Pirate's Cove

The political party that calls anyone who disagrees with them a Fascist is in their banning something stage again

Can Body Shaming Be Outlawed?

In 1961 at age 37, Jean Nidetch, who struggled with her weight for most of her life, signed up for a 10-week program offered by the New York City Board of Health called the “Prudent Diet.” Nidetch lost 20 pounds, but she grew disillusioned — to keep going, she would need the kind of motivation that she believed could only come from community. Borrowing the central tenets of Alcoholics Anonymous, she began inviting friends in a similar predicament to weekly meetings at her Queens apartment, where they would talk about the emotional roots of overeating and generally buttress one another in a shared commitment toward what was then so often pitifully called “reducing.”

A half-century later, the notion of watching your weight, of subjecting your body to daily metric surveillance for the sole purpose of becoming thin, had come to seem retrograde — a capitulation to the debased mandates of the patriarchy, another useless foray into self-reproof. In 2018, in an effort to meet the moment, Weight Watchers rebranded as WW, with the tagline “Wellness that works.”

Even if the move fooled no one, it affirmed that norms and ideals had shifted. In 2004, Dove broke out its Real Beauty campaign, featuring women in a wide range of shapes and sizes in its advertising. Three years ago Lizzo appeared on the cover of Vogue. It is now inconceivable that any fashion magazine editor would be caught talking about her own eating habits the way that Helen Gurley Brown did decades ago when she said that dinner when she was not dieting typically consisted of “muesli with chopped prunes, dried apricot, six unsalted almonds, a dusting of Equal and a cup of whole milk.”

Yeah, and all those brands who trot out “body positive” folks to advertise their wares, has it helped? Or turned people off? The Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue used to be the biggest single magazine sale of the year. Now, with fatties, trans, burkas, few care. These people are celebrating being obese, mainstreaming it, making it seem OK, when, in fact, it’s very unhealthy. But, the Progressive lunatics do not care if it makes sense to push people to be healthy

But had we really swayed far enough in the other direction, toward genuine acceptance, away from the view that a low body mass index was something to venerate? Fat activists believe that we have not, which is why there are proposed laws at the New York City Council and state Legislature that would make weight (and height) discrimination illegal, particularly as it relates to employment and housing (exceptions would be made for certain occupations).

They really do want to make it illegal in this manner, and then move towards making “fat shaming” illegal in other venues.

Whatever progress has been made, prejudice against the overweight has hardly been eliminated. Four years ago, researchers at Harvard published a study in the journal Psychological Science that looked at data from 4 million tests taken between 2004 and 2016 examining long-term changes in attitude toward historically marginalized groups. The study found that while explicit bias against the overweight had decreased by 15%, this represented a much slower decline than similar shifts in attitude toward gays and lesbians, where the figure was 49%. This may be because, unlike race or sexual orientation, weight is thought of as mutable. The only barrier to losing it, presumably, is a weakness of will.

Business leaders, who point to higher health care costs for obese workers, have predictably expressed concern that legislation of the kind under consideration would unduly burden the courts because of all the resulting litigation. In truth, these cases are very hard to push forward. We know this because Michigan has had a weight discrimination law on the books since the mid-1970s. (The state of Washington, the only one to have followed, added one a few years ago.)

It’s really, really difficult to sue companies over this, but, the first time a company or landlord is sued and they lose, you’ll see more businesses leave New York/NYC. Liberals want to control what you do, what you say, and what you think. It’s what they do. It would make more sense to say “look, don’t be mean. Don’t fat shame, give them positive affirmations to help them lose the weight.” If I see a fatty at the gym I might think “yo, wearing workout clothes that tight and skimpy is a big no-no”, but, I’ll also think “way to go, guy/girl, you’re trying to get healthy. Good for you!”

There is no disputing that significantly overweight people are less productive in jobs that require physical labor. They are also more likely to miss days due to poor health. Obesity is just as dangerous for our health as smoking. Hypertension, cardiac disease, diabetes, the list goes on. And then there are 1st Amendment rights to consider.