Like waistlines, obesity is expanding in America. In 1994, the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey reported 33 percent of American adults were overweight. Just six years later, the organization reported that number had jumped to 64 percent.
And this growing number of obese people are discriminated against. Last year, the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance accused Wal-Mart of practicing discriminating policies toward obese people. A Nov. 3, 2005 press release referred to a Wal-Mart memo that suggests not hiring obese people “in an attempt to reduce the cost of health benefits.”
So it makes sense that advocacy groups like Smith College’s Size Does Matter and NAAFA have formed to make obese people more comfortable with their size.
It is no accident that NAAFA mimics the name National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Like the NAACP, NAAFA is trying to create legal action in response to obesity discrimination.
The link between racial and obesity discrimination is somewhat justified — many obese people say just like racial minority groups that are discriminated against, they are mistreated for something they can’t control. According to Columbia St. Mary’s Medical Moments, “studies indicate that inherited genetic variation is an important risk factor for obesity.”
But overweight people could possibly lose some weight. Obesity is more like an addiction, whereas genetics can only put someone at risk for having the trait.
There is inherent value in groups like NAAFA. Having a positive self-image is important and can make someone want to change, but NAAFA, and groups like it, perform a disservice when they encourage their members to accept being overweight.
Obesity is not something to embrace. According to Joan Salge Blake, Clinical Assistant Professor and Dietetic Internship Director at Boston University’s Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, “There are incredible risk factors for cardiovascular disease, stroke [and] type two diabetes, and there is just a great burden put on the hips and joints.”
Groups like NAAFA should encourage high self-esteem, but they also need to promote weight loss. An isolated forum for obese people to champion overweight power will not help them become healthier.
Instead, groups must inform others that obesity is not totally in a person’s hands. It could limit people’s association between laziness and being overweight. Others might then even offer their support.
And overweight people in organizations like NAAFA would welcome the support. They wouldn’t be in the group if they were truly happy with being obese.