brave [little] meme

Friday Rant: Your fat ass is NOT a civil rights issue.

I was doing the rounds of my usual websites when I came across an article about “a fast-growing group of anti-dieting activists” (You can’t make this stuff up) who are trying to make obesity into a civil rights issue.

Read that again: a civil rights issue. What we’re talking about here is equating a condition that is 10% genetic and 90% self-indulgent laziness to, say, racial or gender discrimination. Welcome to another shining example of entitlement mentality.

From the article:

“Activists say the movement is beginning to amass some victories, from larger seat belts in cars to a decision by the Supreme Court in Canada that obese and disabled people traveling on airplanes can’t be forced to buy a second seat.”

Note the clever juxtaposition of Obese and Disabled in the same sentence, as if the two words remotely belonged in the same category. What is being said here is essentially that being morbidly obese is the same as being paraplegic, or suffering from MS, or a host of other conditions to which the term “disabled” might actually apply.

So, the fat-acceptance movement would appear to be making headway, one doughnut at a time. While I applaud the sentiment of encouraging “a healthy lifestyle at ay size,” I can’t in good conscience accept the implied message that we should simply make allowances for other people’s lack of self control. What’s next, giving a pass to drunk drivers who have a genetic predisposition to addictive behaviour? I don’t think so.

To put things into context, I’m not a fan of the heroin-chic look espoused by the fashion industry. I like people who look healthy, and if that means a few rounded edges, so much the better. Chubby is not obese. Chubby does not mean you taking up a third of someone else’s airline seat. Chubby, in my book, is A-OK.

No, here we are talking about making allowances for a level of obesity that can only come from prolonged, consistent lifestyle choices. You don’t gain 300lb overnight or by having a pizza with your friends on week-ends. Unless you suffer from serious body dysmorphia, you don’t miss the signs of encroaching obesity - you just choose to ignore them.

Trying to obtain civil-rights protection granting special allowances for the morbidly obese is an insult to every single person who chooses to balance health with pleasure, who either hits the gym or passes on that second helping of tiramisu; people who pay their taxes knowing that at least some of their money goes to an infrastructure that caters for the truly needy.

What this rising activism tide should be focusing on is not on improving obese people’s sense of warm and fuzzy self-acceptance, but on encouraging behaviours conducive to self-improvement: less demands for special treatment, and more education; less ego-soothing, and more motivation.

Only when people are forced to take responsibility for their own state of being can we hope to live in a society where people strive to better themselves - encouraging the kind of baseless self-justification these “fat activists” promote will just make everyone else resent them even more.

There is nothing wrong with encouraging people to love themselves as they are, unless what they are requires everyone around them to make sacrifices to accommodate their existence. Love your half-ton frame? Good for you, but don’t you dare sit next to me on a plane.

</rant>