When I was 12, my mother sent me into a convenience store to buy a bottle of Coca-Cola for a party. Taking the money, the cashier looked at me critically and said, “Do you know how many calories are in that?”
Most days, I can’t remember where I put my glasses or the car keys, but that small exchange is seared into my memory forever. As are the times I jumped into a pool and heard someone yell, “Thar she blows.” It’s why I support the death penalty in only one instance: for people who make fun of fat kids. Make all the Chris Christie jokes you want, but the moral law within me, born of a childhood of small torments, says hands off the Nathan Sorrells of the world.
Comments
This is a reflection by an author who clearly has a mission, enlightening the world to stop beating up on fat people. Up to a point it is a worthy and humane idea. Sure, mean remarks are a big problem, can hurt the feelings of the target, and likely reveal problems in the person making the remark. But the obesity issue is not just about shame. Fundamentally it is about public health and personal health. And by the way, it directly impacts the discussions about health care dollars. It is absolutely true that there are too many people carrying far too much weight. It is absolutely true that there has to be a cultural re-set about food choices, about activity levels, about oversized restaurant portions with hidden sugar, about ready-made meals with too much sugar, about the politics of ubiquitous high-fructose corn syrup, and about the impact of poor food choices coming from depression, anxiety, and feelings of all sorts. There has to be a new cultural acceptance of the reality that a 300 pound football player is abusing his body by carrying that much weight, and is a terrible role model. The conversation about obesity definitely has problems, but reducing it to a fear and loathing of fat people seriously misses the mark.
Shaming a child for any reason, while the death penaly is a mite extreme, is appalling. Children do not choose what happens in their homes. And you can be sure, that this is not just about food. A closer look at what a child is putting up with at home will help to explain all sorts of food or behavior issues.
Soda, regular or diet, is the first place in the battle. I have talked to people who have lost signifcant amounts of weight simply by cutting diet soda out of their lives.
US Americans are fat because we're reaping the "benefits" of 100+ years of cheap oil and other fossil energy. Cheap energy via agricultural mechanization has made food cheap, especially carb. and fat laden, industrially-created foods with lots of corn, soy, and corn syrup in them. At the same time we have more power toys and tools in our lives and of course cars, than ever. We eat more cheap, fossil fuel-derived calories than ever all while we sit on the couch or in the car seat than humanity has ever been able to. As other nations catch up (sort of) in energy use, they too are getting obese. The only thing that will fix all this is the end of cheap, fossil energy -- and that's coming too.
I feel sorry for the suffering of anybody who suffers discrimination, there is no excuse for demeaning another person.
Yet I do suffer from the obesity of others. My wife and I had a concert subscriptioh, with seats next to a very nice, and very obese man; he spilled over the seats on both sides of his, sqweezing me into half a seat. For the next season we asked to be seated in another row. I drive in narrow streets clogged with very large cars; who are produced, in part, to accomodate very large passengers in very wide seats. We all share in the health cost of the consequence of obesity.
I wish we had more compassion for persons like Mayor Blumberg, who attempt to limit portio size and empry calories. It could be done. I was in Vancouver BC last month. I needed a new pair of pants, waist size 38. Most stores had 36 as the largest waist size. Vancouver has the same economy as any large city in the US, (except for higher taxes), and the same genetic mix in its population; it would be worth while to study what accounts for the differenced in waist size.
Are male waist measurements in Canadian retail emporius far different than those in American stores? I wear pants with waist sizes 36 or 38, depending upon the cut and manufacturer styling. Garments with elastic waists are easier to use. But this questionator's claims about shopping in Vancouver for pants are absolutely incredible. I agree with him about the presence on American highways over far too many oversized trucks - aka SUVs or pickups - but find it laughable that this person alleges that such vehicle are built to carry oversized humans. In fact many of them are driven by undersized men and women seemingly out to prove that they can play with the big kids. In factuality, questionator enjoys portraying him/her-self as a victim. Poor baby.
Gee, an opportunity for a certain Democratic Party state chairman to perform a real public service by modeling for an advetisement and save the ego of such as the overweight boy pictured with this Glob story. An adult male would be a much more suitable model.
What accounts for the difference in American's waist size and the rest of world should not be a huge surprise, or a question that warrants scientific study. Americans have made it 'acceptable' to be obese: Television shows are presenting obese role models, generally in comic situations;
American Industry has changed the sizes marked on clothing to give people the impression that they are a smaller size that they actually are: This is accomplished by sizing clothing with LOWER sizes, such as a 6 or 8, when in fact the clothes are a LARGER size, actually a 10 or 12.
To the reader who commented on Canadians not being as fat as Americans. Well NO country has citizens as obese as Americans because other countries don't have citizens who claim talking about 'obesity' - is - discrimination." Fat people are fat people - they need to loose weight - before they become obese. This is not discrimination or hate speech - this is a fact.
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Actually, the French, the Brits, the Czechs, the Chinese and many other nations are becomming fatter as they adopt a more "modern" diet that relies on convenience and low cost. America is just taking point on this. Because it is unlikely that these other populations decided to start stuffing themselves all of a sudden, the likely cause is dietary content, not feeding behavior.
Let's think about it. What can you buy today that you couldn't buy fourty years ago when Americans were as slim as the rest of the world? We had plenty of steak, eggs and cream back then. But we had none of the processed crap full of sugar and carbohydrate that you find today taking up the majority of the supermarket aisles. To not at least suspect a linkage is to be pretty unsophisticated.
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We could stop subsidizing corn syrup. That would be a start.
Right after we downsize the military and increase the capital gains tax from 15%...
Never gonna happen. Follow the money.
Put down the fork America!!!!!!!!!
Alcholism isn't caused by overdrinking. The alcholic drinks because of a physiological need for alcohol. Similarly, many obese people probably have hormonal dysfunction which causes them to preferentially store calories in fat tissue rather than lean tissue. This leave them undernourished at the cellular level, even though their fat stores are increasing. And when your cellular tissues are undernourshed, you continue to eat. In other words, fat may cause overeating, rather than overeating causing one to become fat. Many smug commentors happily assume a causality that has not been proven. Indeed, it is not supported by many clinical trials.
I tend to think of fat almost as if it were tumor, stealing nutrients from the body to support it's own growth. This is why it is so difficult for people to lose weight, and why persistent weight maintenance only occurs about 5% of the time after weight loss. Only by curing this energy partitioning dysfunction can sustainable weight loss occur. It may be fixable via diet (insulin prohibits fatty acid release from the fat tissue) or via drugs, or via some other means like hormone treatment. But it will never be fixed by moralizing and assumptions of gluttony.
Spelling fail, I know.