There was a time when a modicum of corpulence was a signifier of a life relative leisure and comfort. Not so in our day and age. Rather, in the United States and many other nations corpulence is a signifier of low social status or the perception of sloth and lack of self control. Though more than half of Americans are defined as “overweight” as per the body-mass-index, of more genuine concern are the “obese,” who form about 1 out of 4 Americans. Their distribution varies by locality and social station, but they are not a peculiarity on the American scene.
The interweaving of politics and obesity is particularly subtle and often confounding. Some conservatives in other domains who might point to the importance of personal responsibility and self-control (gluttony is a sin!) dismiss the the blandishments of cultural elites on the perils of obesity, albeit Leftish ones, as snobbery, classism, and nanny-stateism. But there’s another component of the ranks of those who man the battlements of the fat, a particular type of cultural Leftist who perceives the obese to be individual self-actualizers and part of a “victimized” class. The “fat acceptance movement” has borrowed all the language of Left-wing identity politics movements.
This particular strain of Lefty fat-acceptance is clear in this Village Voice piece, Guys Who Like Fat Chicks:
His Facebook profile filled in some of the blanks. He wore black-rimmed glasses and uniformly tight band T-shirts. He had shaggy black hair that fell in wiry squiggles. He played guitar and studied English at William Paterson University. There were snapshots of him posed with a beautiful young woman who appeared to be more than twice his size, wearing a French-maid Halloween costume. And there was a link to Ask a Guy Who Likes Fat Chicks, an unsigned advice-column blog “for your plumper-related stumpers.”
As they say, “read the whole thing.”
Not about fat chicks, re: obesity and poverty
I was reading another religion-politics blog where an author was describing fasting as a Christian experience that develops empathy for the less fortunate, who experience hunger. (This is from an American perspective, leading to a discussion of budget cutting priorities.) Maybe some do, but obesity is a more important problem for the American poor than hunger is.
Of life’s necessities, the most important one that the American poor lack is probably safety. Crime is one of the prime drivers of inexpensive housing in urbanized areas. I don’t suppose there’s any analogue to fasting that the privileged are willing to experience threats their personal and family’s safety to understand the poor’s experience with crime.
” I don’t suppose there’s any analogue to fasting that the privileged are willing to experience threats their personal and family’s safety to understand the poor’s experience with crime.”
Gentrification