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I just listened to the broadcast online, after hearing a tidbit a few days ago on New Year's Eve while en route to a party. I am always interested in the ways that communities of people who have experienced oppression or bias organize around their identities in efforts to make this ill treatment stop. The tool I hear being employed most in this fight against "size-ism" (I think this is the right umbrella term? Someone correct me if it doesn't quite fit.) is reclamation. Many guests and those who commented during the program talked about embracing labels like "fat" or "large". Many also spoke about their dislike for the "overly medical" term "obese".
I am 24 years old, I lead what most would describe as an active lifestyle, and I have never been significantly overweight. I've been a size 12 for roughly 10 years, so I also don't know what it's like to fit the ideal the media, etc. holds up. But I have to agree with some others who have commented here on the website, that there was also an overall tone of denial and evasiveness in the commentary from many guests and callers. I was particularly taken aback by the comment from one guest who said she would undergo medical treatment to lose a significant amount of weight only if it added 10 especially active years to her life. Correct me if I am not understanding her, but 10 years is a long time! That's 10-20% of most Americans' lives! A willingness to sacrifice so much time seems indicative of a lack of joy in life now. If your life is only sufficiently satisfactory now that you wouldn't want an extra 10 years, how fully are you truly living?
"Obese" does strike me as a biting term with medical, or pathological connotations. And it IS getting thrown around in the popular media at an frenetic rate these days. But when the NIH is coming up with such high rates of overweightness and weight-related health problems, how can this alarmist media handling of the issue be considered wrong?
On the program, one guest compared being significantly overweight with motorcycle riding and wind-surfing in a discussion about large individuals being responsible for increased insurance premiums for the population as a whole. The mistake I believe this person is making is in correlating isolated acts of risk-taking with a risky lifestyle. I don't want to imply that being overweight is a choice, I use the term "lifestyle" in the sense that it is a 24-hour practice. You cannot kill yourself motorcycling while you aren't on a bike. You can't break your neck wind surfing while you aren't on the water. Time-wise, practitioners of what the general population considers risky hobbies, are carrying out these behaviors for much less time than fat people are being fat. Not to mention the fact that many insurance companies include clauses that preempt them from being financially liable for medical treatment whose necessity results from excessively risky behaviors.
At 5'7" and 155 lbs, I do not fit comfortably in coach class airline seats. I fly once or twice per year, and it's never my idea of a good time to rub elbows with the stranger next to me, be he or she 150 or 350 lbs. Perhaps this is the germ-o-phobe in my talking, but that's not the kind of contact people in our society generally find acceptable. Yes, it probably hurts to see someone so overtly offended by you that he loudly asked the flight attendant if he could change seats. The bottom line is that your comfort never necessarily equals someone else's. If at 350 lbs, you feel comfortable in a coach seat on a plane, good for you, but there's still only one 3" wide arm rest, and no one's arm is narrow enough to comfortably share that with a neighbor. While it's less awkward to sit next to my 6'+, 200 lbs + family members than a stranger, it's still not an enjoyable cross-country experience.
To conclude an admittedly long comment, no one deserves to be treated in a lesser way than someone else based on how they look. I imagine that organized alliances, activism groups, or like-bodied groups of friends provide wonderful, and deserved validation and support for larger people. As someone who has lost family members to conditions that are exacerbated by heaviness though, such as heart disease and diabetes, I petition the larger folks out there, however you identify, to not overlook the health consequences of weight. There are doctors who will treat you with respect, though they may be harder to find. There are activity groups or fitness centers who will not make you feel out of place; these too are not obvious but they are there. Everyone deserves to feel pride in their appearance, but no one should ignore the multitude of negative effects being very large has on most people.

posted 4 years, 5 months ago
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