Comments on: Fat Is Catching!! Say Very Smart Science-Type People

By: Elz

Elz — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 20:06:35 +0000

Thanks for being mad about this. I am still upset over the insult that Deborah Voigt has to lose weight to play a sexy opera heroine, which Covent Garden seems to mistake as “slinky,” while, John Travolta plays Edna in “Hairspray,” as if fat women (of a certain age no less) can’t act, sing and dance.

By: h sofia

h sofia — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 05:22:32 +0000

I read an article about something similar, but it was in USA Today. I didn’t like the tone of the NYT article (”choose your friends carefully?”) at all, but I’ll be writing about the USA Today articles tomorrow.

By: Kim

Kim — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 22:22:48 +0000

This study is bad research. A couple of days after the study was released, they had to send out another release saying that the results were about plus-sized men….that there was not the same correlative effect in women.

When the media picked it up…they ran with it and made it seem as if fatness was a communicable disease, which even the study didn’t do.

By: Elizabeth

Elizabeth — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 17:22:35 +0000

I didn’t even read the silly article, but my best friend who is very into being a size 1 and likes eating very healthy and maybe even has a slight bias against people who do not eat so healthily pointed out the article to me and said how nasty it was. And how she thought it was not only mean, but bad research too. Grrrrr.

By: martinet

martinet — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 13:09:47 +0000

Thank you so, so much for ranting about this. I was struck by exactly the same things and wounded by how hateful that article was.

By: Mrs. M

Mrs. M — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 13:56:06 +0000

Sorry, “IS fetching.”

By: Mrs. M

Mrs. M — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 13:55:51 +0000

But *I* accidently read the post title as, “Fat if Fetching,” which, as a woman who’s been struggling to gain weight for the last few years, confirmed all my theories.

By: terri c

terri c — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 03:44:39 +0000

GREAT post. When I was working in the regular business world, despite a partial disability and carrying too much weight, I used less sick days than anyone else in my department. Of course, I used to say I was just too mean to get sick, but still. This whole “obesity epidemic” thing just frosts me–more permission to treat overweight persons (and, mainly, overweight WOMEN) as subhuman.

By: Kim

Kim — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 01:45:15 +0000

Susan,
There is a national fat-awareness organization. It’s NAAFA….the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance. They used to have a web site, don’t know if they still do…..it was at:
http://www.naafa.org

If it’s still there…..check it out.

By: Susan

Susan — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 18:05:42 +0000

You tell ‘em Sistah! From one Fat American to another….they’re looking down the wrong mouths. This perverse “news” does indeed perpetuate fatophobia and fat bigotry and it also will inspire many more young women to turn to bulimia and anorexia, I’m afraid…two diseases that cost our country surely lots of precious dollars and definitely cause heartache and loss of life.

It was my doctor’s prejudice against fat women (and she was a woman, by the way) that caused her to refuse to diagnose me with hypothyroidism (and therefore to treat me) until I was 80 pounds overweight and so dragged down by the disease I couldn’t advocate for myself anymore. Turns out the disease was hereditary after all!

This is a lethal kind of stupidity! So it’s now not only distasteful to love fat people, but dangerous?

Time to start a national fat-awareness organization!