The number of adults and children who are obese is rising drastically every year. Some believe that discrimination due to obesity needs to stop entirely. Others believe that the discrimination of the obese is mainly directed towards women, and solutions need to be found. It’s clear that there are several different opinions on the subject matter and many men, women, boys, and girls are effected on a daily basis. Research today is informing us of these issues and prompting us to find adequate solutions.
Many people struggle daily with being discriminated against because of their weight. Researchers have found information about obesity and the effects it has on people of all ages. Obesity usually runs in the family and begins at early ages. It
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Although it is apparent that more than just women are affected, women are most often the victims of discrimination. Women who are seen as “good looking” are often given advantages over women who are thought to not have certain qualities. Through the years the term “pretty” has defined many different body types. For example in the 1700s and 1800s women were considered beautiful if they were full figured. In contrast, the idea of “ultra thin” being the desired look was brought to us in the 1960s. After the 1960s the term “thin” never went away. As more women felt the need to be thin, “eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia became increasingly common”(Krammer, Sprague). Statistics show that 30% of the adults in America are obese, and this shocking numbers is only growing. The term “good looking” today is defined by what is seen in magazines, movies, and and on social media. Models also set an image that isn’t necessarily healthy because it was found that “in magazines that feature ultra-slim models (some critics have suggested these models are virtually anorexic) the models are highly likely to have a BMI well below “normal” levels”(Krammer, Sprague). Women are unhealthy due to being too skinny and overweight. This is because women are constantly ridiculed and discriminated against because of their weight. Women are discriminated against more than men because of society's definition of
Women are told that in order to get anywhere in life they must constantly worry about their outer appearance. In Jennifer Weiner’s article, “When Can Women Stop Trying to Look Perfect?” she delves deeply into how today’s society women’s worth is based on how they look. Weiner believes that women who do not meet the standards of beauty do not have as many opportunities.
From Twiggy to Kate Moss, the fashion industry has been attached to idealizing extreme slenderness, encouraging real women to hate their bodies and at extreme, develop anorexia or bulimia. If these models are exemplars of ideal beauty, then the measure for women is that to be beautiful, starvation level is required. It appears that the media and the fashion industry would have the public believe that ultra thinness symbolizes beauty when in reality, the standard represents infertility, and premature death. The public has to realize that Twiggy is different.
Obesity is a huge problem that needs to be resolved because it affects all people, unlike most issues. People of every gender, every age, and every race are at risk of being obese. Obesity rates in America have nearly doubled within the last twenty years. Something must be done not only to prevent obesity rates continuous rising, but also to dramatically increase the percentage of obese people in America altogether.
Interest in the social aspects of obesity is nothing new. Jeffrey Sobal has written extensively about the social and psychological consequences of obesity , including the stigmatisation and discrimination of obese and even overweight individuals (Sobal 2004).
In order to take a sociological viewpoint into account when one examines obesity, first it is important to understand how obesity is recognized in current society. According to today’s news articles and magazines and advertisements and other mass media about health and healthy life, one can easily realize that a great number of people have an eagerness to be healthy. Also, one can assume through these mass media about health that everyone wants to be attractive, and they are even prone to transform their own behaviors to gain attractiveness. This is because most people live a life where social interaction is frequently required and must engage themselves into social interaction every day of their life. Therefore, based on these ideas and proofs throughout this mass media, obesity is regarded as one of the characteristics that is disgraceful and undesirable in society.
The media can impact people’s lives in many ways, whether it’s fashion, movies, literature, or hobbies. One of the impacts is how women view their bodies. Movie stars and models feel pressured to catch attention and to look good in order to have a good career in their respective field. People tend to judge how someone looks based on their body composition. The result of this “judgment” is that Hollywood is getting skinny. Since models and actresses serve as role models for people, people tend to want to look like them. The result of this seemingly harmless model of behavior is in an increase in eating disorders.
Obesity has increasingly become a significant public health concern in the United States. In the past four decades, the numbers of overweight children, adolescents, and adults has shot to high margins, and the rise cut cross all ages, races, and ethnicities for both males and females. A recent analysis by the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey found that 30% of the American adult aged over the ages of twenty, which is a representation of over 60 million adults, was obese. Still the same survey indicated 16% of those between the ages of 16years and 19 years, which is over 9 million children and teenagers, were obese. This has come with its share of repe...
