The social politics of shaming fat kids

[futurebird.livejournal.com]

Here's what the state of Georgia is doing to "fight obesity" putting up ad like this one.:



In media commentators ask "Are these ads unfair?" as if that were a question worthy of civil debate. My response follows:

This ad is horrible, degrading, classiest racist, self-congratulatory, elitist clap trap that won't do a goddamned thing to make a single kid healthier. It will, however, boost the self-confidence of yuppie parents with "acceptably sized" kids and enough money to buy organic groceries and send their kids to schools that still have functioning athletic departments and physical education classes. It is something else for them to feel superior about. Yeah, at least their little rugrat isn't fat, not like THOSE kids from the ghetto or from the trailer park who's parents just don't care or love their children the way that they do!

Such bullshit.

The problem is not obesity, but rather unhealthy food, and a lack of exercise-- these things are often the direct result of poor living conditions. This type of ad encourages us to look at the issue with blinders on. Many skinny-looking people have poor diets and don't work out, yet they are presumed to be in good health-- while someone like me, who has always exercised and eaten with great care --gets teased or told by doctors that I need to lose weight. For many their concepts of health are conflated with vanity and a Eurocentric, narrow concept of what is beautiful. What is beautiful after all is what is healthy we are told. But, if notions of beauty are distorted (and we know they are) then notions of health can also become distorted.

There are differences in the way people are built--- Yes, bones aren't big, (that makes no sense) but some people *are* more muscular, more shapely, or more petite. You cannot tell where a person started what they are doing or where they are going by looking at the outside only! You might see a chubby kid, and think he's in terrible shape but, for all you know, he has already worked hard to loose a lot of weight because he used to weigh even more.

I have a friend who is a bit overweight by the charts. He was born with a thyroid problem, from the time he was 3 years old his mother and father worked VERY hard to protect him from bad foods. There were times when I would get 2nds and he would get none, the poor kid was so hungry too. He never even got to have cake on his birthday. All of this hard work has paid off, and he is at a very good weight for his body type and height, he's active. He's going to college now playing sports and just an awesome guy. But, doctors, "friends" and people who don't know better still chide him -- none of these people, I bet, could have the self-control that he has for even a day! It really pisses me off.

There are ethnic differences too in the way people are built, depending on the combination of tribes that form our ancestry. Obesity is a convenient scapegoat that is used to mask problems such as environmental racism -- problems that are leading to vast differences in life expectancy that depend on race and class. But, by identifying obesity as the "cause" (when it is often more matter of correlation in some cases, such as cancer) it makes it easier to hide inequality and turn it in to some bootstrapping BS about "self responsibility."

The *entire nation* is gaining weight, even the rich, it's a population-wide trend. Such a trend cannot be only the result of personal failings. Are some parents lazy about making good food for their kids, or to quick to give them junk? Yes! Are there people who are lazy and who use excuses like "I have big bones" to hide the fact that their weight is a real problem? Yes!

But, when a whole nation starts gaining, as we have, and when the worst cases are concentrated in the most vulnerable populations: the poor, women,* blacks and Latinos -- it ought to raise some red flags.

Sadly, it's all too easy to go right on shitting on the people who always get shitted on and say what amounts to "Oh those lazy ignorant people how will we *ever* ~educate~ them!" --food education is very nice, but it can't explain or 'cure' what's happening. Education is not a solution on its own. Yet from some it is the only one we ever hear of "Just tell them to eat right!" -- because it costs nothing a requires the least effort.

So, what is happening?

To put it simply: we have subsidized foods that leads to weight gain and they are the inexpensive foods poor people turn to. Long working hours, bad urban planning neighborhoods where it is not safe to play outside, too few parks, too much traffic, too many cars, high asthma rates from pollution, under-funded schools, and TV, video games and internet being cheaper than ever lead to sedentary leisure time. Jobs in the service sector are mostly sedentary. So life is sedentary, and this is becoming more true for the poor than the rich for the first time in history. Beyond that, mental health among these populations has little support beyond the church. Eating disorders can lead to obesity as well, but the "tough love" philosophy stand in the way of healing mental and emotional scars.

