Slim-Body Standards

Obesity is a medical condition in human beings, in which the body overproduces body fats, to such an extent that the excess body fats which usually accumulates within the body, can lead to other health problems like increase in body size or the thickening of blood vessels, which may eventually lead to heart attack or high blood pressure. Obesity is a global health issue, but it’s mostly common in the west, due to the kind of life style the people live. Obese people are usually stigmatized by the society due to their health status, meaning they are viewed as being in trouble. Whether obesity is a cause or reason for such stigma, is however debatable (Vogel, 2007).

Society today has distorted what a healthy physique actually looks like. It tells you, if you don’t have muscles bulging from under your skin then you are out of shape. And that if you are overweight you are just ugly. Another false concept is that if you are overweight you’re lazy or not self disciplined (Bordo 2). There are so many factors that have to be accounted for when evaluating someone’s weight. To assume that someone is lazy or weak because they are overweight, is ignorant. Many people are deceived into thinking that obesity is terrible like a sin. In her article Susan Bordo gives an example of a study taken where children chose obesity to be more uncomfortable or embarrassing than dismembered hands or facial deformities when shown

The stigma around fat not only hurts someone emotionally and psychologically— it may also inflict an increase in the risk of depression, low self-esteem, and body dissatisfaction. Body shaming has been prominent and blaming fat people for being fat is very likely to happen too. My friend was window shopping at this store, and after awhile an employee of the store came up to her and said, “Hey! Sorry we don’t

Our culture uses health and wellness with food to divide groups as well. Julier ("The Political Economy of Obesity: The Fat Pay All") discusses how obesity vilifies certain groups and how poverty and obesity have a function in society, serving the industry and the economy. Julier says rhar obesity vilifies women, the poor, and people of color, groups of people that are already marginalized, and the stress of life as a marginalized group can lead to a disordered relationship with food. Americans are incredibly intolerant of individuals who have let themselves go, and get even angrier when those individuals don't do anything about it to get to the socially accepted normal: skinny (Mead "Why Do We Overeat?"). Julier ("The Political Economy of Obesity: The Fat Pay All") gives 13 political, economic, and cultural functions of poverty and obesity, one of them being the idea that when fatness is related to irresponsible behavior, those who aren't fat and stick to the socially constructed normal of thin are able to maintain and create public agenda to control and vilify the obese and overweight.

The readings for this week’s response paper consist of the second half of the book Fat-Talk Nation: The Human Cost of America’s War on Fat by Susan Greenhalgh. Unlike the first half, the second half of the book gives a broader look at the American weight obsession. Skinny shamming, the obsession with “normality”, health risks and relationship issues caused by the American public’s obsession with weight are all addressed in the last chapters (Greenhalgh 2015). Overall, the book does a good job of addressing the aspect of weight through biocitizenship. As the author states throughout, individuals are pressured into achieving a certain weight in order to fit into the mainstream culture’s ideal of a “healthy body” (Greenhalgh 2015). This is achieved through media,

The stigma related to obesity plays a major role every day for some. At work, school and in healthcare settings the stigma exists and continues to be a publically tolerable form of prejudice in American society. By increasing education and awareness about the damaging and lasting effects of negative stigma.

Obesity has been a subject of discussion and disgust since the time when women were objectified into trophies. The pressure rising with the class and status. Even after the dawn of independence broke on the female creed in the early nineteenth century the issue persists. The obese people continue to raise eyebrows and hushed whispers even today as they walk down the streets, malls and other public places. The modernization and feminist movements haven’t been able to eradicate the unasked sympathies, suggestions and abuse on the obese women. The most serious issue is that a woman is not even allowed to choose for herself a yardstick that would label her skinny or fat. Nothing new about not giving a choice but it makes the stigma all the more

In the article “Fat and Happy: In Defense of Fat Acceptance” author Mary Ray Worley, a member of the NAAFA, begins her commentary by shedding light on how society views overweight people. She states that in our society fatness signals self-contempt and lack of resolve, and that a multitude of people never consider another alternative way of thinking (Worley 163). She also explains that overweight people are often weary of going to the doctor because doctors are the most prejudice people out there; treating ones weight problem before treating their cough (165). Worley recalls when she attended the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (163). While at the convention, Worley witnessed multiple overweight people buying fashionable clothes that they cannot find at regular stores, and having fun trying things that they had not been able to attempt anywhere else because of their weight.

