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Research in to media influence on weight management
Obesity the mass media
Obesity the mass media
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“You would really be pretty if you lose weight”, maybe this sounds polite and kind of innocent but the actual tone and deeper meanings are very discriminatory. The Discrimination At Large by Jennifer Coleman is an article where the author demonstrates the price for being obese. Overweight people are being criticized all the time by many people. Moreover, they are now a mockery since people just make fun of them for their amusement. The movie Shallow Hal also shows how if we change our general idea of outer beauty of a person, we could benefit from it. Obesity has been a serious dilemma for the people in America. The society seems to not change their perception about obese people. In addition, people who are usually afraid to say any kind of …show more content…
Moreover, no matter how much fat people try to lose weight, media and judgmental people will always be there to make obese people look worthless. On top of that, their strict exercise regimen does not seem to pay off because everything would match but weight. At one point, obese people give up and just accept the reality that they are obese and are allowed to be mocked.
“Things are less confusing now that I know the non-fats are superior to me, regardless of their personal habits, health, personalities, cholesterol levels or the time they log on the couch.”, stated by Jennifer Coleman in the passage Discrimination at large which shows that obese people seem to have a lack of self-esteem. I do not blame them for having a lack of confidence in themselves. They feel valueless because of
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However, one day Tony Robbins, understanding Hal’s situation, hypnotizes him into seeing people’s inner beauty and not their external selves. And after that incident, he fell in love with Rosemary, woman who appears to him to look beautiful due to her kind, generous nature, but is, in actuality, morbidly obese. This proved people should not be judged by their looks because every person is unique and everyone possesses special qualities. Furthermore, obese people aren’t always happy and they remain melancholic to feel normal and this can also be related to what Jennifer A. Coleman said in her article Discrimination at Large “Fat people aren’t jolly. Sometimes we act that way so you will leave us alone.” Everyone can be changed through consistency so there is no point in mocking a fat person. A strict regimen of exercise can change the shape of a person and he can become the next model. However, Americans think fat people will always remain fat despite their hard work. Neil Steinberg stated in the article O.K., So I’m Fat “Others assume that thinness is forever beyond my grasp.” Maybe, it will be hard for the obese people to get into the right shape but with time he/she can get the body he
In “Cruelty, Civility, and Other Weighty Matters” by Ann Marie Paulin, she was trying to get across a very important message: skinny doesn’t mean happy. The main idea was about how our culture in America encourages obesity because of the food choices they offer, how expensive weight loss pills and exercise bikes is, and etc., yet the culture also is prejudice against these same fat people that they encourage. It’s a constant back and forth in America between what is convenient with the little time we have in between everything we have to do each day and working out to be skinny enough for everyone to not judge you. Ms. Paulin wrote this article for literally everyone, this article was for skinny people to show them like hey, you’re not all
The article “Fat and Happy: In Defense of Fat Acceptance” is written by Mary Ray Worley, a member of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance. She writes of her firsthand experience as a “fat person” in society. Throughout the article, Worley explains what it is like to be obese and describes the way society treats those who have a weight problem. She attacks the idea of dieting, criticizes medical professionals for displaying an obscured view of health risks, and defends the idea of exercising to feel good rather than exercising to lose weight. Unfortunately, her article seems to reflect only own opinions and emotions rather than actual facts and statistics.
“Fat Acceptance”: An Argument Lacking Validity Cynara Geisslers’ essay “Fat Acceptance: A Basic Primer,” was published in Geez Magazine in 2010. The focus of the essay is to refute the pressure of society to be thin and promote self-acceptance regardless of size. While this essay touches on many agreeable points, it tends to blow many ideas out of context in an attempt to create a stronger argument. The article takes on a one-sided argument without any appropriate acknowledgement of the opposition, overlooks the risks of ignoring personal health, and has a strong feminist ideology associated towards the essay which tends to make the validity of her argument questionable.
