Pro-fat article in San Diego CityBeat
Kudos to alternative weekly San Diego CityBeat writer Kinsee Morlan on her fair and sensitive pro-fat article. I am quoted in the article, as are Paul Campos, NAAFA spokesperson Peggy Howell and others working to end size-based discrimination. And let me just say how awesome it feels to be quoted in an article alongside the great Paul Campos.
I think Kinsee may have confused me with Kate in one line – I can’t sit still or keep quiet for 15 minutes, let alone silence the chatter in my head long enough to do meditative yoga every day and the only picture of myself on my blog doesn’t really show much of my body at all. But, both are moot points in the light of such a lovely and positive article.
The story centers around a San Diego woman, Kathy Hernandez, and her Big Beautiful Women night at a local club there. I don’t particularly care for the BBW euphemism or the fetish some attach with it (also addressed in the article), but I think it’s fabulous that this group of women have found a way and means in which they feel empowered, beautiful, and fabulous. And even if the guys there are looking for “bigger-than-average racks of lamb,” it sure beats the alternative:
“Would it be acceptable for me to go over to a guy in a wheelchair and start berating him because he’s in a wheelchair?” asks Kathy. “That wouldn’t be socially acceptable. But three guys over there walking by and going, ‘Look at that fat cow.’ Is that socially acceptable? Right now it is. If I had to worry about these three guys coming in and looking at me with disgust and saying, “Eew, would you do her?’ I’ve actually heard that. What am I supposed to say? Should I call them assholes? I’ve done that before, don’t get me wrong, but I can’t do it every time.”
Abigail Saguy, an assistant professor of sociology at UCLA, who’s written extensively on obesity and society, complements the story with some interesting context on the origins of how obesity has come to be epidemic’ized:
Saguy traced the origin of the term “obesity epidemic” to the mid-’90s, after a publication by CDC researchers noticed the increasing number of people who are overweight or obese according to the BMI. Soon after the report was released, Xavier Pi-Sunyer wrote an editorial published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. In it, he said, “If this were tuberculosis, we’d call it an epidemic.”
“So it was metaphorical at first,” Saguy explains, “but then the metaphor was dropped and people just use it.”
The piece is largely positive and I thank Kinsee for taking the time to research the issue and to understand what it is we’re saying. I particularly like these two lines:
But evolution for fat people is actually more like adaptation to a world that doesn’t understand or accept them… As things stand, fat people are still metaphorically sitting in the back of the bus.
Luckily, there are people out there like Kinsee who do understand, or at least, try to understand. I’d encourage everyone to write in to the San Diego CityBeat with letters of appreciation and praise, because you know who else will be writing in, too.
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