But the bottom line is that obesity is a symptom of life factors that are far worse than obesity, it is symptom of poverty, oppression and marginalization. So it just makes more sense to fight the poverty, fight the oppression, fight the educational inequality and other root causes than worry about if someone's kid is fat in this very public degrading unhelpful way.

A better approach would be to offer a program that parents could sign up for to get help with ideas for helping their child loose weight. Something POSITIVE that won't just cause people to become defensive and shut down... and something that didn't blindside every singe bigger-than-average child regardless of their history health and background with food and exercise as if they are all little lazy good-for nothings. Another program that works is the 2-for-1 value of EBT cards at green markets, directly reducing the cost of produce... but that's only in NYC, and the green markets are only open during the day once a week so it is hard for working people to go... but still it's a step in the right direction. I also think a sugared drink tax where they money goes either to health-care or to methods to lower the cost of fresh vegetables and fruits is a good idea. I really like the ads we have in NYC that show how much fat you can gain from sugared drinks, and the calories labels in fast food joints. All good stuff.

But this ad? Burn it down. It's the biggest piece of BS I've ever seen.

Comments

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

Oh sure, next you're going to tell me that people hating themselves doesn't make people want to take care of and improve themselves.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

I'm a skinny mofo. I smoke, eat like crap and quit exercising years ago.

This is because I'm a better person than other people. I can't help it. I was just gifted by God, and I should not reject such divine favor. Perhaps others could try to be like me, but of course they'd have to "work" at it, forever condemning them as impostors and wannabes. My superior metabolism and lack of digestive uptake are marks of a new evolution, I tell you.

[spaz-own-joo.livejournal.com]

oh my god
i just realized
METABOLISM IS EXACTLY THE SAME AS ECONOMIC PRODUCTIVITY AND THIS IS WHY THE POOR ARE LAZY

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

It's true. I have a friend who eats a pound and a half of cheese-filled pasta at a sitting, and is still a 26" waist. Confirming your theory, he also has a halo in his closet.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Me too, although I don't smoke, and I never started exercising.

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

Lj-cut?

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

Lj cut please.

[pastorlenny.livejournal.com]

The church supports mental health??? I thought we just soaked the poor with false promises of pie carrot sticks in the sky when you die!

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Whether it's false or not, it reduces anxiety about the future, so obviously it supports mental health.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

This ad is horrible, degrading, classiest racist, self-congratulatory, elitist clap trap that won't do a goddamned thing to make a single kid healthier.

Why racist?

Other than that, I generally agree with you, except for the second to last paragraph, of course. :)

[spaz-own-joo.livejournal.com]

Racism and classism are hard to unravel from each other in America because the economic and demographic landscape is laid out the way it is. In both cases, members of the marginalized group are picked on disproportionately by the advertising because those members are disproportionately affected by the conditions which give rise to unhealthy weight gain. I don't see anything in these ads calling out poor people or PoC by name, but as we all know, -isms in intent and -isms in effect are two different things.

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

This is one of the most important posts I have ever seen.

[thedinglestarry.livejournal.com]

I know right? I was like *omfg I can't breathe* by the end of it. In a good way. Futurebird's usually excellent but this one was a stunner.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

The ad sucks, I agree. Burn It Down.

we have subsidized foods that leads to weight gain and they are the inexpensive foods poor people turn to.

I try to buy from local organic farms (its easier when you live in California) exactly for that reason. I guess I feel good about it in the sense that I am voting with my dollar. I don't feel superior though.

Hell, enriched white flour products nearly took me out of the genepool via a severe early onset diverticulis. Not superior at all.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

The problem is not obesity, but rather unhealthy food, and a lack of exercise-- these things are often the direct result of poor living conditions.

I'm hoping that I haven't missed the subtext of our "war on obesity" up to this point.

The problem is not these things, but rather how we face it. We assume "overweight" = "bad," we shun and shame those who are of even average weight (the true reason these ads are bad), and it may just be that we're supposed to naturally be heavier than what is considered "average" weight. We now live in an era in the first world where food is cheap and abundant - we now can eat to what we can as opposed to limit it to what we must - perhaps we've been emaciated all this time.

