Overly dramatic title perhaps... but I wonder more and more if size acceptance is a fight that can actually be lost permanently.
On UK TV tonight they showed a supposed documentary called '34 stone, still too thin' in which the makers of the show were outraged that big people (ranging in size on the show from about 350lbs to about 450lbs) were being denied free National Health Service weight loss surgery when it is "the only thing that will save their lives". As with many documentaries of this nature, the show was littered with phrases from the narrator like this, and "no-one wants to be grossly overweight" which were entirely unequivocal in nature. The makers of the show didn't even seem to consider the possibility that any big person could possibly be happy, or even content at their size.
Now, is it just my imagination, or is the general acceptance by society that all big people MUST hate being big a growing trend? Over time, the message seems to be shifting from "IF you're unhappy being big, you CAN lose weight like this..." to "you ARE unhappy because you're big, so you SHOULD lose weight like this..."
And the sources of this propaganda are diversifying... in the past it was the media, Hollywood, celebrity culture that spread the idea that it is bad to be big. Now it's the government (certainly in the UK anyway), television news, 'factual' programming, supermarkets, every facet of the health industry... everything.
The extent to which the 'fat is bad... fat is bad... fat is bad...' message is now forced into every aspect of life is to almost Orwellian extents. So much so that it's not questioned anymore, it is accepted as fact. In fact, I would say it has almost become a religion, and to question it would be blasphemy.
Now what makes this especially dangerous is that the media has latched onto the 'miracle cure' for obesity, weight loss surgery. According to the documentary, it is NHS policy to offer weight loss surgery to anyone with a BMI of over 35 who has been unable to lose weight in other ways. While the documentary was correct in pointing out that clearly the NHS was not keeping to this policy in the cases of the people featured, the fact that this is even an aspiration for the NHS is staggering to me. Anyone can argue that they've been on a few diets that haven't worked, and so the 'unable to lose weight in other ways' part of the policy is meaningless.
So, fundamentally, it is NHS policy to offer free weight loss surgery to anyone with a BMI of over 35.
Yet the media sees nothing wrong with this, in fact, it almost seems to be a human rights issue that this policy is not being achieved, and as a society we must spring forth to the aid of the poor fat people whose lives are being destroyed by a government that's not prepared to pay for the weight loss surgery that they desperately need!
So if they succeed and every fat person is encouraged to have free weight loss surgery, what happens then? Well, the health risks of the surgery are scarcely mentioned as it's assumed that the quality of life for any fat person is so bad that they would be prepared to take any risk to lose weight, so I suspect that the vast majority of big people in the country would accept the surgery.
Does this mean that big people will cease to exist? I'm sure many of you are thinking "No! Of course not, I'm happy with my size and I would never want weight loss surgery..." but what happens when you're one of the only big people left? No-one else you know is big, you're the only one, society as a whole has long since accepted that being big is unquestionably wrong. Furthermore, you're denied all healthcare because you've been offered a way out of being big but you chose not to take it, therefore health services and health insurance programs aren't prepared to pay for illnesses that you've 'brought on yourself'. You can't get a job because the trend for employers to discriminate people continues further and further as big people become scarcer and governments less and less inclined to protect a dwindling minority group. The big supermarket and restaurant chains refuse to sell certain foods to you because they've figured out that they gain more in revenue through publicity for helping eradicate the 'curse' of obesity than they lose by refusing custom to the few big people remaining.
Do you still hold out and not take the surgery?
And then when there are no big people left, all this ends. FAs will be devastated for a generation, but the next generation will have no FAs because kids will grow up never having seen a fat person.
Is this a vision of the future that will happen? If not, how do we stop what seems to be an unstoppable trend?
Yours depressingly,
Matt
On UK TV tonight they showed a supposed documentary called '34 stone, still too thin' in which the makers of the show were outraged that big people (ranging in size on the show from about 350lbs to about 450lbs) were being denied free National Health Service weight loss surgery when it is "the only thing that will save their lives". As with many documentaries of this nature, the show was littered with phrases from the narrator like this, and "no-one wants to be grossly overweight" which were entirely unequivocal in nature. The makers of the show didn't even seem to consider the possibility that any big person could possibly be happy, or even content at their size.
Now, is it just my imagination, or is the general acceptance by society that all big people MUST hate being big a growing trend? Over time, the message seems to be shifting from "IF you're unhappy being big, you CAN lose weight like this..." to "you ARE unhappy because you're big, so you SHOULD lose weight like this..."
And the sources of this propaganda are diversifying... in the past it was the media, Hollywood, celebrity culture that spread the idea that it is bad to be big. Now it's the government (certainly in the UK anyway), television news, 'factual' programming, supermarkets, every facet of the health industry... everything.
The extent to which the 'fat is bad... fat is bad... fat is bad...' message is now forced into every aspect of life is to almost Orwellian extents. So much so that it's not questioned anymore, it is accepted as fact. In fact, I would say it has almost become a religion, and to question it would be blasphemy.
Now what makes this especially dangerous is that the media has latched onto the 'miracle cure' for obesity, weight loss surgery. According to the documentary, it is NHS policy to offer weight loss surgery to anyone with a BMI of over 35 who has been unable to lose weight in other ways. While the documentary was correct in pointing out that clearly the NHS was not keeping to this policy in the cases of the people featured, the fact that this is even an aspiration for the NHS is staggering to me. Anyone can argue that they've been on a few diets that haven't worked, and so the 'unable to lose weight in other ways' part of the policy is meaningless.
So, fundamentally, it is NHS policy to offer free weight loss surgery to anyone with a BMI of over 35.
Yet the media sees nothing wrong with this, in fact, it almost seems to be a human rights issue that this policy is not being achieved, and as a society we must spring forth to the aid of the poor fat people whose lives are being destroyed by a government that's not prepared to pay for the weight loss surgery that they desperately need!
So if they succeed and every fat person is encouraged to have free weight loss surgery, what happens then? Well, the health risks of the surgery are scarcely mentioned as it's assumed that the quality of life for any fat person is so bad that they would be prepared to take any risk to lose weight, so I suspect that the vast majority of big people in the country would accept the surgery.
Does this mean that big people will cease to exist? I'm sure many of you are thinking "No! Of course not, I'm happy with my size and I would never want weight loss surgery..." but what happens when you're one of the only big people left? No-one else you know is big, you're the only one, society as a whole has long since accepted that being big is unquestionably wrong. Furthermore, you're denied all healthcare because you've been offered a way out of being big but you chose not to take it, therefore health services and health insurance programs aren't prepared to pay for illnesses that you've 'brought on yourself'. You can't get a job because the trend for employers to discriminate people continues further and further as big people become scarcer and governments less and less inclined to protect a dwindling minority group. The big supermarket and restaurant chains refuse to sell certain foods to you because they've figured out that they gain more in revenue through publicity for helping eradicate the 'curse' of obesity than they lose by refusing custom to the few big people remaining.
Do you still hold out and not take the surgery?
And then when there are no big people left, all this ends. FAs will be devastated for a generation, but the next generation will have no FAs because kids will grow up never having seen a fat person.
Is this a vision of the future that will happen? If not, how do we stop what seems to be an unstoppable trend?
Yours depressingly,
Matt
