Summary

The article discusses the multifaceted reasons behind widespread obesity, emphasizing systemic issues within the food industry and societal norms rather than individual willpower.

Abstract

The article "We’re All Fat, But There Is More Than One Reason" addresses the prevalence of obesity and the societal tendency to fat-shame, suggesting that the issue extends beyond personal responsibility. It highlights the profit-driven nature of the food industry, which promotes addictive, unhealthy foods, and the broken food system exacerbated by environmental and economic challenges. The author argues that fat-shaming is counterproductive and akin to other forms of discrimination, advocating for empowerment and systemic change rather than blame. The text calls for a reevaluation of food production and consumption, pointing out the problems associated with factory farming, monoculture, and the disconnection from natural food sources. It also touches on the impact of race, gender roles, technology, wealth disparity, and politics on diet and health. The article concludes by suggesting that body positivity is insufficient without a global overhaul of the food system and a shift towards sustainable and healthy living.

Opinions

The author believes that obesity is not simply a lack of willpower but a result of deliberate addiction to convenient, tasty, and fatty foods perpetuated by the food industry for profit.
The article posits that fat-shaming is a form of discrimination that does not address the root causes of obesity and instead contributes to a cycle of blame and inadequacy.
It is suggested that empowerment, through demanding better quality food and rejecting fast food, is more effective than relying on will power alone.
The author criticizes the current food system, including the overconsumption of corn and the health and environmental issues related to factory farming.
The text emphasizes that the problem of obesity is systemic, involving cultural, economic, and political factors that require a collective response.
The author advocates for a values-based approach to food consumption that prioritizes the planet's health and understands the deceitful nature of the food industry's marketing tactics.
The article implies that body positivity movements are not enough to address the global food crisis and the related health and environmental issues.

We’re All Fat, But There Is More Than One Reason

Let’s Put Fat-shaming where it belongs

I am overweight. Maybe you are too.

In the Captain Fantastic movie, the survivalist kids, all strong, competent, and thin, note when they venture into civilization that “Everybody is fat!” Of course, they are silenced to be more polite. Nevertheless, the truth hangs in the air like a beer belly over a droopy belt.

We are fat.

The weight loss industry is huge. The gym industry is huge. The food industry is the fattest of all. We are fat, not because we lack will power, but because we are deliberately addicted.

We are addicted to convenience, taste, apathy, but most of all, fatty foods. These are highly, highly profitable.

We are, in effect, the biggest losers. Food systems are winners. They gain from a general lack of human focus on our addiction dealers. The broken food system begins to show cracks, however, due to famine, drought, floods, fires, and supply shortages.

How they hook us

They hit us at least twice, once in the gut with craving, then again with our shaming.

We are sold on a million, dummy, yummy ideas on how we can dispel our inadequacy from within. However, being told you are inadequate doesn’t help. It just sells inadequacy.

Fat-shaming happens because thinner people want to feel better about themselves by putting others down. It is a bit like racism, or sexism.

It punches down like Chris Rock and punches back like Will Smith. It gets us no where but distracted.

What people who study psychology know about blame is that it’s an endless, vicious circle. What is more effective than blame is empowerment. Demand better, real food, and don’t settle for garbage, or the “food” that comes in that packaging trash. That is, steer way from fast food.

Speaking of will, isn’t will power the best solution? No, because your evolved sense of hunger and the continual diet of addictive ads for addictive foods will not stop until their profits do.

The problem collects at the Bible belt — and beyond

We consume corn in about one thousand ways. It has become a monolith of corn-ography, in everything from soda, to chips, to sugary cereal.

It’s not healthy.

I wish to be clear that it is an entire system that is to blame — that all who participate in our broken food system need, instead, to become empowered. We all allow, and disregard, that we have a big, fat problem with our food system, primarily, and our cultural dictates that follow.

We have a problem with meat and factory farming which gives us global, zoonotic, diseases.

COVID-19 is just the latest. W e also face factory farm harm, pollution and hormonal harm, and all the attendant ills of low-wage jobs, injury, pandemic spread, and political fighting.

We have a problem with disconnect to nature and preparing, knowing our food. We choose monoculture over diversity, and convenience over connection and immersion.

We have a problem with social norms that demand a scapegoat, and pudgy, punching bags of our fellow human beings.

We have a problem with race, in that less nutrition, and more self-soothing, is available to some. Food can be healthy and connecting through community, or low-nutrition and devastating to them. Diabetes and heart disease are just two examples that affect us disproportionately.

We have a problem with sex and gender roles, and how people are valued based on appearance. We assign homemakers gender roles, too, and make their shopping/cooking/cleaning time short and brutish.

We have a problem with technology, in that we evolved as runners, not lords of keyboards.

We have a problem with wealth — more options are available to a narrowing elite.

We have a problem with values, we made resources disposable rather than cherished.

We have a problem with politics because we elect leaders to support/subsidize illness rather than healthy environments with real food, clean soil, air, and water.

We have a problem with food, which I go back to yet again…Because climate crisis, extinction, solastalgia, eco-anxiety, and resource conflicts — from refugees to militaries.

Body positivity is just one tool

Body positivity, as we now present it, centers on expecting people to be better behaved toward people rather than overhauling our entire system, which is global.

It is failing. The food you take for granted may not be available for your children or grandchildren.

We see famines and starvation here, and co-morbidity and obesity there. We see extinctions and deforestation. We see depression, helplessness, blame and guilt. And, they are related.

We need our entire system to be improved, radically changed from a planet-devouring glutton to a values-based species that understands we are being fed lies with our happy meals.