But the bottom line is that obesity is a symptom of life factors that are far worse than obesity, it is symptom of poverty, oppression and marginalization. So it just makes more sense to fight the poverty, fight the oppression, fight the educational inequality and other root causes than worry about if someone's kid is fat in this very public degrading unhelpful way.

Sigh. Obesity, if anything, is a symptom of how far we've come, not how far we need to go. "Fight the poverty," however that must be, and people will get fatter. We oppress the fat now, and our nation still gets larger even when the "ideal" gets smaller and smaller.

Want to talk root causes? Let's actually identify them first. Let's not sit back and assume that anything we can identify as a problem is a problem due to race of class.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

We now live in an era in the first world where food is cheap and abundant - we now can eat to what we can as opposed to limit it to what we must - perhaps we've been emaciated all this time.

Our evolution lags our current environmental conditions. We've evolved to cope, even thrive, with scarcity and because of that we're not well equipped to handle abundance mentally or physically for a wide variety of evolutionary reasons.

Alas, once again I find myself wishing that Mencken were still with us

[montecristo.livejournal.com]

"What the common man longs for in this world, before and above all his other longings, is the simplest and most ignominious sort of peace — the peace of a trustee in a well-managed penitentiary. He is willing to sacrifice everything else to it. He puts it above his dignity and he puts it above his pride. Above all, he puts it above his liberty. The Fact, perhaps, explains his veneration for policemen, in all the forms they take — his belief that there is a mysterious sanctity in law, however absurd it may be in fact. A policeman is a charlatan who offers, in return for obedience, to protect him (a) from his superiors, (b) from his equals, and (c) from himself. This last service, under democracy, is commonly the most esteemed of them all. In the United States, at least theoretically, it is the only thing that keeps ice-wagon drivers, Y.M.C.A. secretaries, insurance collectors, and other such human camels from smoking opium, ruining themselves in the night clubs, and going to Palm Beach with Follies girls. It is a democratic invention. Here, though the common man is deceived, he starts from a sound premise: to wit, that liberty, is something too hot for his hands — or, as Nietzsche put it, too cold for his spine."

— H. L. Mencken

[speciesofspaces.livejournal.com]

I'm not particularly offended by the ad. I read it as targeted to parents who feed their kids trash, parents whose feelings I'm not interested in sparing as I understand the science is clear that long-term harm is coming to their children as a result of their diet and other choices the parents are making for the children.

But yea, total agreement on many other things in the original post, esp poverty and the factors behind it. I tend to think of access to nutritious and safe food as a human right in the developed world. Society is failing those kids.

[mrbogey.livejournal.com]

I've always been against the gov't sponsoring nags to push behavior.

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

"A better approach would be to offer a program that parents could sign up for to get help with ideas for helping their child loose weight. Something POSITIVE that won't just cause people to become defensive and shut down... and something that didn't blindside every singe bigger-than-average child regardless of their history health and background with food and exercise as if they are all little lazy good-for nothings. Another program that works is the 2-for-1 value of EBT cards at green markets, directly reducing the cost of produce... but that's only in NYC, and the green markets are only open during the day once a week so it is hard for working people to go... but still it's a step in the right direction. I also think a sugared drink tax where they money goes either to health-care or to methods to lower the cost of fresh vegetables and fruits is a good idea. I really like the ads we have in NYC that show how much fat you can gain from sugared drinks, and the calories labels in fast food joints. All good stuff."

How about we just eliminate the subsidies making the bad stuff cheaper, and let the same forces which enabled that kind of diet (as you pointed out) re-align to move the diet back?

Rather than implementing a series of complicated programs and counter-incentives, just remove the meddling that helped bring it about.

I'll tell you something I've noticed from an engineering perspective. Generally speaking, the more moving parts a machine has the more consternation it usually brings about. We have two grass trimmers. One gas, one electric. Guess which is a greater pain in the ass to accomplish the same task?

Simplify, simplify, simplify.

My 2 cents.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Exactly.

[mikeyxw.livejournal.com]

"obesity is a symptom of life factors that are far worse than obesity, it is symptom of poverty, oppression and marginalization."

