![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Fat-tastic
Oct. 29th, 2009 02:02 pmDear BBC,
Do you know what, this might be the first time I've read an article about fat people on your website that hasn't made me spittingly angry. You present some actual fat lived experience, including a hint in the direction of Health at Every Size, and you do seem to talk about us as if we're human beings, rather than a statistical drain on the NHS.
However, it really isn't that big a step to realise that your own coverage of "the obesity epidemic" has lead to some of the hate your article talks about, now is it? Or, indeed, to mention the nonsense of BMI rather than to quote scare-statistics about how fat we'll all be if "no action is taken". It does somewhat implicitly undermine your point about equality and identity-politics.
And really, really, did you need to ask: "Can people control their dislike of fat people?", and talk about psychological studies like finding me disgusting is somehow innate rather than learned? (Anthropological citations available upon request.)
I was surprised by not hating Susie Orbach (author of Fat is a Feminist Issue AKA "How to diet more effectively through pseudo-feminist psychoanalysis") in this article at all. In fact I agreed with everything she was quoted as saying. Her main point, for those of you with short attention spans: I, as a fat person, am the ultimate bogeyman. Don't be naughty or you might turn into me! There's nothing worse!
Do you know what, this might be the first time I've read an article about fat people on your website that hasn't made me spittingly angry. You present some actual fat lived experience, including a hint in the direction of Health at Every Size, and you do seem to talk about us as if we're human beings, rather than a statistical drain on the NHS.
However, it really isn't that big a step to realise that your own coverage of "the obesity epidemic" has lead to some of the hate your article talks about, now is it? Or, indeed, to mention the nonsense of BMI rather than to quote scare-statistics about how fat we'll all be if "no action is taken". It does somewhat implicitly undermine your point about equality and identity-politics.
And really, really, did you need to ask: "Can people control their dislike of fat people?", and talk about psychological studies like finding me disgusting is somehow innate rather than learned? (Anthropological citations available upon request.)
I was surprised by not hating Susie Orbach (author of Fat is a Feminist Issue AKA "How to diet more effectively through pseudo-feminist psychoanalysis") in this article at all. In fact I agreed with everything she was quoted as saying. Her main point, for those of you with short attention spans: I, as a fat person, am the ultimate bogeyman. Don't be naughty or you might turn into me! There's nothing worse!