Can Blaming People for Being Fat Help Curb Obesity?

US News and World Report ^ | May 22, 2008 | Katherine Hobson

[Eric Blair 2084]

Stigma can be a powerful force in changing behavior. Just ask smokers, whose once accepted habit is now so marginalized that the prevalence of smoking has dropped to about 19 percent of U.S. adults from nearly 24 percent just a decade ago. A lot of factors figured into the decline since smoking's mid-20th-century peak, but the sense that smoking is disgusting as well as unhealthful and socially costly has certainly contributed to many people's decision to quit.

Now that smokers have been taken care of, the obese are the new scapegoats for a lot of our ills. Last week, a letter published in the Lancet noted that the obese contribute more than their thinner compatriots to food scarcity and global warming, given that they eat more and require more transportation energy to move themselves around. While the authors' intent was probably not to make the obese feel worse, the media translations of the study in my quick Google search turned up headlines such as "Fat People Cause Global Warming, Higher Food Prices" and "Scientists Blame Fat People for Global Warming."

You might think that the obese could use some blame. As obesity increasingly becomes the norm, maybe society has grown too accepting. Perhaps what is lacking is the same thing that helped smokers lose their butts: a healthy dose of social stigma. If only there were more shame in being fat, maybe more people would be motivated to lose weight. But in fact, researchers say, stigma does very little to motivate overweight or obese people to change.

[Eric Blair 2084]

It's not as much of a connection, like breathing someone else's second hand smoke. Folks considered that a direct threat to their lives, based on the hype in the media.

The anti smoker agenda was never really about SHS. It was just convenient, you are right, that there was an immediate annoyance that made it politically expedient.

The justification for the inevitable fast food taxes will be "Why should the State pay 5 kajilllion dollars of taxpayer money to pay for someone's diabetes and hypertension meds through Medicare and Medicaid?"

If Gubmint is paying for their care, it is their right to intervene and reduce their costs.

[Hildy]

I find that t-shirt so sad. It’s like a falling down drunk saying “pass the bottle.” It’s not funny. That kind of obesity is pathetic.

[Hildy]

What you are talking about here is STATE sponsored shame and PSAs designed to achieve a political objective.

Where did I say that?

[SuziQ]

The SUV caravans await the school bus so the kids do not have to waddle a few hundred feet.

They're probably required by the school to do that so that the school bus drivers don't have to worry about inattentive kids running in front of them, or behind them.