UPDATE: Feel free to just skip this post. I should have followed my normal rule and sat on it for at least an hour. I overreacted. Since I don’t delete whole posts I can’t delete it. But I do want to run it with a giant flashing “I was in a really bad unrelated mood” sign.
Wow. Check out this map! See how the WHOLE COUNTRY keeps getting more and more red and darker and darker?! Isn’t that scary?
We as a nation really should do something. This is a plague that affects our insurance rates, our personal well-being and our ability to defend ourselves against foreign aggression.
Oh, wait. It’s okay. That ever-darkening map of the U.S. isn’t about black people. Or gay people. Or Jews. It’s about the fat people. Alright, then. Because we know that it’s currently okay to stigmatise fat people. They’re lazy. (Just like the blacks). They have no self-control. (Just like the gays). They eat wierd things we don’t understand. (Just like the Jews.)
Charts like this with “data” like this remind me of the propagandistic nonsense in books like The Bell Curve and The Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion. People with an agenda of hate and persecution dress up that agenda with psuedoscience that causes more harm than good.
So what if “Americans” are fatter now? Really, why is that a bad thing? Tell me. I want a reason. I want a reason that DOESN’T have to do with your “insurance” rates or the “public health” crisis. Because this country currently has a 100% mortality rate, and nothing anybody does is going to change that.
Yeah, I write about this a lot, and I know it’s probably getting old. You’re probably sitting there saying ‘there she goes again, that fat cow’. Why do I write about this? Because of this and this and especially this.
Walk to the store if you want. Eat vegetables if you so desire. Drink only water and eschew high fructose corn syrup. That’s fine. But stop making life hell for everyone who isn’t you. Stop stigmatising fat people.
Just Another Pretty Farce 
This is semi-related to my AAA Aardvark post the other day re: who it’s acceptable to lampoon these days. All we have left are fat people. Don Imus is pretty much only allowed to make fun of white men (AKA politicians and business leaders) and fat people.
I don’t personally care if other people are fat. For most people, it’s a choice and it doesn’t affect me (taxes and healthcare costs are going to be high no matter what; I’ve accepted this). But because it’s largely seen as a choice to be fat, the stigma will remain intact. In fact, it seems the stigmatization is being purposely used to shame fat people into shaping up (so to speak). Though I think it’s a really piss-poor tactic that tends to have the opposite of the intended effect. That’s why I don’t preach much about eating meat and smoking–it just seems to make people want to do it more. Don’t push a horse to the water, because he won’t drink.
Lesley, you are wise.
I smoked for a pack a day for 10 years. My wife badgered me constantly about quitting. It was after she gave up and left me alone about it that I seriously considered quitting. I never even considered it as long as she was nagging me about it.
I thought of this because I just celebrated 15 years smoke-free.
As to Kat’s larger point, I’m staying out of it. I’m a little too “inside” this whole issue right now.
I know you said you were in a weird mood, so I should probably not go here, but how is this map stigmatizing anyone?
Well, we’re at an odd conjunction of cultural trends in this country. First, the visual component of our public culture has become (and appears to be staying) huge, so that an alarming number of folks have become borderline fascists about body type. (Fat is one piece of that package, height is another, proportion yet a third.) Second, the macroeconomics of food production make it cheaper to produce and distribute high-calorie, nutritionally empty foods. Given our current all-or-nothing, winner-takes-all economic philosophy, the result is that the high-calorie etc. foods are sometimes the only ones available to those without extra resources in time or money, so they are what increasingly get eaten. Third, our economic policies are leading to increasing differences between classes, and in a fictionally classless society like ours that needs a lot of justification, so body fat has been adopted as a useful class signifier and is being used to enforce class boundaries.
I figure we’ll muddle along until/unless our economy collapses or overweight is demonstrated to have genuine military disadvantages. (Remember, the first anti-poverty programs in this country got started after the First World War, when draft boards discovered that too many young men in poor areas were too scrawny for the army.)
In fact, it seems the stigmatization is being purposely used to shame fat people into shaping up (so to speak).
Most of the media-based stigmatisation comes from people trying to sell diets.
My gripe is that their avarice makes it okay for people to abuse fat kids and discriminate against fat adults.
how is this map stigmatizing anyone?