So we should expect that the increase in obesity over the last 50 years would be caused by an increase in poverty, oppression, and marginalization over the last 50 years? This doesn't really add up. Sure, there is poverty and racism today, but we have improved.

What has really changed over the last 50 years is our diets. We never had so much packaged food, sugar, and flour as we do now. Also, vegetables in the US are pretty much tasteless, I can see why nobody eats them.

What bugs me about this add is that it's probably not going to be effective. It communicates that obesity is bad for your health, just in case someone was unaware of this. I guess they didn't have the budget to do something effective.

[dierdrae.livejournal.com]

Just some NYC-centric notes:

1. There are plenty of multiple-times-per-week greenmarkets. The one on Union Square, accessible by multiple subway lines, is four days a week, including [I think] Saturday.

2. Look up CookShop Classroom, run by the NYC Foodbank. I was a classroom volunteer with the program in 2009, with Brooklyn 2nd graders. We go into individual classrooms [kindergarten to 2nd grade] once a week for a full semester and help the teachers teach children about healthy foods [one main vegetable a week, its biology and a letter from farmers who grow it], and then prepare simple meals with them and give them the recipes to take home. The kids, by and large, loved it- and it was great to see their surprise when they ended up liking the food, too. Lots of gross-faces and crinkled noses turning into skeptical 'yums' and stealing of leftovers.

[mrsilence.livejournal.com]

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with the major thrust of your post, but I do have a point to pick.

You said that obesity is a population-wide trend, even for the rich. Because of this, you conclude that it can't be only the result of personal failings. (I assume the implication is because the rich presumably don't "fail")

But then you said that obesity is a symptom of poverty, oppression and marginalization.

How do you reconcile these two statements?

I don't doubt that it is a symptom of poverty, but the rich can't blame poverty oppression and marginalisation. The conclusion I would tend to drawn is that the wealthy therefore DO tend to gain weight because of "failure" - i.e. some inability to control their caloric intake/expediture.

Or would you put this down to some other common factor that affects the wealthy (not necessarily exclusively) and causes them to become obese?

[root-fu.livejournal.com]

Its long been said cigarette manufacturers engineer their products to be ideally addictive with the intent to bolster profits.

Why wouldn't food processors engineer their products to be ideally fattening for the same reasons? Obese people eat more, they consume more food. Consuming more food results in higher profits.

[spaz-own-joo.livejournal.com]

This is just the naturally optimizing nature of the Free Market! That's why things are so efficient!

[sealwhiskers.livejournal.com]

Some comments had issues with you naming both the rich and the poor being affected by obesity, and it being a nation wide tendency, and reconciling this with your statement of class. I'll just start with addressing that:

If we divide the reasons behind the symptom of obesity into two large groups, they would be:

1. Poverty

2. Ingredients

Obesity is an easy symptom of low income because the types of food that are the cheapest and the fastest, in this exact combination, are also infused with vast amounts of fat and/or sugar. These studies are easy to find or make and I've made them myself, during my first years in the US, when I was still weight watching. It was an eye opener to compare prices and ingredients in foods that didn't take much cooking.

So an important fact to remember when talking about class and obesity is swiftness. Foods that only take a few minutes in the micro, or ready made fast foods are options favored by low income people with 2-3 jobs. And while places like Whole Foods and the like, actually have some relatively healthy instant food, these places and their prices are completely out of low income people's budget range. In many cases cooking your own is something that could be done, but not without various amounts of more effort, (which can be hard when you already work to the point of rarely spending time with your family anyway), and in many cases also education.
I know people with several jobs, and this is exactly the case for them. The older kids often have to prepare food for the younger ones, because mom only comes home for 1.5 hours before night, between the jobs.
And even in affordable daycare systems, kids get a lot of instant food, which, while being nutritious enough, also is high on fat, fructose syrup and other problematic ingredients.

