I ran across this article from The Independent today. This article addresses the age-old question of why fat folks are picked on as much as they are.
Now, being a fat child who became a fat woman, I had a very good idea as to why I was picked on: I was FAT, thereby being socially unacceptable, therefore becoming a target for those who fit society’s standards of normal. I mean, it makes sense to ME.
However, that’s just not true, according to this article.
Researchers say the immune system can be triggered into action at the sight of obesity because it doesn’t like the look of what it sees, and associates it with infection.
Just as it orchestrates attacks on viruses and bacteria and triggers nausea at the hint of bad food, so it sends out signals of disgust in some people at the sight of an obese body that is designed to encourage avoidance and survival.
So…what these researchers are saying is that I was/continue to be harassed not because being fat is socially unacceptable, but because they think…I’m infectious? And y’know, who wants to be around infectious people? But, you know, since obesity is contagious and all, I suppose it makes a bit more sense. Right…good answer, good answer!
Are you fucking kidding me? And if not, when can we expect the first vaccine for the folks who spew malignant jackassery towards fat people? And if we can stop folks from harassing fat people…can we do something to fix…say…harassment in general? Bigotry? Sexism? And so on? But wait…there’s more!
“Antipathy toward obese people is a powerful and pervasive prejudice in many contemporary populations. Our results reveal, for the first time, that this prejudice may be rooted in multiple, independent mechanisms. They provide the first evidence that obesity serves as a cue for pathogen infection,” say the University of British Columbia researchers…The results show that people who agreed with comments such as “it really bothers me when people sneeze without covering their mouths” were more likely to agree with statement such as “if I were an employer looking to hire, I might avoid hiring a fat person”. The greater the fear of disease, the stronger the negative feeling about obesity.
Ah, so that’s what they were getting to. Being fat is a disease–an avoidable disease, mind you–and so it’s not the aggressors’ fault they are acting like douchebags. It’s the fat person’s fault for being so damn fat and infectious. So, in theory, if we fat folks want to be left alone, we should, y’know, lose weight. Because, you see, the social issues we face have NOTHING to do with other folks’ douchebaggery, it’s all our fault for being FAT! Again, are you FUCKING kidding me?! Of course not. Because if I sneeze on you, you’re gonna catch my cold AND my fat.
*exasperated eye roll*
But don’t worry. I’m not the only one crying foul at this information.
But Clarissa Dickson Wright, the surviving half of the Two Fat Ladies cookery duo, said the research merely served to cover up the general prejudice of narrow-minded people. “In the 1960s there were a lot of bigoted people who were anti-black, anti-Jewish, anti-everything but when they couldn’t get away with that any more they turned into food-Nazis instead and began attacking people who were fat,” she said. “I suspect that this is what really drives people to be negative about fat people rather than an unconscious reaction.
See! I wasn’t the only person who thought this whole thing was bullshit.
However, I do have a suggestion for better spending research money. How about we research how to get rid of the stigmas attached to fat so that this world can be a better one for everyone? That works best for me.
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