The United States of America has some of the highest obesity rates in the world. This is probably not news to most of you, given the numerous news programs devoted to this very issue. As well as exploring the rise of obesity in this nation, much has been said about the probable causes, medical risks and costs, and the prevention of the disease. I am sorta thinking that the average American citizen has at least a glimmer of knowledge regarding the epidemic proportions of obesity in this country, so I will keep the statistics on the lighter side.
More than one-third of U.S. adults are obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). That is a whopping 34.9% or 78.6 million people over the age of 19 years. The statistics for our children and adolescents between the ages of 2-19 years have, for the most part, remained stable for the last ten years. However, the CDC places their percentage at a disturbing 17%, which is approximately 12.7 million young people affected by obesity.
My question is, with so many overweight Americans wandering around, what is up with the hostility and sheer hatred evidenced by many people towards the obese? Social media is an especially fertile ground for bullies... not that everyone is a bully. Let's just say that anonymity is precious to the dark side of humanity.
I recently read a comment on Facebook that was posted in response to an obese woman's challenge that we consider the ramifications of racism. Actually, the fact that this person was obese was inconsequential to what she had to say. Yet, the response posted by one hate filled individual was, "Eat another cheeseburger, you piece of s**t." Interestingly, while searching Facebook for that particular post again, I typed "eat another cheeseburger" into the search box. What came up was an astounding collection of photos and videos featuring obese people, both famous and non, each of which had the same refrain posted as a response to their obesity. "Eat another cheeseburger..." The charming epithet that followed was interchangeably, "fat boy", "bitch", "you fat prick", "you fat grease pit", "you waste of space", "you nasty pig", etc, etc...
Seriously?? Did I miss the meeting where we all learned to use name calling as a response to anything we don't like? Was there a memo directing folks to characterize obesity as a hideous state of otherness? Has the standard for respectful interaction among our species been lowered while my back was turned? Forgive me if I protest too loudly!
Not that any of this nastiness and name calling is new. We just have a world wide forum now to express our prejudice against not only the obese, but anyone who makes us in the least bit uncomfortable. Want a rational discussion of racism? No, we would rather point our fingers at your fat ass and laugh at how disgusting you look. Want to rally over a woman's right to choose what happens to her body? I am pretty sure we can come up with a photo of a woman with triple double chins holding a pro-choice placard to take a potshot at. "Apparently, her choice is to eat another cheeseburger to keep her body in terrific shape!" Do you have something to say about the considerable issues facing our LGBTQ youth? It doesn't matter... especially if you are fat. It appears that some people might think that being fat is a choice made by masochists who love to be ridiculed until it hurts.
When I was growing up, my last name was McFadzen... I will take a moment for that information to sink into your fertile brains. So what was I called by the brilliant minds of my classmates and neighbor kids?... You guessed it... "Hey, whatcha eating, McFatso?" "You look like you ate a whole cow, Fatty McFatson!" "Hey, look at McFatty, she's got sticky fingers. Was that candy bar good, Miss Piggy?"
At least half of my life has been lived as an obese person, while the remaining years might as well have been spent as obese. I never quite believed that I was a "normal size" person, even after losing 90 lbs in my late twenties. Though I suddenly had a waist and my clothing was much smaller in size, I had plateaued and never reached that ideal skinny mini size of the medical charts. At 135 lbs, I still believed that I was fat, and therefore, undesirable.
And, worse than that, the insidious hatred of fat people was a part of me. I knew it was wrong, I knew it was part and parcel of my own dislike for myself, I knew that I had to crush it before it crushed me; but still, the evil thoughts were there. I didn't voice them, at least out loud... that's how wrong I instinctively knew it was to judge a person for their size. But, walking behind a 400+ lb person slowly riding on an electric scooter in the grocery store would bring the nasty words up in my mind... "fat lazy pig." The interesting thing was that the "fat pig" comment was always accompanied by other degrading words... stupid, lazy, ugly, dumb, creepy... as if being fat automatically made you stupid and lazy, etc. I am not proud of this part of my history. It took years of self examination and therapy to rid myself of the instinct to equate fat with laziness. It also took a vast amount of time to truly look at myself as worthy of respect regardless of my size.
This world has so many conversations to have; conversations about the insidious instincts we have learned regarding those folks who are different than us in one way or another. Conversations that will allow each of us to live free of hate... our own self hate and our hatred of others. Some of these conversations are already happening and, because of the willingness so many have displayed to see another person's experiences as valid, we are allowing ourselves to see that we are all different in so many ways. If we allow the voices outside of ourselves to overrule the voices in our heads, we will learn to live free of the hatred of differences and begin to see the beauty of "otherness".
Let's join the conversations being had all over the world, and if we see a conversation that has not actually begun, let's be courageous and start that topic ourselves. Violence is perpetrated out of hatred and lack of understanding that differences are not threatening to our own set of values. The murder and suicide of people affected by hatred is monumental. Racism allows people to murder others by virtue of their ethnicity and skin color alone. The danger to black and brown skinned individuals does not stop with white supremacy groups; there should be constant vigilance from all directions, including our police officers, who have shot and killed close to 200 people of minority status this year. Transgender violence is on the rise with 20 trans murders reported in 2015. Eighteen of these victims were women of color and seven of the deaths occurred in the last month alone. At least 41% of transgender people report having attempted suicide at some point in their life.
Joining the all inclusive conversations regarding racism, homophobia, transphobia and transgender violence, sex trafficking, mental illness, senior discrimination, bullying and suicide, differently-abled individuals, child rape and molestation, domestic violence, and obesity, just to name a few, is truly a matter of life and death for many of our brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, neighbors and acquaintances. We have a responsibility to be aware and informed about hatred, regardless of its source.
