bumsquash:

awkwardfoal: from Ojerholm and Rothblum’s “The Relationships of Body Image, Feminism and Sexual Orientation in College Women” (1999) Feminism and Psychology fatness is an avenue for everyone to assert Ayn Randian individuality tropes. The ‘obesity’ construct is advanced by those who are trusted like the priesthood used to be. All this has helped to fence fat people into a kind of Stockholm Syndrome.

I’d like to mention that the ‘personal responsibility’ one-liners tossed at fat people have little to do with actual Objectivism/reason/rationality. Body size is unearned – Rand herself would agree that it’s irrational to promote unearned advantages (and she does in her essays, though not regarding fatness in particular). However, body size is wrongly perceived as earned. That’s the difference, and what makes so-called individualists decry fat people for being lazy/irresponsible/etc.

I’m not arguing for individualists who misapply their philosophy – they’re in error, and a dangerous error that hurts other people, at that – I’m just saying that if we’re going to dip into philosophy let’s make sure we know we’re properly defining particular viewpoints.

On the subject of the quote, I think the reason fatness doesn’t have a strong political/activist presence is because the propaganda framing thinness as earned and the symbol of a superior person and fatness as behavioral and the symbol of an inferior person is too pervasive and has way too many big players pushing 1) press releases about how obesity = overeating = e.g. being addicted to Oreos despite the study not conclusively showing that at all, 2) sin taxes as a way to raise revenue, 3) diet plans as both Fountain of Youth for our aging Western societies and prescription for all that ails you, brought to you by your weight-loss-drug subsidized doctor who’s also a member of a committee that determines where public health grant money goes, 4) a way to charge some populations more money for health insurance…. the list goes on.

We can talk further about the social dynamics underlying the propaganda-push against fat people – I think in this case history, economic structures, and demographics play crucial roles. The emergence of Healthism has been on the back of the aging Baby Boomer generation, who are naturally beginning to contract the diseases associated with aging (heart disease, adult diabetes, arthritis, dementia, cancers), the same diseases being desperately correlated to obesity in the conclusion of articles in every issue of every major and minor medical journal, whether or not that correlation is scientifically rigorous or is a product of biased statistics or worse. There’s also the climate change panic, which is being tied to 'overconsumption,’ and thus loosely tied into stereotypes over fat people…you get the idea. The economics tie is more complex, and I’ll get into that in the future, but it’s related to the vast and increasing debt and obligations of governments, IMHO.

-ATL (a proud rationalist)

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