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December 2000 Issue

A Reader Response to "It's Still Politically Correct to say 'FAT'"

By Charlotte Honigman-Smith

Yes, it's still socially acceptable to call someone fat. It's acceptable to blame them for being fat. And it's acceptable, unfortunately, for physicians to pose as philanthropists while they cash in on the horrible psychological damage that society does to fat people.

"It's Still Politically Correct to say 'FAT,'" Deborah Biskin Levine's recent article in GenerationJ, sent my blood pressure rocketing for reasons having nothing to do with my weight.

For the dangerously obese, gastric bypass surgery may be a lifesaver. However, there aren't that many dangerously fat people out there. The generous doctors who do this invasive surgery have expanded their definition of "morbidly obese" to include some people who aren't, well, all that morbid.

Why? It's profitable.

One of my college friends had gastric bypass surgery in the last year. She wasn't, as in the carefully chosen example in the article, a 400-pound woman with health problems who wasn't able to take care of her own hygiene needs. She was a healthy, bouncy, tall 250-pound mom of two young kids, one of whom was still nursing when she chose to have the surgery.

Why did she decide to get her stomach cordoned off? Well, she'd been convinced that being fat was an illness. Not just a pain in the butt when you want to get a sexy dress for a party. But an actual disease. And what do you do about a disease? You get it treated. By surgery, if necessary. Just like cancer, or a melanoma.

Remember, this is a healthy young woman we're talking about here. She told me that she was going to get the problem taken care of before she got up to a really high weight. Why did she think she was going to get any fatter than she was? Well, she'd been gaining weight steadily for several years. The same years during which she'd had two babies and nursed them both. But that didn't matter; weight loss is always a problem and a big one. Right? Of course.

Where did my friend get the idea that she had a serious medical condition, rather than just some flab on her tush? Well, two places. First, she'd been told from the time she was a little girl that she was fat, and therefore bad. Her family told her, and the kids at school, and her doctors. Not that she was a very fat child, mind you, just chubby, but that was bad enough. So she tried to lose the weight. She tried so hard that she was bulimic for several years--but that was considered normal at the school she went to.

And then, as an adult, she found weight loss surgery. And they told her that she was not bad, just sick. And that, for several thousand dollars they could fix her. What a metsiah!

Ms. Levine's article mentions several times the social prejudice still common against fat people. They'll never be accepted, the thinking goes, (and why should they be, bad for your health as fatness is) so why not just fix them? Well, there are a number of groups that have had similar thoughts about another segment of society that faces prejudice.

Gays and lesbians are going against God's will, they reason, and should never be accepted into decent society. So we'll fix them. Teach them to be straight, and it will all be all right. Good idea? Do we like that one?

Weight loss surgery has saved a few lives, but overall it's a racket, one that makes money off women who have been taught to feel ashamed of their bodies since they were toddlers. This is not a Jewish way to behave. Let's put our energies into changing social inequity, not catering to it for profit.

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