Which leads us to

2. Ingredients. A study of what instant or next-to instant foods contain, correlated to prices, will clearly show the overwhelming problem that the food industry presents. The reason for why not only poor people with little time are affected by obesity is two fold:

a) Certain hard working groups that are wealthy also have little time, and while they can have the means to cook food with healthier ingredients, or to go to a healthy and more pricey restaurant, they still make the choice to not do so. Only if they are wealthy enough to have a personal chef which is also a life coach of sorts, is there a way out if this for them, unless they make some form of personal choice to give up something else in the form of time.

b) Flavor. The reason why some people who aren't poor are obese is because fast foods or near instant foods are fairly addictive in their combinations of fat, carbs and sugars. It simply often feels good and taste good to eat them, and soon you get so used to these kinds of foods, that other foods aren't exciting.

An example: I searched for years in the US for a type of ham that tasted "as good" as the one I used to have on my sandwich in Sweden. The US ham slices looked gorgeous to me, but tasted like shit. My husband, who's a vegetarian couldn't much help me in this endeavor. Finally I found an organic (and fairly pricey) brand at Whole Foods, where a few slices cost $4.5 or so. You might consider me dense when I was surprised that what distinguished this ham from other hams was the lack of additives and sugar, and less salt. When I discussed this with my husband, he told me that before his vegetarian days, he used to love ham, and the type of ham he grew up with was the opposite to "my ham", and many people would maybe not even like this type of "cleaner" ham, because of the flavors they were used to, culturally.

Food is infused with fat, sugar and additives, and the food that isn't is mostly either more expensive or takes longer to cook, or both. There are ways of navigating around this, even with a lower income, but it takes time, some skill and some knowledge.

This was a good post futurebird, I chose to focus on income and ingredients, but that doesn't mean that I don't acknowledge other factors, such as race, genetics, exercise and special circumstances.

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

This was a good post and this was a good comment.

I can't add a single word to make them better.

[dreadfulpenny81.livejournal.com]

But this ad? Burn it down. It's the biggest piece of BS I've ever seen.

Couldn't agree more.

To put it simply: we have subsidized foods that leads to weight gain and they are the inexpensive foods poor people turn to.

Look at the food pyramid. The majority of what they recommend is carbohydrates (starches). Three of the main "foods" traded on the commodity market are grain, soybeans, and corn. The USDA recommendations aren't about making people healthy, it's about more money.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Also, the FDA food pyramid matches what you give to livestock in order to fatten them up for market.

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

Excellent post and I couldn't agree more.

You did however overlook one factor for which there is not an easy solution.


Advertising.

Parents want to make their kids happy, and no, I'm not just talking about parents who want to abdicate their responsibility to be the adult in favor of being their kids best friend. Every parent worth a damn who I have ever met has wanted their kids to be happy and when the kids are flooded with advertisments telling them how "fun" burger barn is or how "exciting" fatty cakes are and they start begging for them it becomes very difficult for the parent to say no as often as they should.

This is even more true for the poor. They can't afford to get their kids much but at least they can take them to McDonalds and get them a happy meal which even has the bonus of including a toy and it is about the only affordable "luxury" they can afford for their kid.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

So... should they, um... ban advertising unhealthy food to kids?

[sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com]

This ad is horrible, degrading, classiest racist, self-congratulatory, elitist clap trap that won't do a goddamned thing to make a single kid healthier. It will, however, boost the self-confidence of yuppie parents with "acceptably sized" kids and enough money to buy organic groceries and send their kids to schools that still have functioning athletic departments and physical education classes. It is something else for them to feel superior about. Yeah, at least their little rugrat isn't fat, not like THOSE kids from the ghetto or from the trailer park who's parents just don't care or love their children the way that they do!

This may all be true but ridicule and shame have always been an effective means of behavior modification.

[ccr1138.livejournal.com]

none of these people, I bet, could have the self-control that he has for even a day!

THIS. When thin people who've never struggled with this problem try to give me dieting advice (I've lost 50 pounds and I know what I'm doing, thanks), I always ask them, "Could YOU force yourself to eat a third of what you're eating now, suffering constant hunger, and exercise an extra hour per day, every day, without going mad?"

People who have never deprived themselves of food over a long period of time should just STFU.

Also, if you want to help obese people, work on purifying our food supply of hormones and chemicals. I am convinced that certain people are genetically prone to react badly to environmental toxins. We develop "Syndrome X," and no amount of diet and exercise staves it off for long.