Saturday, December 09, 2006
Fat-Nazis
Ann Althouse (link via Instapundit) on the war against obesity:
I know this is true of me. My aesthetic preference leans toward "healthy" versus "skinny" (real women have curves!) but if I see someone who clearly weighs 300+ pounds lumbering down the hallway, sweating and (I've seen this) taking a break halfway from the lobby to the elevator, I am repulsed. Mean? Maybe, but I have the social grace not to comment on it. Not fake-quietly while the person is right there, not under my breath, not to my friend after they're out of sight. As the cheerleader said to the president of the chess club, I can't help how I feel inside.
But I know a lot of other people can't help letting such feelings leak into their politics. The movie Supersize Me wasn't made by a recovering three-Big Mac-a-day fatso who lives in stripmall suburbia, it was made by a physically fit vegetarian who lives in Manhattan. Similarly, the anti-smoking crowd seems to include former smokers mainly as poster children (and then only if they're dying of cancer)
Yes, I think these things are as least as much about someone's aesthetic sensibility as about any kind of concern for the supposed victims.
I simply do not believe that the so-called health side is really composed of people who are solicitous about everyone else's health. I can't prove it, but my intuition is that all the strength on the "health" side of this war comes not from people who really care whether other people are healthy, but from people who don't like having to see fat people. They are concerned about their own aesthetic pleasures, and they think fat is ugly.
I know this is true of me. My aesthetic preference leans toward "healthy" versus "skinny" (real women have curves!) but if I see someone who clearly weighs 300+ pounds lumbering down the hallway, sweating and (I've seen this) taking a break halfway from the lobby to the elevator, I am repulsed. Mean? Maybe, but I have the social grace not to comment on it. Not fake-quietly while the person is right there, not under my breath, not to my friend after they're out of sight. As the cheerleader said to the president of the chess club, I can't help how I feel inside.
But I know a lot of other people can't help letting such feelings leak into their politics. The movie Supersize Me wasn't made by a recovering three-Big Mac-a-day fatso who lives in stripmall suburbia, it was made by a physically fit vegetarian who lives in Manhattan. Similarly, the anti-smoking crowd seems to include former smokers mainly as poster children (and then only if they're dying of cancer)
Yes, I think these things are as least as much about someone's aesthetic sensibility as about any kind of concern for the supposed victims.
# posted by Stacy McMahon @ 1:01 PM 
Comments:
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I think this is a good point and it got me thinking. Anyways, I just posted about my aesthetic issue if you'd care to take a gander (http://cgeyer.blogspot.com/2006/12/germany-not-banning-smoking-in-public.html).
That's an interesting point.
Similarly, Christopher Reeves never cared about paralyzed people until HE was paralyzed, the selfish asshole!
However, I think trans fats are basically poison sold to us by the corporations.
While I am against the government regulating anyone's bodily activites -- they already are.
As long as they are, trans fats may as well be included too. And cigarettes and alcohol. And everything else. Until we're ALL criminals.
I think that's what needs to happen before the pendelum swings the other way (i.e. "freedom over your own body", something we do not currently enjoy).
But until it does, I hate looking at fat people too, so you wont hear me complaining about govt trans fats bans and such. :)
I like Courtney Cox.
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Similarly, Christopher Reeves never cared about paralyzed people until HE was paralyzed, the selfish asshole!
However, I think trans fats are basically poison sold to us by the corporations.
While I am against the government regulating anyone's bodily activites -- they already are.
As long as they are, trans fats may as well be included too. And cigarettes and alcohol. And everything else. Until we're ALL criminals.
I think that's what needs to happen before the pendelum swings the other way (i.e. "freedom over your own body", something we do not currently enjoy).
But until it does, I hate looking at fat people too, so you wont hear me complaining about govt trans fats bans and such. :)
I like Courtney Cox.
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