Since the 1980’s scholars and medical professionals have branded obesity as a disease of epidemic proportions in order to instill fear into the substantial overweight population of America so that they may begin slimming down, whether through professional, unconventional, unreliable, or sometimes unsafe methods. Constant negative portrayal of excess body fat has led society

Worley, Mary R. "Fat and Happy: In Defense of Fat Acceptance." Writing and Reading for ACP

How beauty standards have changed over time, what makes dissatisfaction with body image so common, and the effect society has on Body image and beauty standards were also explored. Additionally, Fraser’s article addressed obesity in terms of research, clinical experiences, and through professional and nonprofessional bias. This relates deeply to the idea of body image, which is a common idea in both texts. When opening her article, Fraser explains, “A hundred years ago, except in extreme cases, fatness was considered a simple physical trait, a natural variation in human size. Then, with all of the emphasis our culture put on discipline, restraint, and physical perfectibility, being fat became a moral problem.

The Obesity Epidemic is a topic widely studied and mentioned in several contexts’ both medical and social. Obesity is described by Boero (2012) to have exploded in meaning Post- World War II to be more than a “physical flaw.” Weight concern became an idea that debuted in magazines mainly targeting women and emphasizing “natural thinness.” The disappearance of the normally worn “corset” and popularization of the typical 1920’s “boy catching” flapper, increased the production of diet products and the ideology of “desirable thinness” which gave birth to a social and moral model of obesity as a disease (Boero 2012). Throughout her book, Boero (2012) examines the ways in which the view of obesity has transformed into a medicalized epidemic, rather than a simple “flaw in human biology” in addition to the implications that come along with the “epidemic” title it has been given. Although there is a relationship between poor health and fatness, the Obesity epidemic would fail to exist in the absence of societies constant fat shaming, medicalization of fatness and an emphasis on individual blame. The Mayo Clinic’s “My Weight Solution” pamphlet and “The HAES Manifesto” each approach health and weight from a different angle. The Mayo Clinic’s pamphlet takes the Anti-Obesity Approach giving reasons as to why people should have a negative outlook on Obesity while also blaming a handful of obesity-related issues on the bad habits of an individual person. The HAES Manifesto adopts a more

The social impact of being overweight and obese is very serious and can be detrimental to a person’s feeling of self-worth. Many people who are overweight become the targets of bias and stigma, and are vulnerable to negative attitudes in many different settings. Some areas of vulnerability are “places of employment, educational institutions, medical facilities, mass media, and interpersonal relationships” (Obesity, Bias, and Stigmatization. (n.d.). According to the American Heart Association, “nearly 78 million adults and 13 million children in the United States deal with the health and emotional effects of obesity every day” (Understanding the American Obesity Epidemic. (n.d.). The solution to obesity may seem easy to solve by simply taking

Some labels that the society provides for larger people are still fairly hurtful. Being called obese or morbidly obese can be harsh, particularly when it’s regarding to children. According to the pediatric specialist thoughts against identifying children as obese and morbidly obese can cause humiliation, fear, and a lot more awful feelings and thoughts (4). Besides using terms like obesity and fat, people should use excess weight or weight could be used in its place to prevent additional humiliation (2). With all the weight perception, our society has created this whole atmosphere of disgrace where bigger people are embarrassed about their size. When big people try to live a healthy lifestyle by going to gym and running isn’t as easy for them to attend public places because this world is inimical and occasionally hostile (2). When it comes to the health care settings of weight discrimination can be a cycle according to the Weight Bias: Nature, Consequences, and

Weight discrimination “generally refers to negative weight-related attitudes toward an overweight or obese individual” (Puhl 1). Obesity numbers started to skyrocket in the 1990s and weight discrimination started to become a problem about five years later. Obese individuals are susceptible to weight discrimination at health care facilities, school, work, and even in personal relationships. Studies have found that the chances of experiencing weight discrimination increase the more an individual weighs. “In our study, 10 percent of overweight women reported weight discrimination, 20 percent of obese women reported weight discrimination and 45 percent of very obese women reported weight discrimination. men were lower, with 3 percent of overweight, 6 percent of obese and 28 percent of very obese men reporting weight discrimination. This finding also tells us that women begin experiencing weight discrimination at lower levels of body weight than men” (Puhl 2). For women weight discrimination is more common than race discrimination.