OK, you should all know by now that I am not easily outraged, but I think I have another nominee for the worst news story of 2004.
Parents don’t see fat children
There are a couple of reasons why I am outraged by this “study”. Superficially it relates to what people judge as “fat”. But, in a much more sinister fashion, it disguises horrible prejudice against overweight people as “research” — implying that they are somehow lazy, ignorant or stupid. Not only that, it imposes this obscene idea of what a “normal” body is onto CHILDREN. It is breeding a generation of anorexics.
Why can’t people see these things for what they are? It is prejudice, pure and simple — a moral outrage by elites about an issue that has no scientific basis whatsoever.
What about those parents, like me, who refuse to believe that my child is going to die because they’re carrying some extra weight (In my case, my daughter is actually underweight for her age, but I am talking generally here)? What about those who see these “studies” as an imposition of a consumer culture, devoted to diet pills, gurus and McSalads?
The arbitrary definition of obesity (ok, not so arbitrary when you factor in who created it and who benefits from it, but bullshit all the same) is exactly that. A number. But that is entirely beside the point, because, according to many “obesity” studies, “maximum longevity is associated with above average weight” (andres, Haskew & Ernsberger), and that body mass does “not correlate well with increased risk, and that indeed the correlation sometimes [runs] in the opposite direction” (Campos).
I saw on Compass last night that there may be a non-weight related reason why people are getting diabetes more often (aside from increased screening inflating the figures), and it is potentially linked to germ exposure as a child. It should come as no surprise that mothers obsessed with Pine-O-Cleen wipes and overly sterile conditions are also those that support this idea that obesity is to blame: They have been programmed to consume cleaning products, diet pills, low fat cookies and Oprah’s books, in search of this elusive “perfect motherhood”. And its biting them on the arse.
One day I hope that people will wake up from their collective consumer fog to realise they have been had. They have been manipulated all in the name of consumption. I am not saying I have escaped it, but at least I can see this prejudice for what it is: imposing anorexic thought onto children who are otherwise perfectly healthy (although they could get out more — but more because TV rots their brain and makes them a part of this ridiculous culture). The blame needs to shift AWAY from parents and onto the people that are responsible — the food companies, the drug companies, the media companies, that create this hysterical consumer culture that both encourages overeating and despises it.