“What's slightly more disturbing in the nation but not only do fat people need to be monitored, controlled, and saved from their gluttonous impulsive, ... that certain forms of social control might be required to help the overweight resist temptation.” (Prose 181) As a weight conscious person myself, every time I do see an overweight person on TV or in
More specifically, he maintains that it upsets them because they feel like failures. Schwartz even uses the phrase “failures in all of life” (180) because he wants his audience to realize the deep disappointment overweight people suffer when they feel they cannot live up to societal expectations. The author attempts to make readers feel complicit in this when he suggests the overweight “will come to agree with everyone else that they are failures in all of life” (180). He asserts that Americans make obese people feel useless because of their size. Schwartz hopes to convince the public that fat people are made to feel worse about themselves because of the way society treats
Among African American women, trusting in the health care and medical research has become to a lower level. Studies show that obesity rates in black raced women which are enhanced by risk factors, shows that approximately 40% moderately and severely overweight women considered their figures to be attractive or very attractive, which indicates a relatively positive body image (S, Kumanyika, 1987). Adding to this as Gay is a black raced woman who is obese, still feels proud of her own body image, no matter how big she may-be she is still proud of her body and appearance. Gay quotes, “When you’re overweight, your body becomes a matter of public record in many respects. Your body is constantly and prominently on display. People project assumed narratives onto your body and are not at all interested in the truth of your body, whatever that truth might be” (Gay, p.120). This shows that no matter what her body looks like people will always be judging you depending on your body image in
I do believe that the media really depicts what beauty is “supposed to look like,” which is being thin or muscular, but to some people being “fat,” as Smith would put it, is just as beautiful. Personally, I really do not like the word "fat," I prefer the term overweight or the politically correct term “people of size.” Throughout Smith’s article, she refers to “people of size” as “big,” “heavy,” or “fat” people (86-88). She uses all of these snarl words to bring a negative connotation and generalize that people view overweight people this way.
Fat does not equal lazy; fat does not equal bad; fat does not equal overeating; fat does not equal ugly. Fat oppression is something so prevalent in our society, yet Americans refuse to recognize it as a problem or even an issue. After hearing an amazing woman named Nomy Lamm speak this weekend, I could not longer let this issue be ignored. (Lamm is a fat oppression activist and has been published in Ms. magazine). Fat oppression exists in this society and we all must recognize the damage it does to everyone, especially fat people.
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).
Worley, Mary Ray. “Fat and Happy: In Defense of Fat Acceptance.” 28 July 2004. .
Nowadays appearance is everything, and not being the size of a model can make it seem like you do not care about your weight and so what if you don’t. The article “O.K, so I’m fat “by Neil Steinberg. Talks about how society stands on “being fat”. Steinberg shares with us the “sheer discomfort” of all the “excess weight” being dragged around, and the humiliation for thin people. Steinberg tells us moments when people he knows tells him he should have Diet coke .He also tells us how some people think thinness is out of reach for him. Steinberg also tells us a story when someone served him some “poison” that poison being a banana foster .He talks about his friend Larry who has no self-control and quote “has candy scattered around the house.”
One of the many controversial issues regarding the weight debate would be this. Persons with obesity are frequently the victims of discrimination, but prejudice against the obese stems from the widely held belief that getting fat, and staying fat results from a failure of willpower. (Spake 337).
Physical beauty is constructed by the society that we live in. We are socialized from a very young age to aspire to become what our culture deems ideal. Living in the United States, as in many other Western cultures, we are expected to be well-educated, maintain middle-class or upper-class status, be employed as well as maintain a physical standard of beauty. Although beauty is relative to each culture, it is obvious that we as Americans, especially women, are expected to be maintain a youthful appearance, wear cosmetics and fashionable clothes, but most importantly: not to be overweight. Our society is socially constructed to expect certain physical features to be the norm, anything outside this is considered deviant. Obesity is defined as outside the norms of our culture's aesthetic norms (Gros). “People who do not match idealized or normative expectations of the body are subjected to stigmatization” (Heckert 32). Obesity is a physical deviance; it is one that is an overwhelming problem in our society as we are always judged daily, by our appearance. Those who do not conform to the standards of beauty, especially when it comes to weight, are stigmatized and suffer at the hands of a society that labels them as deviants.
Prejudice refers to one’s biased opinions and ideas of others, based on secondary information. Hence, the internalized ideas concerning the prejudiced members in society does not result from personal experiences, but information from third parties. Where prejudice is prevalent, the social relationships between the concerned individuals become strained and unmanageable. The existence of equality in society discourages the frequency of prejudice on racial grounds. The content of this discussion explores the concept of prejudice, as it relates to racial inequality and discrimination. The discussion features the Emmanuel AME Church shooting scenario, which characterizes racial discrimination and inequality. The discussion further examines the role
Unfortunately due to our past history, discrimination had been among us from since decades. Discrimination and prejudice would probably be among us until the end of the world. Prejudice and discrimination is an action that treats people unfairly because of their membership in a particular social group, class, or category to which that person or thing belongs to rather on that individual. It is an unfair treatment to a person, racial group, and minority. It is an action based on prejudice.