Just so beautifully said. The immorality of discrimination and fatphobia is a totally separate issue from the relationship between body size and health. (And the relationship between body size and health is quite complex and poorly understood -- and maybe irrelevant!)
I really appreciate your language of philosophy to think about these issues! Keep on fighting the good fight.
even my left-leaning hot takes are drenched in fatphobia. thank you for continuing to enlighten me, and providing great language to combat the “common” counterarguments.
Thank you for an interesting and thought-provoking article. A thought that crossed my mind while seeing the stats about obesity prevalence being considerably lower among wealthy white women is that they are also the ones who can most likely afford to make themselves smaller through elective procedures like liposuction or gastric bypass surgery, or through $1,000/month weight loss drugs. Also more likely to have the time and money for an expensive health club. That was more a data curiosity than anything; it doesn't take away from your points that the relationship between weight and health is poorly understood and that access to foods we want to eat is a basic human right.
So appreciate your work and approach to the work of shining light on so many biases that have become entrenched and ignored. Cheers to all you are doing!
I don't have time to dig for the source now, but I follow this Swedish physiotherapist who reports on lots of physiological research. He said, on this topic, that although Swedish data shows that low-income people are fatter than high-income people, all social classes have had the same TREND of people getting fatter over time. So present-day high-income people are slimmer than present-day low-income people, but still heavier on average than high-income people of the past.
This data also fits badly with the idea that there's some simple causation at work, where poverty causes you to go fat and wealth causes you to remain thin. Because income gaps in Sweden have increased drastically during the last decades, so if that simple causal mechanism were at work, you'd expect, if anything, those in the high-income bracket to go SLIMMER while poor people go fatter.
As a fat woman in academia I so appreciate you working on this topic. I once took a class and the professor had us watch a lecture claiming that fat people are less intelligent. Remember the faculty member who advertises for RA’s and included “no fat ppl?” I notice that women faculty tend to be quite thin and athletic, conforming to social expectations that discipline means success. Fortunately, I’ve been trained in feminist studies and read in FatStudies quite regularly. These fields always remind me there is a place for me in academia.
I love your work. Every time I read it I learn something new and you have such a carefully researched, balanced perspective despite how some of the difficult topics you discuss have affected you personally.
I find myself reexamining my own behaviour and beliefs and I truly value the prompt to do so. I’ll be buying your book, thank you. 🙏
Ah the Harvard bookstore! Love and miss that place. I lived right on Plympton St for some of my time there. I hope there’s another virtual option soon as I can’t get to NY or DC on these dates. Keep us posted!
While I agree that UPFs are a nebulous and perhaps even silly categorization, the study you linked involves selecting pictures, not quantifying how eating UPFs changes food behavior. For any number of reasons (inclination to please researchers by giving the "right" or "healthy" answers, misperception of one's own behaviors when presented with the food, etc.) this does not seem like an effective way to measure the true appeal of the food. From what I have read, the idea is that UPFs and hyperpalatable foods alter our satiety signals in a way that un- or minimally-processed foods do not. To be clear I am not making a moral, ethical, or even health statement about UPFs, just noting that I do not feel we can outright state that they are not more appealing than less-processed foods.
Another great post. I watched a 1950 movie called Three Husbands and one of the wives after being caught with a box of chocolates went into a rant over why she can’t enjoy her food and be the ‘wife who he can be seen with’ - her words were empowering and the setting one in which is just as bad today.
Just so beautifully said. The immorality of discrimination and fatphobia is a totally separate issue from the relationship between body size and health. (And the relationship between body size and health is quite complex and poorly understood -- and maybe irrelevant!)
I really appreciate your language of philosophy to think about these issues! Keep on fighting the good fight.
even my left-leaning hot takes are drenched in fatphobia. thank you for continuing to enlighten me, and providing great language to combat the “common” counterarguments.
Thank you for an interesting and thought-provoking article. A thought that crossed my mind while seeing the stats about obesity prevalence being considerably lower among wealthy white women is that they are also the ones who can most likely afford to make themselves smaller through elective procedures like liposuction or gastric bypass surgery, or through $1,000/month weight loss drugs. Also more likely to have the time and money for an expensive health club. That was more a data curiosity than anything; it doesn't take away from your points that the relationship between weight and health is poorly understood and that access to foods we want to eat is a basic human right.
Reading (slowly) in Melbourne Australia & cheering you on along with occasional rage crying. Great book, highly recommend.
So appreciate your work and approach to the work of shining light on so many biases that have become entrenched and ignored. Cheers to all you are doing!
I don't have time to dig for the source now, but I follow this Swedish physiotherapist who reports on lots of physiological research. He said, on this topic, that although Swedish data shows that low-income people are fatter than high-income people, all social classes have had the same TREND of people getting fatter over time. So present-day high-income people are slimmer than present-day low-income people, but still heavier on average than high-income people of the past.
This data also fits badly with the idea that there's some simple causation at work, where poverty causes you to go fat and wealth causes you to remain thin. Because income gaps in Sweden have increased drastically during the last decades, so if that simple causal mechanism were at work, you'd expect, if anything, those in the high-income bracket to go SLIMMER while poor people go fatter.
As a fat woman in academia I so appreciate you working on this topic. I once took a class and the professor had us watch a lecture claiming that fat people are less intelligent. Remember the faculty member who advertises for RA’s and included “no fat ppl?” I notice that women faculty tend to be quite thin and athletic, conforming to social expectations that discipline means success. Fortunately, I’ve been trained in feminist studies and read in FatStudies quite regularly. These fields always remind me there is a place for me in academia.
It took several days but my review on Amazon is live now. Five stars! (I’m from DC but sadly out of town this weekend.)
I love your work. Every time I read it I learn something new and you have such a carefully researched, balanced perspective despite how some of the difficult topics you discuss have affected you personally.
I find myself reexamining my own behaviour and beliefs and I truly value the prompt to do so. I’ll be buying your book, thank you. 🙏
Ah the Harvard bookstore! Love and miss that place. I lived right on Plympton St for some of my time there. I hope there’s another virtual option soon as I can’t get to NY or DC on these dates. Keep us posted!
While I agree that UPFs are a nebulous and perhaps even silly categorization, the study you linked involves selecting pictures, not quantifying how eating UPFs changes food behavior. For any number of reasons (inclination to please researchers by giving the "right" or "healthy" answers, misperception of one's own behaviors when presented with the food, etc.) this does not seem like an effective way to measure the true appeal of the food. From what I have read, the idea is that UPFs and hyperpalatable foods alter our satiety signals in a way that un- or minimally-processed foods do not. To be clear I am not making a moral, ethical, or even health statement about UPFs, just noting that I do not feel we can outright state that they are not more appealing than less-processed foods.
Another great post. I watched a 1950 movie called Three Husbands and one of the wives after being caught with a box of chocolates went into a rant over why she can’t enjoy her food and be the ‘wife who he can be seen with’ - her words were empowering and the setting one in which is just as bad today.
I’m so sad to just find out that you were in DC and I missed it! But went and left a 5 star Amazon review :)