Can we all just get along?

I belong to a number of different list serves: ASDAH (Association for Size Diversity and Health); Intuitive Eating Professionals and The Academy for Eating Disorders to name just a few. Because of the emails that abound among these groups I am exposed to up-to-the-minute news on nearly everything having to do with weight. 

Just in the past two days I've read an article in the Washington Post reporting that the obesity epidemic appears to be slowing, The European Journal of Public Health reporting on "An Obesity epidemic booga booga," The New York Times reporting on "The Surgeon General's Weight Struggle," The International journal of Obesity discussing "white hat bias" which is attributed to less than faithful reporting when it comes to obesity research, an article on how childhood obesity does not predict adult cardiovascular disease risk as previously thought, and finally the article in the Boston Globe about the Fatshionista blog.

The thing that troubles me the most when I read these articles and journal entries is not so much their content as the comments they receive from readers. I am continually stunned by the mean-spirited and vitriolic remarks...it seems that fat, weight, and obesity have become the scapegoats of societal anger. If the words race, skin color or religion were replaced as the primary target, these comments would be considered at the least politically incorrect and at the worst a close second to hate crimes.

I am continually amazed at the derision triggered by conversations having to do with these topics. I read somewhere a quote truly appropriate-to-these-circumstances (and this is from memory so may not be verbatim), "The only thing you can tell by looking at a fat person is the extent of your own prejudice."  No one can tell by looking at anyone else how much they eat, what, when or how often they eat, or the state of their health and fitness. I sometimes imagine the people my daughter passed on the street the day she died while on her obligatory daily walk. I can imagine some young college student being envious of Andrea's deceptively "healthy looking, thin" body. Or how another person might have given her silent kudos for her apparent desire to remain fit. Not one of them would have guessed that this beautiful young woman was going to go to bed that night, never to get up again.

During a chat over coffee with a friend yesterday she was wondering if I should meet privately to talk to someone who continually attempts to debunk my Health at Every Size approach to wellness. I had to tell her that if someone cannot allow the space to even entertain the notion that there might be a valid paradigm that differs from theirs it is doubtful that I could say anything that would "change their mind." I likened it to the situation back when the predominant paradigm was that the earth was flat. If that is the lens through which one looks, evidence to support that view can be found everywhere. For goodness sake, there is still a "Flat Earth Society" today ... a group that holds on to the notion that our planet truly IS flat. Some people can never be convinced.

I still hold, though, that we can respectfully agree to disagree. It is not acceptable for me to call you names if you disagree with me or vice versa. As Rodney King asked so many years ago, "Can't we all just get along??"

Blessings until next time,

Doris

Comments

[Bill Fabrey]

Doris, your commentary is always so well thought out--whether it be about the insensitive types who persist in discussing weight or calories at family functions, and the issues of how to deal with them--or, as you wrote above, the nasty comments in the media that persist year after year.

I find that there are always a few intelligent comments mixed in with the bigoted ones, but you have to have a certain "resolve" to stomach reading all of them. There are lots of "flat earthers" among us when it comes to weight issues of all kinds.

Bill Fabrey
Woodstock, NY
Council on Size & Weight Discrimination
www.cswd.org