Kasey Serdar (2005) argues that only a small number of women can actually fulfill the characteristics of what media defines beautiful. Yet, women are constantly being exposed to the ideal women image. Serdar (2005) illustrates that “models shown on television, advertisement, and in other forms of popular media are approximately 20% below ideal body weight, thus meeting the dia...
The most fashionable, sought after magazines in any local store are saturated with beautiful, thin women acting as a sexy ornament on the cover. Commercials on TV feature lean, tall women promoting unlimited things from new clothes to as simple as a toothbrush. The media presents an unrealistic body type for girls to look up to, not images we can relate to in everyday life. When walking around in the city, very few people look like the women in commercials, some thin, but nothing similar to the cat walk model. As often as we see these flawless images float across the TV screen or in magazines, it ...
Everywhere one looks today, one will notice that our culture places a very high value on women being thin. Many will argue that today’s fashion models have “filled out” compared to the times past; however the evidence of this is really hard to see. Our society admires men for what they accomplish and what they achieve. Women are usually evaluated by and accepted for how they look, regardless of what they do. A woman can be incredibly successful and still find that her beauty or lack of it will have more to do with her acceptance than what she is able to accomplish. “From the time they are tiny children, most females are taught that beauty is the supreme objective in life” (Claude-Pierre, p18). The peer pressure for girls in school to be skinny is often far greater than for boys to make a team. When it is spring, young girls begin thinking “How am I going to look in my bathing suit? I better take off a few more pounds.”
Formal Essay: Why Looks Are the Last Bastion of Discrimination “A typical cover model of a women's fashion magazine wears a size zero or two. However, seventy-two percent of American women wear a size twelve or above, a range of sizes that our company do not carry”, said Angelika Uy at a press conference held for 'Figure Perfect' (FP). Uy is the CEO and majority stocks holder of Figure Perfect, a clothing store that is exclusively for petite women, women who are shorter than the average. The company offers a variety of clothing styles, from casual to formal; all made with hypo-allergenic and plant-based fabric. Figure Perfect started out as an online store and opened up its first store in New York.
About 2.8 billion adults every year die of obesity (Diet). Rachel Epstein wrote the book “Eating Habits and Disorders” which talks about obesity being a disease. Obesity is a condition with extra body fat which often starts to form in childhood (Epstein 25). While obesity for some adults can be life-threatening (Epstein 25). It can also form psychosocial problems (Epstein 25). Being obese causes a risk in diabetes, heart disease, arthritis, kidney trouble and more (Epstein 25). Being obese during pregnancy can cause many problems for the mom, and for the baby (Epstein 25). Any of these things could cause many problems either in the future, or in the present (Epstein 25). The worse the eating habits, the harder it is to cure (Epstein 25). The government needs to do more about obesity because obesity rates are rising, many kids are being victims of obesity and they don’t even know it, also Medical Care is taking a big part with the growing obesity rates.
Wolf, Naomi. The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty are used against Women. New York: Harper Collins, 2002. Print.
Thesis Statement: (Should include your claims) Although many employers don’t mean to discriminate against their obese employees, it is still happening as their is a lack of awareness regarding this topic. Employers need to be more aware of how to help out their obese employees so they don’t discriminate against them. Raising awareness would be benificial because, by encouraging them into having a healthy lifestyle with incentives rather than feeling excluded. There should be more awareness that it is a big problem right now.
Obesity is a serious condition that has generated a discussion on whether or not to be classified as a disease. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), obesity is the body mass index (BMI) of 30 or higher, which is calculated based on the person’s height and weight. For years, our society has been facing the obesity challenge, which can be extremely costly once it leads to several diseases. Thus, because of the constant increase of percentage of people with obesity, the American Medical Association (AMA) proposed in June 18, 2013 to classify obesity as a disease. Their argument was that obesity increases the risks of countless health conditions such as type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, stroke, hypertension etc. Moreover, it increases morbidity and mortality. By considering obesity as a disease, their aim was to maximize researches and funding, which will focus on obesity from different medical and health approach levels. Their idea of classifying obesity as a disease was in accordance with the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute’s declaration of 1995. The institute declared, “ Obesity is a complex multifactorial chronic disease developing from multiple interactive influences of numerous factors.” In 2012, the CDC data showed 34.9% of adults obese and 17% of obese children. These numbers are very alarming especially since the struggle to deter certain factors contributing into this condition is still a challenge. Among the struggles, there are the people’s rights versus health regulations to keep them as healthy as possible like the former mayor Bloomberg regulation on soft drinks size cut. During CNN’s show GPS of Sunday 2, 2014, the host Zacharia...