Our society is far from perfect. There is a seemingly infinite list of things that need to be changed. These imperfections extend into our personal lives, and often it is up to the individual to create the change they wish to see in themselves. In our class discussion of obesity, some people argued that obesity should not be seen as a disability. Perhaps obesity should not be seen as a disability because disabilities are created by society. In the article titled “Editor’s Introduction,” LeBesco and Braziel argue that corpulence has been historically, politically, culturally, and economically constructed.
I will admit, that to an extent, the negative image of obesity is greater than it may deserve. However, this article blatantly ignored that obesity is accompanied by many medical risks. I researched obesity on the website for the Center for Disease Control and found that overweight and obese individuals are at an increased risk for hypertension, osteoarthritis, dyslipedemia, type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, stroke, gallbladder disease, sleep apnea and respiratory problems, and certain cancers. Based on this research, it appears that obesity can indeed be seen as a disabling quality. Furthermore, steps should be taken by individuals to avoid obesity. The social stigma of corpulence is a powerful, motivating factor that can cause individuals to change their lives.
Jean-Paul Sartre, a French philosopher, argued that action, meaning social change, can only be caused by anxiety. He wrote, “Anxiety, far from being an obstacle for action, is the very prerequisite for action.” In Sartre’s school of though, every individual is responsible for his or her own existence, despite the conditions in which they live. Our responsibility for our actions is a torment and greatness for human beings. Taking responsibility for our actions leads to an individual’s liberation. Hope, the opposite of anxiety, is the worst hindrance for action. Sartre was influenced by the end of WWII. He observed that the war only ended due to the intense fear of population for greater death. If an individual were to wait and “hope” for the end of the war, it would never come.
The social stigma of obesity will create an anxiety in obese people for two reasons, the fear of the medical risks associated with obesity, and the fear of not being accepted into a society that prefers thinness. If not for the social stigma against obesity, there would be no anxiety within the obese population, and they would remain obese and in serious medical risk. While I do not think social stigma is the most ethical mechanism to create change within the population, I do believe it is an effective mechanism. It is in human nature to change our position if we are frightened, and social stigma effectively frightens people to change.
From the CDC website on obesity:
http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/obesity/index.htm
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4 comments:
I don’t think that the social stigma for obesity will ever be an effective method for decreasing the number of obese people. Even though genetics plays a role for some obese people, the majority of people are obese due to poverty and poor education. In Laura Ungar’s article “Poverty Fuels Medical Crisis” she points out several ways in which poverty causes obesity. First of all people with small incomes cannot usually afford healthy foods and so end up buying unhealthy food because it is cheaper. She also mentions that since these people must use most of their income just to survive, there is little money left over to spend on exercise equipment or gym memberships. Plus the areas in which the poor live are usually not safe enough to exercise outside. Another cause is the influence of family. If family members have bad eating habits then they will often be passed down to their children. The child is also less likely to pick out foods that are good for them if he or she has received little or no education on nutrition.
We have previously discussed in class how just because someone is thin doesn’t mean he or she is healthy so we also need to adjust our standards for what is healthy. Our stigma against obesity I think ends up doing more harm than good. Look at how the fear of being fat causes many young girls to become anorexic. Their fear of fat comes from their fear of being rejected by society which perceives obesity to be unhealthy. And while obesity does cause health problems these girls will suffer from others due to anorexia. A tragic example was Terri Schiavo. You mention several health problems associated with obesity which may frighten people if they are even aware, however fear or anxiety will do little good for people who do not have the means to change their life styles. Until we can find a way to distribute wealth more equally, poverty will continue to be the main reason for obesity in the United States.
I was reading on CNN about a man that lost 87 pounds because he was "tired of slights [and] embarrassments." I think this article really shows how anxiety causes individuals to change. Throughout the article, it doesn't even cite that the man was worried about his health. He was mainly worried about his weight and how others saw him. He was embarrassed by his weight, and even had a homeless man yell at him. I feel that this shame led the man to truly lose his weight, as opposed to all the medical risks associated with his weight. I feel that he was most motivated by the social implications of being overweight. Doctors can tell him how much his weight increased his risk for all these medical diseases, but that is much less tangible than being embarrassed in public.
