Often the assumption is that overweight people have lost their self-control. That frightens society because there is so much emphasis on being slim, she says.
"Often it's not the larger person's excess weight that is the problem, it's the other people's obsession with being thin. Most people want to be slim, but this perceived physical perfection is difficult to hold on to and they fear losing control of it. Women and men can be on diets their whole lives and it's utterly miserable. They project that fear and unhappiness on to people who are bigger and that often translates into abuse and attacks. It's a way of people disassociating themselves from what they fear the most - getting fat."
The truth is more straightforward. For various cultural and historical reasons most of us prefer thinness to fatness. And crucially we see weight as something people have personal control over. Far from fearing that overweight people have lost their self-control, we think they choose not to use it.
This is why it's "OK" to not like fat people; just as it's OK to not like criminals, selfish people, racists, etc. It's "their fault". Whereas it's not OK to make fun of people with one leg, deaf people, people with genetic disorders and so on. They "can't help it".
But there are grey areas, and this is where it gets interesting. People with cancer deserve sympathy... unless perhaps it's "their fault" for getting it, e.g. lung cancer from heavy smoking. Paedophiles deserve severe punishment... unless perhaps it's not their fault. How could it not be? How about if they developed a compulsive urge to view child porn due to the medication they were taking for Parkinson's disease? Or if they started abusing their daughter because of a brain tumour?
This is why one Kathryn Szrodecki, who campaigns on behalf of overweight people, is quoted by the BBC as saying
"We're simply not all built to be slim, our genetic make-ups are all different."In other words: actually it's not our fault. Likewise, conservatives say homosexuality is a choice; liberals say it's something you're born being. Both sides implicitly agree that if something's not a choice, it's wrong to treat people badly for it. In an attempt to destigmatize clinical depression, a billboard famously proclaimed that "Depression is a flaw in chemistry not character" - it's not your fault.
The trend at the moment is towards things being no-one's fault. It's happened to everything from drug and alcohol addiction to antisocial and criminal behaviour (as ADHD, Conduct Disorder, Personality Disorders, etc.) By contrast, I can't think of anything which has moved in the other direction. Of course, not everyone accepts that, say, addiction is a disease. Many people still think it's a moral issue. But they're on the back foot. The wind is blowing in the other direction.
We can expect even more of this in the future, as neuroscience and genetics find biological causes and correlates of ever more behaviours. Brain scans in particular have a seductive allure when it comes to making things seem to be outside the sphere of choice. As for how valid any of this is, well, that's another story. But if the fat acceptance movement wants to advance their cause, finding a few fMRI scans might be the best way to do it.
4 comments:
well said. i'm all for eliminating size discrimination, but i think it should be done by reforming the food industry and the guidelines set forth by the FDA. in terms of the modern diet (particularly Western), we're in a period of evolutionary discordance between environment and genome. some of us are able to stabilize by directional selection (using exercise to combat carbohydrates/sugars/salt preservatives/excess processing, for example), and those of us who are not reflect phenotypes of obesity or various chronic/autoimmune/coronary diseases. unfortunately, business economy keeps the food industry's incentive focused on cheap and easy rather than healthy and efficient.
Hello Neuroskeptic,
What do you think of the control people have over their weight?
Martin Seligmann in his book "What We Can Change and What We Can't" argues that weight is largely unchangeable and that only %5 of the people on diets and various things lose weight in the long term. The other 95% even though they lose weigh while they are on a diet bounce back later. He even gives Oprah as an example.
It's a good question. In my personal experience "diets" don't change weight in the long term but then again, how could they? By definition "going on a diet" means making a short-term change in your eating which you will eventually reverse. As soon as you come off the diet your weight will probably return to what it was.
I think we do have some ability to control our weight by making larger-scale lifestyle changes (mainly exercising more, e.g. cycling rather than driving to work) and wholesale diet changes (becoming vegetarian made me lose weight) but this is often easier said than done in practice.
And one thing I've learned from my personal experience with antidepressants is that "willpower" is a myth. When I started on mirtazapine, which is well known to increase appetite, I thought I could will myself to avoid losing weight. I completely failed despite much effort. Then when I started on venlafaxine, which suppresses appetite, the amount I ate got cut in half without me even noticing. Chemistry trumped willpower at least in my case.
I am well aware of the fact that this is a rather old post.
Despite this it just strikes me that these assumptions are mostly made by people without any real knowledge in sport or nutrition (exercise is always just running, what about strength training, interval training. How do they do in studies? Ther are many!; nutrition in public recommentaitons influenced by some old myths which never have been checked. Well, many of them have, but still they persist).
We do know todays so much more. We also understand, why most diets fail, why the FDA recommendations actually help to get fat, why most exercise recommendations are more bad than good. Does this mean our body weight can't be influenced? No! In my opinion it is just a lame excuse. And it is even dangerous to declare that being fat is alright. We know that being fat is everything but healthy. So why should it be ok? Maybe some might think now about those young girls driven into anorexia, but are there really only two possibilites? Suffering all your life or becoming fat? That's just nonsense unless you follow something like the weight watchers program. Keeping a healthy bodyweight is a natural state for (almost) all bodies. Why should it be so hard to keep the normal status? Just doesn't make any sense and doesn't check out with modern knowledge in nutrion and exercise.
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