the worst article ever written
Jun. 28th, 2004 11:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
keryxA cross-post from my blog, because I couldn't decide where it belonged.
If you're on any size acceptance lists or boards (on a side note, it's remarkable how all these sites focus their discussion on more or less the same things, and just have different approaches to the same issues), you've probably seen the worst article ever written.
The author says a lot of unfounded, rather mean things about fat people. And poor people. And southerners. It would be funny if it weren't clear she thought these things were true.
I think the point she started out wanting to make was this: poorer folk really are getting fatter and possibly less healthy, and we fail to recognize the class issues in this; also, the people who are most concerned with dieting these days seem to be wealthier people who have been duped into believing they're fat when they're not. I think she's actually wrong on the latter point, but if she'd actually written an article about these two competing trends instead of trying to be as clever as possible in her "editorializing", it might have been an interesting read.
And yet, what is the point she actually makes? That poor people are icky and slaggardly, and fat people don't read.
I find this interesting, because the source is a Charleston, WVA resident. Charleston is a coal town, a town with an overwhelming feeling of industry and poverty and at least one giant Wal-Mart. Experientially, it seems like the people of Charleston are fatter than average. It also feels like they're a lot poorer than average, and that the rest of the world ought to be paying attention to this.
Maybe we should be doing some more research.
Like, what are the statistics on people in industrial towns getting on weight loss drugs like Metabolife and such? It seems like my midwestern fat relatives have done that, and weightloss surgery and fad diets a hundred times. The influx of the South Beach and Atkins diets into my "higher class" professional workplace is relatively recent, but my aunts were on Scarsdale decades ago. Is it possible that diet marketing has a class consciousness? I don't know, because I tend to tune it out. But I wouldn't be surprised.
Like, how much do wages affect health or weight gain? I don't know how many of the fat folk in Charleston work more than one job, or weird hours, or whatever. I don't know how changes in the energy market around America impact their coal and manufacturing jobs and pensions and the care they get to give their kids. And I don't know if they're just fat, or if they're also unhealthy.
I don't know if it even matters that poor people are getting fat and rich people are getting more diet-obsessed (if that's even true). But if you're going to talk about it, you ought to present some information or at least ask some questions.
Cause otherwise, you're just rewriting the worst article ever written.
If you're on any size acceptance lists or boards (on a side note, it's remarkable how all these sites focus their discussion on more or less the same things, and just have different approaches to the same issues), you've probably seen the worst article ever written.
The author says a lot of unfounded, rather mean things about fat people. And poor people. And southerners. It would be funny if it weren't clear she thought these things were true.
I think the point she started out wanting to make was this: poorer folk really are getting fatter and possibly less healthy, and we fail to recognize the class issues in this; also, the people who are most concerned with dieting these days seem to be wealthier people who have been duped into believing they're fat when they're not. I think she's actually wrong on the latter point, but if she'd actually written an article about these two competing trends instead of trying to be as clever as possible in her "editorializing", it might have been an interesting read.
And yet, what is the point she actually makes? That poor people are icky and slaggardly, and fat people don't read.
I find this interesting, because the source is a Charleston, WVA resident. Charleston is a coal town, a town with an overwhelming feeling of industry and poverty and at least one giant Wal-Mart. Experientially, it seems like the people of Charleston are fatter than average. It also feels like they're a lot poorer than average, and that the rest of the world ought to be paying attention to this.
Maybe we should be doing some more research.
Like, what are the statistics on people in industrial towns getting on weight loss drugs like Metabolife and such? It seems like my midwestern fat relatives have done that, and weightloss surgery and fad diets a hundred times. The influx of the South Beach and Atkins diets into my "higher class" professional workplace is relatively recent, but my aunts were on Scarsdale decades ago. Is it possible that diet marketing has a class consciousness? I don't know, because I tend to tune it out. But I wouldn't be surprised.
Like, how much do wages affect health or weight gain? I don't know how many of the fat folk in Charleston work more than one job, or weird hours, or whatever. I don't know how changes in the energy market around America impact their coal and manufacturing jobs and pensions and the care they get to give their kids. And I don't know if they're just fat, or if they're also unhealthy.
I don't know if it even matters that poor people are getting fat and rich people are getting more diet-obsessed (if that's even true). But if you're going to talk about it, you ought to present some information or at least ask some questions.
Cause otherwise, you're just rewriting the worst article ever written.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2004-06-29 02:51 pm (UTC)My theory is that people who make less money are frequently MORE vulnerable to diet gimmicks and such, just because my experience bears that out. I wonder why that would be, though?