Here's a link to the article:
"Tired of slights, embarrassment, man sheds 87 pounds"
Icemory, there are a few aspects which I disagree on with you. First off, I don't agree that obesity is fueled by poverty. Obesity cannot be contributed to poverty in any way. Believe it or not, the leading cause of obesity in the United States is attributed to soft drink consumption. While families in which the parents work all day and don't have the time to cook dinner may be picking up food from any fast food restaurant almost daily, the families could actually save money by opting to not get a soft drink with their meal and rather sticking to water. Furthermore, I would argue that perhaps the next greatest cause leading to obesity is an inactive lifestyle, something that I refuse to believe is caused by poverty. Rather, I would think that poverty would create a more active life style (have to walk to the bus stop; have to often stand in the bus or subway while traveling vs taking a car ride from point A to point B). I do agree that a lack of information on obesity can actually contribute to causing obesity...if you don't know how to prevent it, how can you?
I disagree with Ungar's assertion behind the need of purchasing exercise equipment or gym memberships to live healthy lifestyles. I believe that one can get just as effective of a workout by running around a neighborhood a few times. I can however, see the assertion behind unsafe neighborhoods to exercise outside...however, I'm sure there are plenty of other environments available to a poor family (jog around your work place after your shift ends; jog at school during recess...)
I don't think society rejects obesity because it's unhealthy; I think society rejects obesity primarily because it is viewed as "ugly." I have never heard a single positive thing about someone because of his large size. While I think society may perceive obesity to be unhealthy, I think society is completely justified in this claim (referring back to the CDC article related to the numerous health risks of obesity).
Furthermore, wealth distribution is not fueling obesity (it is, however, fueling poverty). Take the example of the nations of the USA and Hong Kong. The Gini Coefficient in Hong Kong is higher than the Gini Coefficient in the United States. This means that wealth is more evenly distributed in the USA than in Hong Kong. However, obesity is much more pronounced in the United States than in Hong Kong. This example puts a hole in the theory that wealth distribution predicts obesity.
An interesting read about how the French enjoy so much calorie-rich food and high class sauces without gaining singinficant amounts of weight can be found through a link at the bottom of my post. In this article, the author argues that obesity is caused by the rushed atmosphere of our nation...sitting down and eating a 700 calorie meal with a family will be much easier to burn than a 700 calorie meal consumed while driving home from work.
http://independent.com/news/2007/oct/25/eating-french/
While the CDC has reported the health risks of obesity, they also just recently released a report that people classified as overweight (but not obese) according to the BMI actually had lower mortality due to injury and certain illnesses when compared to those with normal BMIs. The overweight (but once again, not obese) did not have increased mortality from most weight-related illnesses either. I posted about this article earlier, but here’s the link just in case:
Extra weight won’t increase death risk (from AP, published in the Atlanta-Journal Constitution)
One caveat to the study is that they didn’t report on prevalence of disease, only mortality, but even so it does suggest that being “moderately” overweight according to standard BMI guidelines is not as unhealthy as common reports have suggested. The push to lose those last 10 or 15 pounds may not be necessary for a person’s health—it is to fit a social ideal (of being normal or underweight) that probably isn’t any healthier.
Widespread education about proper nutrition and exercise would probably a more effective and healthier way of addressing the health problems associated with obesity, rather than using social stigmas to convince people to lose weight. Social standards about what’s attractive are often not based on any research-backed notions of health and have changed a lot through time. Such standards can creep into supposedly objective measures such as the BMI-based determination of what is “normal” weight and what is “overweight.”
Here’s another article with a more historical/cultural approach to the findings from the CDC study, I thought it was pretty interesting: Chubby Gets a Second Look
http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/ 20071111/ZNYT04/711110900/1025/ NEWS06
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