Are you concerned yet? Because you should be. One of the main markers of the kind of moral panic that leads to violence and second-class citizenship (at best) is the characterization of a group of people as diseased for possessing a certain characteristic or set of characteristics. It’s called dehumanization. This has happened throughout history to many different groups, from the relatively mild “mods & rockers” moral panic, to far worse atrocities.

Don’t believe that fat people are being subject to rank dehumanization? Fat people are told to mutilate their healthy stomachs to become thin. When they do, far too many die or suffer terrible consequences demonstrably worse than any conditions correlated with fatness. Fat women are told they shouldn’t get pregnant, which is a shame-based form of social sterilization. Fat people are rarely portrayed positively in media, if they’re portrayed at all, a direct method of dehumanization.

And now, the AMA says fat people are diseased.

A terrific read on the cultural history of fatness, including the framework for it being a moral panic and how deep the roots of fat stigma go, is reviewed here.



-ATL

(edited for generality, because a definitional quote I’d used as a source was drawing a comparison I hadn’t intended to draw -ATL)