“Appeals to fairness have proven surprisingly uncompelling to most people when it comes to fat rights.”
The appeal to fairness and equity is of course logical. Most thoughtful people agree that discrimination just isn’t okay and should not be tolerated. However, appeals to fairness have proven surprisingly uncompelling to most people when it comes to fat rights. The main reason appears to be that most people believe that fatness is a personal choice, a result of poor lifestyle habits, and that individuals deserve to hold responsibility for their choice. After all, the argument goes, if fat people want to escape discrimination, they should just lose weight – and thinner people should not have to absorb the costs of someone else’s fatness, whether it’s about sitting in a cramped seat or the taxes incurred from health care costs. In effect, this attitude often justifies more discrimination, with the belief that the unfair treatment may motivate people to lose weight.
~Linda Bacon, co-author of Body Respect, at the 2009 NAAFA conference
Oh, btw, such discrimination is more likely to make someone fatter, not thinner (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/oby.20891/abstract)
(via loniemc)
I don’t even care if discrimination makes people fatter. Discrimination is wrong period. All people deserve their humanity.
(via fatbodypolitics)
(via fatbodypolitics)
