s time to call in the sociologist:
“In our society, being heavy has become more of a stigma lately because we’re struggling with other issues of consumption,” says Abigail Saguy, associate professor of sociology at UCLA.
The economic climate, a recent history of people buying more than they can afford as well as environmental issues, including the depletion of our planet’s resources, are making people feel more angry about society’s overconsumption, she says. Obviously overweight people are an easy target.
“They’re almost a caricature of greed, overconsumption, overspending, over-leveraging and overusing resources,” says Saguy. “Though it’s not entirely rational, it’s an understandable reaction, especially in a country founded on the Puritan ethics of self-reliance, sacrifice and individual responsibility. If people feel they’re sacrificing, then see someone spilling over an airplane seat, they feel angry that that person is not making the same sacrifices they are.”
Research indicates that discrimination based on weight has been increasing in recent years:
Rebecca Puhl, a researcher at Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, published [two papers] last January — one in the journal Obesity, the other in the International Journal of Obesity — Puhl reported that weight discrimination in the United States increased 66% over the prior decade.
“Weight discrimination is highly prevalent in American society and increasing,” said Puhl, who cites several possible reasons. Among them are a lack of legislation to prohibit weight discrimination and an increase in media coverage of obesity (up fivefold from 1992 to 2003). Most media framed the problem of obesity as one of personal responsibility, she reported.
Comments 5
Jessie — February 3, 2010
This post reminded me of the article 'reading the slender body' by Susan Bordo. Society has taught people that they must be able to control their desires while at the same time we are told to give in to desires. An example that Bordo uses is that we stick with a rigid regime during the week of going to work and getting things done to make money (meaning control), but on the weekends it is eating out, date nights, and parties (basically indulgence). Her solution is that overeating is on one end of the spectrum (thus leading to obesity) and anorexia is on the other because you have "complete control" of your eating. People do not like obesity because of its cost but also because people view it as others constantly indulging themselves with a complete lack of self control, even if in actuality this is not the case. Maybe there is also more negative attention to those who are obese because we are in an economic time period where people are demonstrating even more control and restraint than before.
Consumption « Just Another OrgHead Outpost — February 3, 2010
[...] by jessier13 After looking at The blog Contexts Crawler, I was very intrigued by the article the skinny on fat. This post focuses on discrimination against those who are obese, as well as, [...]
Emily — February 3, 2010
The problem with trying to regulate obesity is that it has to do with personal choices people make and their first amendment rights. Going to tanning beds is still legal even though it has been proven that tanning beds cause skin cancer. Going to a tanning bed is a choice that some people make because they enjoy the look of their bronzed skin afterward. For some people eating junk food is something that make them happy, and just like the person who goes tanning too frequently, the person who eats too much junk food too often will be exposed to many health risks. The difference between these two activities is that being tan is a trait that Americans consider attractive, while obesity is not. While people have tried to take legislative actions to "cure and prevent" obesity in the name of health, there has been much less action taken to eliminate tanning beds. Part of the difference in these attitudes could come from the fact that many people find obesity repulsive, whereas they desire to be tan. It would be interesting to determine whether the fight against obesity is purely for health concerns, or also because it is not what we consider an attractive trait.
LexieDi — February 5, 2010
Emily:
It's obvious that it's about what people consider attractive. There isn't conclusive evidence that being fat leads to cancer (as apparently people are getting fatter but cancer rates are going down), but like you said, there is clear, conclusive evidence that tanning can lead to cancer, yet no one tries to stop it.
I'm pale and fat. I'd say that puts me at just as much risk for death as an overly-tanned thin woman, if what people say about being fat is true. (Which, I believe it's not.)
Natalie — February 22, 2010
Emily, I think that your comparison between tanning and obesity is an interesting one. It is probable that people are often more concerned about the appearance of others rather than the actual health of others when they complain about obesity.
Obesity is not always an issue of personal responsibility because genetics and social environment may be contributing factors. In addition, obesity itself is not a new issue--it has just received much more attention in recent years. That increased attention might have something to do with our recently acquired negative view of overconsumption, or it may be the result of a bombardment of stereotypical images along the lines of "skinny is beautiful" by the media. We have to wonder if the health risks that have come to be associated with obesity are real or contrived.
Attempts to regulate obesity can be categorized as discrimination. Even if an individual's obesity is a result of lifestyle choices, it is the right of that individual to maintain those lifestyle choices if he/she so desires. And in the cases where obesity cannot be helped, programs like the one at Lincoln University are akin to denying graduation to red-heads on the grounds that red hair is no longer attractive.