Many of us do not feel great about the way our bodies look. And even if we do, the journey to personal satisfaction is often a long and difficult one. Increased emphasis on the shape and dimensions of the body is not new; in fact, similar opinions have been voiced for centuries. Weight, as a measurement, has always been treated as a choice; something we have control over. It is this view which serves as a sort of justification for the systemic oppression forced on fat people. Fat oppression is any conscious or unconscious action which discriminates upon an individual based solely on weight, making fat people appear lesser. Our culture generally treats fat people as flawed, whether they mean to or not. Fat oppression culture promotes adolescents to take unhealthy risks, embeds the idea that being fat is being lesser, and turns …show more content…
Wann points out, “[w]eight discrimination is a cradle to grave phenomenon” (Wann, xix). The enduring prospect of oppression inevitably makes young people think more about their body image. People are afraid to be fat, mainly due to the oppression associated with the trait. The most unfavorable outcome of being fat is that it can affect many more aspects of your life than just your health. “Criminologists began to use weight to index character … life insurance companies began to use weight to index mortality, … fashions began to consider weight an index to beauty” (Schwartz 147). With just a number reflecting on so many important aspects of life, it is easy to see why being fat is undesirable. Heavier people are less moral, more mortal, and less beautiful; at least according to the hegemonic views of society. This not only hurts how fat people see themselves by promoting an image of inadequacy, but also how thin people see themselves both in fear of becoming fat and in trying to reach the unattainable goals which fat oppression
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.
This country places great value on achieving the perfect body. Americans strive to achieve thinness, but is that really necessary? In his article written in 1986 entitled “Fat and Happy?,” Hillel Schwartz claims that people who are obese are considered failures in life by fellow Americans. More specifically, he contends that those individuals with a less than perfect physique suffer not only disrespect, but they are also marginalized as a group. Just putting people on a diet to solve a serious weight problem is simply not enough, as they are more than likely to fail. Schwartz wants to convey to his audience that people who are in shape are the ones who make obese people feel horrible about themselves. Schwartz was compelled to write this essay,
In the year 2010, the documentary Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead was released. In the film, Australian native Joe Cross has realized that his health is worsening very fast. So Cross finally decides that he will turn his life around by taking an extreme diet that will deprive him of macronutrients for 60 days. Macronutrients are nutrients found in foods other than fruits and vegetables. Micronutrients are those nutrients found in fruits and vegetables. Micronutrients provide minerals such as Vitamin A, Iodine, Iron, Folate, and Zinc. While the body does not need these in large amounts, they are essential to the body because they help develop disease prevention and promote well-being. Micronutrients are important to include
The central problem with fat oppression comes from the way in which we as Americans are taught to look at people. Everywhere we look - TV, movies, magazines and so on - thin people are portrayed as glamorous and cool. The encouragement of dieting is terribly prevalent and the dieting market takes in billions of dollars every year. Our society is obsessed with fat and the loss of it.
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.
We have historically witnesses how society has come to accept the concepts that women who are as thin as paper have the ideal body. This, in the larger context, affects eating behaviors. To some, it led to people eating less especially women. Others, however, take them negatively and instead binge into eating. As years passed, we now realize that this concept have evolved into the consideration that thin is out but fit is right. Such concept today shape beliefs in eating and so regulate behaviors that would have to promote healthy eating
Women in our culture today have developed an obsession with body image and weight that has contributed to the development of eating disorders. The media portrays super-thin models and women take that as the ideal of what they “should” look like. This can have a tremendous impact on their self esteem, and on both the low and high end of the BMI scale, a measure of body fat calculated using your height and weight; whether it be a woman with anorexia, or a woman with obesity. Men also experience this pressure to be muscular and tall, yet it is small compared to what women face. Statistics of college men show that 25% binge eat, 24% diet and 3% purge (Cain, Epler, Steinley, and Sher, 2012). Studies show that people with higher BMI’s experience more body dissatisfaction and and negative body image than people with lower BMI’s (Duncan, al-Nakeeb, and Nevill, 2013). When people feel bad about their body they can experience low self esteem: when a person feels inadequate and lacks respect for the self (Mäkinen, Puukko-Viertomies, Lindberg, Siimes, & Aalberg, 2012). Someone with low self esteem is more at risk for experiencing body dissatisfaction, which can lead to abnormal eating habits (Mäkinen, Puukko-Viertomies, Lindberg, Siimes, & Aalberg, 2012). This can take two forms, dietary restraint and binge eating. High and low BMI has a negative impact on self esteem and body image of women due to the pressure to be perfect in today’s society. The presentation of the following studies of children and adults will seek to understand the differences in men and women and their relationship with BMI, self esteem, and body image through its effect on eating disorders, body dissatisfaction, and the thin-ideal portrayed by the media.
The media has a crucial influence on adolescents. Golan, Hagay and Tamir (2013) stated that “Since puberty, by its very nature, is associated with weight gain, adolescents frequently experience frequently experience dissatisfaction with their changing bodies” (p. 1). Young boys grow up with the expectation of having to become a strong, muscular, masculine man. Young girls see skinny models and movie stars and grow up thinking that it is only socially acceptable and attractive if they are also skinny, or very thin. “In a culture that glorifies thinness some adolescents, mostly girls, become excessively preoccupied with their physical appearance and begin to diet obsessively in an effort to achieve or maintain a thin body (Golan, Hagay & Tamir, 2013, 1). Little girls play with dolls that have narrow waists, full busts, lots of makeup and their hair done a certain way. Advertisers and manufacturers are portraying a particular body image with the dolls, and this makes little girls form an opinion on how they should look. “Young girls may engage in conversations...
As a woman of color who has always been a big girl, I started struggling with my body image when I reached my adolescence years. Growing up, I did not realize that my body was abnormal and unacceptable. I saw myself just like other peers and age group. My experience of body dissatisfaction first started within my own family. I got teased about my size by family members. My parents, especially my mother, reminded me constantly about how obese I was. Reaching a certain age, she started controlling my food intake and she made sure I ate no more than three times a day. With all those disciplinary actions from my mother and the pressure I felt from family, I started noticing of external standards of beauty and body image. In this lens, one can see that body image is influenced by many factors and my mother became a structure that carried out directives. This example demonstrates that feminine body is socially constructed and taught to us. When this ideal body image or feminine body gets inculcated in us at a young age, it becomes internalized discipline that enables one to distinguish herself from other
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.
Losing weight takes more than just desire it also takes commitment and a well-thought-out plan. Deciding to lose weight, changing your lifestyle, and becoming healthier are the first big steps. You must be cleared as to what you want to get out of this lifestyle. Do you want to live a longer healthier life? If your family has a history of diseases, is your goal to lower the risk of developing the diseases? Will losing weight make you feel better about yourself and have a more positive outlook on life? These are things that a person wanting to lose weight should ask themselves. In this case, weight needs to be lost at a healthy pace without losing any muscle mass after pregnancy and an injury.
The American culture/media consistently promotes weight loss; the idea of being thin is associated with success, while being over-weight is associated with being weak and lazy. Individuals who suffer with issues of obesity are often discriminated in areas of educational and workforce environments.