Fat-Bashing Fatigue
So, I read the news and today I came across this article in the LA Times http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-he-fat-fatigue1-2010feb01,0,1902979.story
It was interesting in the way it was written but the following reader commentary was even more interesting. Apparently fat people are a major contributor to the generally poor quality of life that a lot of people who comment in newspapers have. Fat people make airplane travel horrendous by "spilling over" their seats, they drive up health-care costs and they make some thinner people so uncomfortable by their existence that employment discrimination and verbal humilation are justified. My first thought was "Wow, troll much, LA Times?"
The part of this premise that really caught my attention was the "fat people make insurance more expensive for thin people" argument. A little research online disproved this almost immediately.
http://mises.org/story/2285 points out that health care is expensive because of factors that have nothing to do with fat people, as does http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/healthlawprof_blog/2009/04/why-is-health-care-so-expensive.html which argues that the elderly consume the vast majority of health care and insurance dollars of all consumers as well as making the point that politics play a huge part in costs.
Another health care blog post, http://www.halfsigma.com/2009/02/why-healthcare-is-so-expensive.html points out that there are major costs associated with treating the uninsured in this country.
Another reference,http://www.aarpmagazine.org/health/health_care_costs.html points out "20 percent of patients account for 80 percent of spending, and that 20 percent is made up mostly of the chronically ill...and over 50% of the money is spent on hospitalization." Those numbers call bullshit by simple math. Fat people don't make up the majority of chronically ill people that consume health care dollars. There are many more items I found but in 5 seconds I was able to debunk the "fat people make insurance expensive" myth pretty throughly. Why then is it so pervasive?
The original article in the LA times offered some reasons in regards to guilt over overconsumption; i.e, that fat people are a visible symbol for many of overconsumption. I think that's part of it. I think another part of it is that fat people are one of the few "socially appropriate" targets for bigotry. Fat-bashing is acceptable because there's not much social backlash against it. Mouth off on how you don't like some religious minorities, racial groups or women and someone will usually cut you off at the knees for it. Certain kinds of bigotry (i.e racism) are now only uncensured in groups who have great levels of homogenity but fat-bashing transcends those cultural boundaries because fat people are almost everywhere.
I think another part of this is due to people feeling like there's not enough of whatever it is they want for themselves and they lash back at people who take more than their "fair" share. Airline seat issues really bring this home. No one is comfortable on airlines because Americans are socialized to maintain a large amount of personal space and to allow others the same. Airline seating arrangements directly contradict that social expectation.
There's also the issue of sheer mean. Some people just aren't content or satisfied unless they have someone to look down on. Fat people, like poor people, are open season because of their relative lack (as groups) of social power and the enormous amount of already existing bias. Makes me sad. I like the LA Times but this article was just full of fail. Apparently it's easier to fat-bash than to fact-check.
It was interesting in the way it was written but the following reader commentary was even more interesting. Apparently fat people are a major contributor to the generally poor quality of life that a lot of people who comment in newspapers have. Fat people make airplane travel horrendous by "spilling over" their seats, they drive up health-care costs and they make some thinner people so uncomfortable by their existence that employment discrimination and verbal humilation are justified. My first thought was "Wow, troll much, LA Times?"
The part of this premise that really caught my attention was the "fat people make insurance more expensive for thin people" argument. A little research online disproved this almost immediately.
http://mises.org/story/2285 points out that health care is expensive because of factors that have nothing to do with fat people, as does http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/healthlawprof_blog/2009/04/why-is-health-care-so-expensive.html which argues that the elderly consume the vast majority of health care and insurance dollars of all consumers as well as making the point that politics play a huge part in costs.
Another health care blog post, http://www.halfsigma.com/2009/02/why-healthcare-is-so-expensive.html points out that there are major costs associated with treating the uninsured in this country.
Another reference,http://www.aarpmagazine.org/health/health_care_costs.html points out "20 percent of patients account for 80 percent of spending, and that 20 percent is made up mostly of the chronically ill...and over 50% of the money is spent on hospitalization." Those numbers call bullshit by simple math. Fat people don't make up the majority of chronically ill people that consume health care dollars. There are many more items I found but in 5 seconds I was able to debunk the "fat people make insurance expensive" myth pretty throughly. Why then is it so pervasive?
The original article in the LA times offered some reasons in regards to guilt over overconsumption; i.e, that fat people are a visible symbol for many of overconsumption. I think that's part of it. I think another part of it is that fat people are one of the few "socially appropriate" targets for bigotry. Fat-bashing is acceptable because there's not much social backlash against it. Mouth off on how you don't like some religious minorities, racial groups or women and someone will usually cut you off at the knees for it. Certain kinds of bigotry (i.e racism) are now only uncensured in groups who have great levels of homogenity but fat-bashing transcends those cultural boundaries because fat people are almost everywhere.
I think another part of this is due to people feeling like there's not enough of whatever it is they want for themselves and they lash back at people who take more than their "fair" share. Airline seat issues really bring this home. No one is comfortable on airlines because Americans are socialized to maintain a large amount of personal space and to allow others the same. Airline seating arrangements directly contradict that social expectation.
There's also the issue of sheer mean. Some people just aren't content or satisfied unless they have someone to look down on. Fat people, like poor people, are open season because of their relative lack (as groups) of social power and the enormous amount of already existing bias. Makes me sad. I like the LA Times but this article was just full of fail. Apparently it's easier to fat-bash than to fact-check.