Fatphobia?

[Tea Earl Grey Hot]

If people could choose their skin color, would that make racism justifiable? The special pleading used make fatphobia acceptable is pathetic.

Couldn't disagree more.

Skin color is an immutable trait. Thus judgment on it is considered wrong as there is nothing that can be done about it.

On the other extreme,embracing a political ideology is a concious knowing decision and thus can be judged.

Being fat, except in the very few cases of genetic predisposition, is more akin to bad habits and addiction.

Now, can you judge addicts like political ideologies can be judged or not judge at all like skin color?

I warrant it is in between, and thus can be judged.

The degree to which you can judge has to be determined however.

You're missing my point. I'm not saying you can't judge a person for being fat. I'm saying you shouldn't make assumptions about a person's values or intelligence and the way they should be treated on body size alone. Skin color does not 100 percent correlate with personal values, intelligence, skills, tastes etc. The reason why racism is wrong is because racists rather naively assume that all these attributes are deducible from skin color and they treat a person accordingly despite evidence to the contrary that clearly shows the person does not have those attributes. This is unfair because you wouldn't want to be treated for being something you're not. It's the same way with body weight. Yeah, the individual didn't necessarily have to be fat. Perhaps you could call it a "choice" (I think this is a rather poor use of the word but whatever). That's still irrelevant because it does not change the unfair nature of deducing a person by how much they weigh which is just another type of illogical deduction via appearance akin to racism. Is it fair to say that a person must be dumb because they are fat? No. Look at Neil DeGrasse Tyson or Christopher Hitchens for instance. Is it fair to say that a person must be lazy because they are fat? No. Look at Bach and Handel who wrote thousands of pieces of music with mindboggling tight deadlines. Would it be ok make a fat person feel like a piece of shit because they're fat? No. Not all fat people are pieces of shit.

Basically what you have with racism and fatphobia is (1) the false assumption that personal appearance is a reliable indicator of a person's nature and (2) the degeneration of that person for being something they're not. "Choice" doesn't make this act any less bad.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

The only fear I have regarding fat people is that they may beat me up and take my food.

Boru

[Cato]

Excuse me while I finish dinner with a wafer thin mint...

Seriously, I recently read an article from The Atlantic that discussed the link between obesity and poverty.

Equally murky (the article had just discussed BMI calculations) is whether being poor leads to obesity. Cawley's own research didn't quite find causality (there is "little evidence that income affects weight," he writes).

Still, there is copious evidence around the world that obesity is a peculiar condition for poor people in rich countries. Less-developed countries have lower obesity, but in richer countries, there tends to be an inverse relationship between waistlines and bank accounts.

I recently moved to NYC and noticed that there are far fewer large people here than there are in the South. The difference is striking enough that it was one my wife's first observations. There are plenty of poor people here so the relative thinness might have more to do with the fact that most everybody in the city walks significantly more. The cost of food may also contribute.

[Rahul]

I recently moved to NYC and noticed that there are far fewer large people here than there are in the South. The difference is striking enough that it was one my wife's first observations. There are plenty of poor people here so the relative thinness might have more to do with the fact that most everybody in the city walks significantly more. The cost of food may also contribute.

You know I've thought about how much people walk in the country compared to cities like NYC. I grew up in a tiny village in the South. If you had a car, you didn't walk all that much because everything was far apart with nothing inbetween. There was no walking a few blocks (whatever a block would be in a tiny town) to a bus or subway station, you just drove to the store or whatever.

People in NYC definitely walk a heck of a lot more than most everyone ever did in my little town.