Dollars And Sense
Sometimes, conversations about weight can pop up in unlikely places. Amy V. alerted us to this post at The Simple Dollar, a blog about personal finance, in response to a reader comment.
Being fat is voluntary. People make a choice to eat unhealthy and not excercise. Therefore, it should never be covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act.
– LindsayThis was such an egregious comment that I felt the need to clearly respond to it.
Being fat is sometimes voluntary, but in many cases it is not. Many illnesses bring on unwanted and unwarranted weight gain – my uncle’s liver problems caused him to gain huge amounts of weight with basically no change in diet or activity, going from a formerly rail-thin person to someone who was very overweight. Many medications bring on unwanted weight gain – many thyroid medications, resulting from conditions present at birth, result in excessive weight that’s far beyond the choice of the person.
The problem with being overweight is that sometimes it is the result of personal choice and sometimes it is not – yet it is often assumed that it is due to poor choice, a trap that Lindsay falls directly into.
Yes, it’s true that an overweight person might result in a greater cost for a business that might hire that person – they’re statistically more likely to have heart disease, etc. However, one could make the same argument for a female – they’re statistically more likely to have children than men, thus they’re more likely to need maternal leave and incur replacement costs. Yet the former argument is accepted, while the latter argument is sexist?
Forms of discrimination that are clearly based on factors that are beyond a person’s choice – sex, skin coloration, ethnicity – are clearly frowned upon in modern society. Just because we went through revolutions throwing off racism and sexism doesn’t mean that there aren’t still big forms of discrimination out there.
The way I see it, a person is a person, and as Martin Luther King said, a person should be judged by the content of their character. Being overweight might mean that they have some personal issues – or it might just mean that they were born with a thyroid condition. Either way, what matters is how they treat others and what they produce with their time.
Amy also suggested keeping an eye on the comments, so of course I did. Here’s a sampling:
Racism and sexism are still “out there†too, you know.
I’m glad someone jumped right in with this, because the idea that we’ve “thrown off” racism and sexism is clearly ridiculous. Sorry, Trent.
I have to disagree. The percentage of people that are overweight because of a medical condition is pretty small. Nearly 80% of diseases are curable/treatable by a healthy diet and regular exercise. We as a country just do not understand how to eat. We watch everyone else eat crappy food or massive amounts of food all the time, and we think we deserve to do that too. Being overweight, obese, or morbidly obese is really bad for you. If was all understood just how bad it is, we would all work harder and make better decisions…
Another problem is everyone thinks they are somehow the exception. It is pretty likely you aren’t. Your body is the product of your diet and exercise. If you have just “always†had big hips, thighs, ankles, etc….. It is because you “always†haven’t eaten right, eat to much, or don’t exercise enough.
There are _some_ people that are overweight as a result of a medical condition, the vast overwhelming majority of overweight people are overweight because of poor choices. The ‘average’ amount of television a person watches is something like 28 hours per week. Combine that with a diet of frequently eating out, sugary beverages, and lack of exercise and you will get a population of overweight people. It is as simple as that.
First of all, racism and sexism are not gone the way of the dodo bird, and the revolution ain’t over. To think so would be narrow minded. As to the wieght issue, theres a big misconception that thin is automatically “healthyâ€, and that people who are overweight are automatically “unhealthyâ€. In my case, overweight at 58, I have normal sugars, cholesterals, so on and so forht, and I do aerobic exercise five times a week. Lots of thin people the same age cannot say the same thing.
If we agree with Lindsay’s premise that overweight people should not be covered because they are overweight by choice (which I already have a problem with – discrimination by religion is illegal, and religion is ostensibly a choice), knowing that not everyone who is overweight is overweight by choice, who makes that determination? A non-profit commission? A government agency?
I don’t care if you have a thyroid condition or anything else- your body can’t gain fat unless you’re eating excess calories. Genetics, liver problems, thyroids don’t cause weight gain- eating excess food does. The former issues may change the limit on what “excess†means, but there’s no disease on earth that will just force someone to spontaneously gain weight without eating.
I’m tired of people blaming Darwin when Doritos and drumsticks are 99% of the problem.
Well, John, I’m tired of people who think that what one weighs is anything other than a personal matter. Seriously. Of all the things you could choose to judge a person by, their weight has got to be among the most stupid, arbitrary choices there is. Frankly, if I felt the need to do that, I’d be asking myself what nasty thing in myself needed to chase around looking for some childish basis to put other people down.
Trent is right when he says that “what matters is how [people] treat others and what they produce with their time.†Anything else is superficiality.
There is, of course, lots more.
Posted by mo pie
Filed under: Cold Hard Cash, Fatism, Feminism, Health, Race & Ethnicity
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I don’t think I have the Sanity Watchers points to read anymore today.
