Stop treating fat people like second-class citizens

By Camille Blake

January 18, 2005 | At a recent trip to Lagoon a certain situation caught my attention. A mother and son were in line to get on a ride. The mother strapped her son into the ride and realized that she was too big to ride. She walked off and watched her son laugh and smile as the ride zoomed around and around. The mother's face seemed to display no discernable expression, but anyone can imagine how she might be feeling. As the son got off, he ran to his mom and they walked off hand-in-hand. The boy was young enough to not be affected by this situation, it seemed.

As they walked off I couldn't help but watch other people staring at this pair. Some made rude faces and others just glanced away. I realized that I was staring, but more out of simple curiosity. For some reason my heart went out to this mother. I don't know her; I have never seen her before in my life. Still I can't quite explain why I empathize for this mother.

A lady at my work is much the same as this mother is in that they are both bigger people. She has to take the elevator to the second floor because taking the stairs is too hard for her. I watch her walk around the office and every step she takes is a task. She is the sweetest lady. To all of us college students there, she treats us like she was our own mother. Still many others at work don't give her the time of day and often try to avoid her. I can't seem to understand this. She has done nothing wrong.

Is being overweight worth degrading someone about it? Some things in life are beyond our control and does that make us any less of a person because we don't look like everyone else? According to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, 64.5 percent of adult Americans are overweight and 30.5 percent are obese. Obesity is defined as an excess of body fat that frequently results in a significant impairment of health. The 30.5 percent are people we are related to, work with and ride the bus with. Still we treat them like second class citizens. Many overweight people have said it is harder for them to get higher paying jobs.

Obesity has a connotation of being lazy, eating a lot of fast food, watching TV and having no self-discipline. We think of someone whose butt is glued to the couch with the remote cemented in their left hand. Maybe they are wearing a dingy shirt with grease stains and potato chip bags strewn all over the floor. Pizza boxes are piling high in the garbage and even their dog is fat. Correct me if I am wrong on any of this, but how many people have you met that actually live like this? Few if any.

We need to start looking at these people differently in a way that puts us in their shoes. I can't imagine walking up the stairs as being a hard task. I can't imagine what it would be like to have people stare at me because of the way I look. I can relate to feeling like an outcast. I know what it is like to not fit in. Most of us do to some degree.

I finally got to the point where I could talk to the lady at my work about the way she is. She said to me she wasn't always as big as she is now. But as she started to get bigger it became harder to lose the weight and she didn't have much of a support base around her to help motivate her. So she said she just decided to not worry about it and just live her life as she wanted. She is happy, but said she often wonders how her life would be different if she looked different. The saddest part, she said, is how many people treat her differently because of the way she looks.

I don't have the answer to helping these people or the quick fix to make everything go away. But if we changed the way we look at others and the way we look at ourselves it would be start to help change the way treat anyone, especially those who are different from us. Everyone is a worthwhile person despite how they look or what they weigh. Who are we to put a value on anyone? I know this has all been said before, but we still haven't changed and so it needs to be said again and again until we get the point. When it comes down to it, everyone is worth the same. It's time to start acting like it.

NW
TB