pamelabrkly

Monday, November 27, 2006

Fat and Proud?

I'm not sure how I feel about fat studies. I'm all for dismantling the ridiculous discrimination people face just because they're fat, and I'm all for questioning the cultural panic over obesity when it starts to make fat people look like bad people, but I have a hard time taking fat studies scholars seriously if they insist that being very overweight doesn't hurt their health.

I think the right message about fat is that it's a health concern and nothing more, and we shouldn't discriminate against people who are overweight anymore than we would discriminate against a person who has asthma. People who are fat ought to enjoy feelings of self-worth and be appreciated for their many capabilities. And I think the medical community can still talk about the real health consequences of obesity without adding to the body-image-as-identity nightmare. Fat studies scholars ought to be working with medical researchers who study fat to help them avoid reinforcing negative stereotypes, instead of just writing them off.

1 Comments:

  • At 5:52 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    So here I am again, nudging you to keep your little blog up-to-date.

     

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