I am doing something, though, to counteract my own internal fat-terrorist by doing a week of a food journal on Facebook, so everyone can see what I eat. It’s been powerful, and scary. I’ll probably follow it up with a week on my blog, if anyone wants to check it out starting maybe Friday.
This stuff is just crazy making.
I saw this post too and was disappointed (though not surprised) by Trent’s response. I left a comment pointing to the “Don’t You Realize Fat is Unhealthy” post at Shapely Prose and got some snarky comments!
I just posted something very similar to what I’m about to say over at Michelle’s site about a different version of this junk, but this seems so similar… it makes me crazy. If you’re fat, it’s your fault, but if you’re in a wheelchair then no one would dream of asking you how you got there (nor do I think they should). Some people’s fat may be their own fault, but then, some people get drunk, get behind the wheel of a car and hurt themselves. The drunk driving is a crime, eating is NOT.
Personally, I often choose to do things that endanger my health (I do sports, I bike, I hike, I sail a boat, I’ve even been known to free climb up a cliff just for giggles)… if I am injured doing any of these things, I go to the doctor and expect treatment. I even expect my insurance to pay for it. If I ever permanently injure myself doing any of these things, then I will bloody well expect to be covered by the ADA, since I am an American and would then be an American with, you know, a Disability. To the best of my knowledge there is no requirement under the law that my injury be utterly unforeseeable or that I be utterly blameless in it.
This isn’t about actual responsibility, it’s about prejudice. The ways in which some people injure themselves are virtuous… “look at him, he was in a terrible skiing accident in college, isn’t it tragic” and some are reviled “look at her, ate herself right into diabetes”. Feh. We don’t get to make those judgments about other people’s autonomy. If this was really about weeding out those responsible for their own fate then an awful lot of virtuous people would end up on the wrong side of the law.
If you’re fat, it’s your fault, but if you’re in a wheelchair then no one would dream of asking you how you got there (nor do I think they should).
Unless you’re fat and in a wheelchair, in which case you’re presumed to have gorged yourself into immobility.
Boy, the ablism in that thread is something to see. Eighty percent of ALL illness and debility is preventable with diet and exercise? I’d love to check back with all those people when they’re 75 and see if they still feel that way…presuming they last that long.
Meowser… this is exactly my point (though I can’t tell if it’s me you’re accusing of ablism or the people in the original thread). While I personally think this person (Trent?) pulled their statistics out of their ass, even if 80% of diseases were preventable, so what? To what extent are people supposed to restrict their activities just to make sure they don’t ever bother anyone?
Meowser… re-reading (now that I’m caffeinated) I see that you wrote
“Boy, the ablism in THAT thread is something to see”
but what I read was…
“Boy, the ablism in THIS thread is something to see.” Sorry ’bout that.
Note to self, no posting before the coffee hits the bloodstream.
I read The Simple Dollar regularly. Trent (the original poster) seems like a very decent person but he’s definitely not a proponent of fat acceptance (he has recently lost weight). So I was pleasantly surprised to see him actively take time out of his day to advocate treating fat people like people. Some of the comments were obnoxious, but it’s really no surprise that there are random strangers on the internet who make nasty comments at every opportunity. Overall, I’m glad to see an anti-discrimination message on a website that isn’t about fat acceptance.
“I am doing something, though, to counteract my own internal fat-terrorist by doing a week of a food journal on Facebook, so everyone can see what I eat.”
It would be an interesting project to have a lot of people of all different sizes do this. But it might be triggering for some people to keep a food journal.
Why is it that the moronic morons who feel free to just spew their bloviated opinions on this topic without even looking, let alone reading, to see whether they might even be relevant to the article in question, always, always spell “exercise” wrong???
I think for as ignorant as people are about healthy lifestyle choices, they are just as ignorant to the conditions that cause folks to be fat, struggle or not, in the first place. While my thyroid certainly doesn’t cause me to gain weight, it does not allow me to lose weight with any “normalcy” whatsoever. What pisses me off about the ignorance of these “eat less/move more” people, is that for some of us to reduce our calories any more than what has been suggested, we wouldn’t be able to do any of the *moving* we’re supposed to do without passing the hell out.
I know I don’t chime in here much these days, but as someone who is actively trying to find solutions to her thyroid conundrum for reasons that have nothing to do with weight – I have stupidly high cholesterol – I take such offense to comments like the ones Mo has highlighted.
“Combine that with a diet of frequently eating out”
I saw this particular sentence and thought, wow, way to stereotype, and buy into popular food morality. Food that you didn’t personally labor over is inherently less worthy than home cooked meals – eating out is equated with junk food is equated with laziness. Fat stereotypes abound.
Trent needs a lesson in something other than his own culture too. By western cultural standards there are many women around the world who live in our melting pot who have “always” had big body parts — because thats their genetics.
I hate these myths that anyone can be thin if they just work hard enough….THAT RIGHT THERE – is what has made us a culture of women who feel UNWORTHLY and like FAILURES because we cannot “achieve” thinness.
