“Fat shaming doesn’t need to stop, it needs to make a comeback.” This statement by talk show host Bill Maher couldn’t go unanswered by colleague James Gordon.
Fat Shaming
The popular talk show host Bill Maher continues: “Some amount of shame is good.” Bill’s argument essentially suggests that we have gone too far with political correctness. Why talk about issues in healthcare? People just need to eat less, he argues.
James Gordon responds to this on a personal level. Referring to his own struggle with weight (“good days and bad months”), he points out that fat shaming doesn’t work.
James doesn’t understand how one can suggest that fat shaming should make a comeback, as it never disappeared. Or as LL Cool J once said: “Don’t call it a comeback, I’ve been here for years.”
Some of James’ key points:
- People with overweight don’t need to be reminded of it. They are reminded constantly.
- ‘We know that overweight is not good for us, you don’t need to tell us’
- Fat shaming backfires. It only leads to more negative feelings, increasing the likelihood of ‘comfort eating’. Fat shaming is bullying and bullying only makes it worse.
- According to Bill Maher, America should take an example from Europe. But overweight is also a growing problem there (including in the Netherlands). With some self-deprecation, James refers to himself as the first evidence.
- Overweight is a complex problem.
He summarizes it as follows:
“If making fun of fat people made them lose weight, there would be no fat kids in school and I’d have a six-pack by now.”
Tough Love?
I understand Bill Maher. I’ve been writing about overweight for almost 10 years now, and during that time, my views on this issue have changed significantly. Even the joke James Gordon makes about ‘sugar-coating’ the problem, I made five years ago. In an article about losing weight, which, due to evolving insights, I can no longer fully support.
The article was even titled “losing weight is simple”. With this, I, like Bill Maher, tried to explain provocatively that regardless of the cause, the solution remains the same: Eat less. But that’s too simplistic and overlooks genetic factors that not only determine your appetite to some extent, how quickly you feel satiated, but also the level of self-control and how your body processes food. I link above to four articles, but I have written more articles about this based on various studies. At the bottom of this article, you will find some other relevant pieces I have written about this.
Oh yes, we have also described research showing that fat shaming doesn’t work here.
Your Thinness Doesn’t Reflect Another’s Discipline
Personally, I’ve been genetically lucky. I can eat whatever I want without gaining fat mass. This may be because I have a low appetite, because of the way my body deals with what I eat, or a combination of both. And if I then eat a little more and train, the extra energy seems to go only towards muscle mass. So, when people like me then say that people with overweight are just lazy or undisciplined, that’s not exactly fair.
Just as people who are born rich and then claim that less fortunate people simply don’t work hard enough.
Overdone
The only thing I can agree with regarding Bill’s argument is that we’ve gone too far. Only I don’t mean that the fight against fat shaming is unjustified. As far as I’m concerned, we’ve gone too far because in the fight against fat shaming, we seem to increasingly accept fit shaming.
Think, for example, of the ban on ‘promoting ideal body types’. Like the advertisement of a slender lady in a bikini that had to be removed from London’s public transport. Seeing such body types could make less slender people insecure and depressed.
Plus-size models are getting more and more of a platform, and this summer Nike presented plus-size mannequins. After all, this target group also needed representation. Let’s not overdo it by criticizing slimmer figures.
“Live and let live,” I would say.
Sources
- fitsociety.nl/afvallen/acbp-eiwit-speelt-een-belangrijke-rol-in-je-eetlust-en-gewicht/
- fitsociety.nl/afvallen/eiwit-gevonden-dat-omzetting-wit-vet-bruin-vet-remt/
- fitsociety.nl/afvallen/nieuw-eiwit-ontdekt-de-strijd-tegen-obesitas/
