... in which the papers want to know whose shirt you wear
Right now I am being very, very amused. The very cool Teresa Nielsen Hayden just linked to Tolkien Sarcasm Page, which has a Your Homework Done For Free! page, given that rec.arts.books.tolkien is apparently often visited by the people who want the experts to do their homework for them. This includes a useful synopsis of the famously long and
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But the rest of the post's point is off: most overweight and obese people *are* harmed by being so (discounting "overweight" people who are so by virtue of having a heckuva a lot of muscle). Yes, there are a few people who seem to do well at such weights, who *do* have a substantial amount of fat beyond what we accept as normal--yet they have perfect blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol, and they consistently exercise. Those people are built to be big, and they're able to handle it. Luck of the genetic draw. Most people aren't that lucky. For them, being overweight risks their health.
No, fat is not a *bad* tissue: it is necessary for energy storage and for providing insulation. It cushions our internal organs, and protects our bones and muscles from subcutaneous exposure (imagine if your muscle were the absolute next layer after the dermis--deep cuts would be that much harder to recover from). A layer of it keeps our skin looking full and our cheeks from being hollow. It gives women extra fuel to burn when they are pregnant or nursing, and fat is an essential part of the brain itself. Fatty tissue surrounds the eye socket, and protects the eye as it moves--it supports the tiny and fragile structures without risking their displacement.
But like anything else, you only want to have it in moderate--and even slightly stingy--amounts.
No, people shouldn't hate themselves for being overweight. People shouldn't hate themselves for being smokers, either. Nor for being depressed or having asthma. None of those mean that the people with those conditions (or, in the case of smoking, behavior/addiction) are bad people, or unlovable, or stupid, or worth less than those around them. (Certainly I've been overweight, and I really have to work at keeping my weight down, and certainly I'm just as worthy a person now as I was when I weighed more.) And, yes, people can be attractive and beautiful at any weight. But accepting the personhood, worth, and even the attractiveness of people who are overweight or obese doesn't mean that society should then decide that being overweight is not a health risk--and one that is more easily preventable and eventually manageable than many others. (If you get basilar migraines, for example, there's not much that you can do about increased stroke risk.) Addressing personal weight issues takes work--a lot of work--it can take counselling, nutritional advising, finding or developing good support systems, or medical help, and it always requires lots of consistent, hard, often boring, and time-consuming work until people find the methods that help them.
Nobody enjoys having something in their lives that needs that kind of attention. It's no fun to have to consistently be reminded of a health issue of any sort, especially one on which society currently judges one's personal worth. I don't like having bipolar disorder. I don't like the work I have to do to keep it in check. I don't like being reminded that I have to do things differently because of it. I don't like that society believes I am less of a person for having it, because that's not true. I'll fight every day for the right to be accepted as a person with equal feelings, intelligence and sensitivity as others without the disorder. But I can't claim that it's not a health risk, because it is. Like obesity, hundreds of studies have demonstrated that untreated bipolar disorder is a severe risk for chronic illness and a serious risk to life. There are a lot of books out there about the "myth" of mental illness: how psychiatry is lying to people about perfectly normal variation within the populace, and creating these disorders to control people. They are written by physicians and Ph.Ds and plenty of people who just have an opinion on the subject.
But just because the arguments are out there--and just because the authors wave credentials around--doesn't mean they're right.
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I always thought that the main thrust of the "anti-fat=bad" argument was that while those who are majorly overweight are made more likely suffer from various things, that isn't inherantly about the size, or even necessarily about the fat: they get sick for the same reason overly thin people do, from being unhealthy. Being "overweight" then becomes so subjective that it can only really be measured in each individual case, making the broader idea that thin is healthier even more falacious.
Not that you don't have a lot of very valid points - that there are people who still seriously don't believe in mental illness is a very scary thing, and a nice warning to make sure you know what else is out there. I do tend to think, though, that drawing attention to the nastiness in the idea that thin is always better, and that people who naturally have thick waists and a decent sized bum can be that way because they're eating healthily and exersizing regularly, is a good thing. To be kept in proportion, yeah (the people who can't walk because they've gained so much weight then claiming to be as healthy as anyone else... that's sad, and scary), but not on the same level as denying mental illness or anything.
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