It’s one of the tools that Dr. Michael Myers uses at Weight dot com to sell his diet business. It creates a subconscious image that the country is “darkening” by being overrun with “fat” and “obese” people.
It’s not the map itself, it’s the context in which Myers uses it. And you had no way of knowing that, which is why I shouldn’t have flipped out about it.
body fat has been adopted as a useful class signifier and is being used to enforce class boundaries.
Yes, I do know this for certain.
or overweight is demonstrated to have genuine military disadvantages.
It already has. And that’s one of the reasons for certain agencies’ extreme interest in promoting a think-thin agenda.
The thing I couldn’t help but wonder about when I looked at this map and saw how magically our country is getting fatter is that from the time this map’s started to the time it ends, is that there have been at least two redefinitions of what counts as obese that I can remember in that time period and perhaps more.
So, how can I tell, by looking at this map, whether there are suddenly a lot more 300 lb people running around or whether there’s the same number of 200 lb people there have always been and the marker for what’s unacceptably fat has just moved on them.
Argh. Nice grammar. Sorry folks. Don’t mind me.
there have been at least two redefinitions of what counts as obese that I can remember in that time period and perhaps more.
Exactly. And that’s what Myers doesn’t tell his audience.
His schtick is “we’re all getting fatter, and if you’re fat now, you’ll get fatter and fatter every year.” The ONLY solution is to, of course, visit Dr. Michael Myers. Or book him for a speaking engagement.
Second, the macroeconomics of food production make it cheaper to produce and distribute high-calorie, nutritionally empty foods. Given our current all-or-nothing, winner-takes-all economic philosophy, the result is that the high-calorie etc. foods are sometimes the only ones available to those without extra resources in time or money, so they are what increasingly get eaten.
This is so unfortunately true. I’m “treating” myself to a healthy lunch today. A nice organic sun-dried tomato wrap stuffed full of various healthy ingredients (plus bacon which isn’t particularly healthy, but the rest is). It’s a shame that the $10(!!!) price tag leaves me with the options of McDonald’s or Arby’s most days.
KC,
I’m glad you didn’t take it down. It’s important that you continue to point out that we humans are still the prejudiced species we’ve always been. We’ve only changed to ostracizing more “politically correct” targets.
It’s a shame that the $10(!!!) price tag leaves me with the options of McDonald’s or Arby’s most days.
Boy, did you just hit on one of my biggest pet peeves, Dolphin, and nm with her comment. I don’t really eat a lot of junk and I don’t eat sweets much at all, but habitually don’t eat all that particularly “healthy”. However, for years I’ve had about one foot in the vegetarian camp without going all the way, and I have frequently tried to make a point of making the effort to truly eat healthier stuff.
But it’s nearly impossible, especially when I’m trying to get by on mostly one income for now. Any time I make a stab at eating “healthier and better”, it winds up costing me two to three times as much money at the grocery store or at restaurants.
But it’s nearly impossible, especially when I’m trying to get by on mostly one income for now. Any time I make a stab at eating “healthier and better”, it winds up costing me two to three times as much money at the grocery store or at restaurants.
I went grocery shopping yesterday. At Kroger.
For $7 I could have had:
One onion
One package of lowfat tortillas
One tomato
One package of boneless, skinless chicken breasts.
OR
7 of those cheapo Totino’s Party Pizzas.
I’d much rather have the healthy grilled fajita wraps, but that would last me 2 meals, versus the Totinos’s which would last me seven.
That’s how a lot of families have to make their food choices.
Right on. And you can take the whole thing a step further and talk about trying to eat healthier with convenience (microwaveable, ready-mades, etc.) – that’s even more impossible.
I love a lot of the stuff in the organic frozen foods section, like the Amy’s “Hot Pockets” type things (especially the spinach & feta), a lot of the vegetarian-type frozen dinner items, and the pizzas, both regular size and the little pastry pizzas, all that other stuff. You can buy 7 (or more) of the cheapie Totino’s pizzas for the price of one of those.
It’s like the economy in general is just designed to keep people unhealthy.
I recently came through Msn and needed to say thank you for the tips on stopping head aches. I hope this can assist my daughter which has migranes. I will need to pass this on. Thanks a lot yet again!