weights and races

I saw this article and I wanted to bring it into the obesiverse before I really had time to do a lot of commenting on it. I will say that I was reading over the article initially and saw a name that was familiar because I had met her! The name of the article is "Weight discrimination could be as common as racial bias". I hope that articles like this can educate people and make them aware that the prejudice against people of size is real. Even though most obese individuals would not choose to be whatever size they are, they are not presented with any known way of changing this condition without risking other health problems, gaining more weight down the line, or death.

Here is a part of the article:

Lynn McAfee, director of medical advocacy at the non-profit Council on Size and Weight Discrimination in Mt. Marion, N.Y., is not surprised by the findings.

"Until we clean up language like 'war on obesity' and have authorities speak out about it, discrimination will continue to increase," she says.

If I'm not mistaken, I've actually met this person at a "Big As Texas" event way way back around 2001 maybe. She spoke to the group and she was so very well aware of the fen phen issue with PPH, and she talked about the things that were being done to call attention to the problem. I could gather a few of the stories up, but they are simply heartbreaking to say the least. I just had to bring up the fact that I had met this woman so long ago, now she's still being quoted in the media speaking out as a voice for the obese. It is just another surreal irony to me that I would be bringing her quote into the obesiverse several years after being inspired by hearing her talk in the past. The more I write, the more I probably expose exactly what kind of "credentials" I have to be talking on the subject of size acceptance at all! I got more, believe me!

Fen Phen, another drug sold with the promise of improving "quality of life" only to end up shortening people's lives and causing a serious chronic condition in the process. When people complain about the costs of obesity on our health care system, you should read the wiki article about fen phen and see how many billions of dollars in damage this "good intention" caused.

This entry would be called weights and races for a reason though, and that is in the fact that weight discrimination is a serious issue that is being made worse by all of the negative attention given to obesity as a "public health crisis". As a person of just above average size, I even have to stop and realize that this is going to cause average sized people to have an additional negative argument "against obesity" when obesity isn't going to be cured overnight and isn't going anywhere any time soon. There are ways of promoting healthy habits without putting down a group of people. Other types of awareness promote healthier living without spewing data that causes the individual to be singled out and blamed for something they obviously don't have any control over.

When it comes to the discrimination against size being just as common as racial bias, I think people need to pay special attention to the way that past groups have singled out individuals with a passion for solving a problem. It didn't work out too well for the individuals who were singled out... Ever. I know that I could be inappropriate in saying it, but if you were to take every single individual who died sooner than they would have naturally because they took a pill or had a surgery to lose weight, I am starting to wonder if the numbers would be as many, even with, or more than the number of people of a certain persuasion that were executed in Europe around 1939. I don't like using certain words or I would not have danced around that one so carefully! It is a serious thought though. I have always drawn a parallel between the civil rights movement and the size rights movement, and now I am starting to see why the need to consider size rights is getting more and more important with every "initiative" and "mandate".