Fat Lies RevisitedObesity, self-discipline, and stigma.

Remarks from the Fray:

It's interesting that scientists can't seem to make skinny people fat any more than they can make fat people skinny. When that happens I'll be more interested in what they have to say. The most interesting studies I've seen suggest that the use of corn syrup solids as a sweetener have more to do with climbing weights than any particular change in eating behavior. Most of the world is also less likely to work at jobs that involve physical labor: that people would have less muscle mass seems fairly preordained.

And I like your supposition that since bias against fat isn't working we just need to make it stronger. Sort of like if torturing people doesn't get accurate information just increase the severity, they'll get you're serious eventually.

--Justin

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Somewhat less severe stigmatizing, or rather just teasing, is fine between male friends. Referring to your male friend as "fatboy" is normal, and if he starts crying or binge eating, then you can stigmatize him for being a pussy.

Female friends? Nope. Can't do it. In this case, you ought to find a better, more positive way to get them to lose weight. This is a major problem when dealing with a tubby daughter. My kid is overweight and I refuse to even acknowledge it. Why? Because I'm also responsible for her self esteem and hitting a 13 year old on her weight is way to, uh, heavy. So, no stigmatization, and in fact, the dad's always got to make the kid feel good about themselves.

Stigmatizing a daughter will just end up fucking her up in many fundamental ways that can be far worse than the health effects of obesity.

--doodahman

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Your article of September 2, 2006 was fascinating in its juxtaposition of how humans evolved to survive periods of scarcity and the resultant irony of the current food surplus. It further points out the relatively recent link between poverty and obesity, primarily due to the creativity of the commercial "food" industry. In my opinion, in the United States at least, the only reasonable "excuses" for obesity are related to lack of education and/or economic well-being. I'm perfectly fine with whatever choices people make for themselves but our education system should start treating junk food and fast food a little more like it treats cigarettes and alcohol, so that children grow up knowing it's not really "food" in the sense of necessary sustenance, but rather a treat that is enjoyable in moderation but potentially harmful.

Stigma is the wrong word, but education and responsibility are critical.

--Looney

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You have made a leap of logic by saying that fat stigma is the way to keep people thin. How do you know active stigma and active "don't get fat" messages are how thin people stay thin and encourage others in their social network to do the same? Is thinness spread by thin people telling other thin people not to get fat? Or is thinness spread by a subtle promotion of being active and eating well? Fat people aren't spreading fat by telling their friends to be fat, so why would you assume that telling people to be skinny would be effective? Isn't it more likely that I have friends that I admire that are skinny, these friends like to hike and tell me about hiking. Then, I think, hiking sounds like fun, I'm going to do more of it. Nobody told me I was fat and to cut it out. I think you are missing the subtle/subconscious way these messages spread- (getting fat or staying fit), which is really the most surprising part of the study.

--im1

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One reason obese people often don't rate themselves as obese is because the medical definition doesn't square with most people's idea of what obese -- or really fat -- is. the little-reported truth is that health authorities, in part for political reasons having to do with establishing a public health crisis and increasing research money, arbitrarily lowered the weight (or BMI) that establishes someone as obese. They did this right around the time our obesity epidemic skyrocketed. By the current medical definition, most people become "obese" versus "overweight" when they gain a mere five pounds. The average person would not look at a borderline obese man or woman and think they're terribly fat. In fact, by the BMI defintions -- which are highly flawed, not accounting for body type or muscle mass -- some people would end up looking downright gaunt if they strictly followed the normal-weight guidelines.

--susan orenstein

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Thinner friends trying their gee-whiz best to "help" overweight and obese friends as a kinder/gentler form of stigma is just not going to stop the fattening of Americans. But institutionalizing the stigma COULD. Smoking, one of the largest preventable sources of death in our country, is on a slow but sure decline, and it wasn't because a lot of non-smoking friends talked their smoker friends into stopping. It's because they banned the ads on TV and radio, they barred the stuff from restaurants and offices and other work places, they sued the hell out of tobacco companies and they got some cities now on a bend to make it as difficult as possible for smokers to light up anywhere else. Talk about stigmatizing, and thank goodness for that!! How I wish we could ban fast foods and processed dinners...

--Dana

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There have been studies suggesting that dieting actually worsens obesity, long term. If that's true, the stigma against fat could be worsening the epidemic: mildly chubby people are made to feel bad and so they try to force their bodies to fit a thin ideal, starving themselves. Their bodies, hard-wired to want to carry a little extra weight, react by trying to store even more fat against what gets perceived as an intermittent threat of famine, and fitfully their weight increases over time, rising from mere chubbiness to morbid obesity.

I've also seen, anecdotally, a similar phenomenon taking place with exercise. Mildly overweight people become so embarrassed about their size that they start to withdraw from physical activities that will emphasize their extra fat. If you're carrying an extra 30 pounds, and you live in a society that idealizes slim people, you don't want to call extra attention to your problem by doing something where you get winded and sweaty faster than all your friends. Better to keep to couch-based activities. If you succeed in steering social activities away from those that subject you to extra stigma, not only will you get fatter, so will those you associate with.

It's possible that if our culture weren't so hung up about people being a bit overweight, we'd have a whole lot fewer badly overweight people.

--Arkady

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