You know what – I do make choices. I make a choice to concern myself less with my outside appearance than I do with my character. And that results in me not looking like a hollywood starlet somedays. I am proud to say that I have also made a choice to LOVE eating chicken wings and beer and laughing it up once in a while…..instead of being miserable so society can approve of me.
Why can’t we put more emphasis on how we FEEL over what we look like in this world. JEEZ!
ps – I love this site. Mo pie has stored up some SERIOUS good Karma on this.
“You know what – I do make choices. I make a choice to concern myself less with my outside appearance than I do with my character.”
amen.
i worked full time and went to school for 14 yrs to finish my BA. add in bipolar meds and you get fat. SORRY that i chose to prioritize my freaking education over my weight.
we only get so much time and energy in this life. i don’t understand why deciding to invest it in something other than what often amounts to unchecked vanity merits persecution.
Apologies for monopolizing your blog mo pie but I have to say this: Okay fellow fats, I’m fucking sick to death of all this self-hatred and shame spiral bullshit! When the fuck are we going to band together as a group and fight our oppressors? Society will continue to make us the scapegoats for all their ills unless we stand up and say No More!! I’m sick of reading countless stories of obese people harassed by airlines, by their fellow citizens, by the medical community, by everyone. We have got to take a stand, we’ve got to start fighting this. If you don’t know this stuff already, here’s your crash course: Obesity is genetic, dieting can’t alter your genetics but can kill you or permanently damage your body, obesity does not kill and it does not cause any other disease*. The treatment we suffer as obese people is no different than that which was suffered by African-Americans for centuries. In fact, every time you see the word fat or obese used in a negative light, I want you to mentally replace that word with the n-word. It’s no different, it’s completely socially acceptable to say fat derogatorily just as it was completely socially acceptable to use the n-word at one time. Usage of these words is never justified, it’s just the way it is or was and will continue to be forever until we say NO. Every time you think of buying into the idea that fat is wrong and you need to change to be a better, more socially acceptable person, think of someone of color buying into the idea that only white is beautiful, think of that person sitting down with a bottle of bleach and a scrub brush. Neither one (fat or of color) can change the way they look but the real point is that NONE of us should be shamed into pointless, destructive self-hatred in the first damn place. We will continue to be harassed and oppressed until we stand up for ourselves. When will we say enough is enough? When will we allow our voices to be heard? When we will stop apologizing for who we are? When?
*if you want to read more about the REALITY that supports what I’ve written, check out Sandy’s blog Junkfood Science.
If saying fat people are fat because of health problems, allows you all to sleep at night peacefully, then so be it.
Stay fat, and sick just please stop complaining.
OK this? “If you’re fat, it’s your fault, but if you’re in a wheelchair then no one would dream of asking you how you got there (nor do I think they should). Some people’s fat may be their own fault, but then, some people get drunk, get behind the wheel of a car and hurt themselves. The drunk driving is a crime, eating is NOT.” Makes me
CRAZY Mad.
As a person who is legitimately considered physically disabled (from birth, thankyouverymuch) to basically lump ME in the same category as someone who was in an ACCIDENT OF THEIR OWN MAKING is beyond amazingly upsetting.
And the best part? People DO ask me how I got to be “how i am” ALL THE TIME. So, yes, people do dream of it actually. And then they walk up to me and open their mouths. So that assumption? Completely false.
So maybe the above is the point. Some people are fat due to factors they control. Some people are due to factors outside their control. Is the former a disability? My mind screams NO given my own personal life circumstance (did I choose this? Hells no. Would I ever? Hells no.) but then by association, the person in the wheelchair because of the accident shouldn’t be considered disabled either so therein lies the rub. Hmm. Very tricky. So maybe “disability” to me is something that no surgery will ever fix. Ever. I don’t have that option. It simply does not exist. The person in the wheelchair doesn’t have that option. The fat person? Probably has treatment options if they choose . (I say probably because not everyone is the same and this is NOT a blanket statement that people “should” want treatment of any kind if they are happy with how they are.) So anyways. I just had to put in my two cents. I hope I didn’t offend anyone, but I could NOT believe my eyes when I saw the above comparison.
If saying fat people are fat because of health problems, allows you all to sleep at night peacefully, then so be it.
Stay fat, and sick just please stop complaining.
Well that’s a whole lot of hate.
Also, your right to tell the fat people to stop demanding equality is nonexistent, and we’re not going away. You might just have to live with that.
“Nearly 80% of diseases are curable/treatable by a healthy diet and regular exercise.”
That’s why life expectancies have gotten so much shorter since the hunter-gatherer days, when people got more exercise and ate unprocessed foods! Haven’t y’all read the Bible? There was a guy who lived for 969 years!!!!! I bet the average life expectancy back then was, like, 850.