Weight based discrimination

Nathalie · December 9, 2006

Devana -- I remember that episode. I also remember laughing at it. You just made me feel bad. I never even though about how the chubby boy must have felt. I just remember Cos hamming it up, and the boy laughing. he was the silent kid who used to run out of the house, right? heheheh

I don't know if I've ever been weight discriminated against. I probably have, especially when it comes to personal preference (dates). I'm confident, outspoken, intelligent, successful, beautiful and have a great personality. I've never been denied a job or failed to get what I wanted (even men) because I'm fat.

I was embarrassed getting on a ride at Six Flags, because they had to get 2 men to muscle the cage shut due to my big ass. I haven't been back. That is one of my goals for next summer - get on that ride and snap the latch without needing assistance from 2 brawny guys. But even then it was embarrassing, but not cripplingly so.

I have always been outspoken, I have always been one to stand up for myself. I call people out on their bullshit. To the woman whose uncle said "Well she is." I would have said, "And you're an idiot" or something equally biting. (e.g., "And you're an alcoholic," "Your wife is a whore," "Suck my dick") I don't take it - maybe that makes me an angry fat woman, but I am quick to remind people that they are no better than anyone else. I don't internalize put downs, and I don't take them lying down either.

I never understood why so many fat people are voiceless and feel worthless because of their size. Stop thinking that way! Speak up for yourselves. Don't accept that second-hand treatment. Fight back. We may be heavy, but we're just as good, just as smart, just as worthy, and have just as much right to be as anyone else. To believe otherwise is practicing weight discrimination on yourself.

ser123 · December 9, 2006

I agree Devana... if that happened in reality and an adult acted like that I am sure the kid would be scarred for life. I wonder how the child actor differentiates it in his mind. After all, even though the child is an actor, he is still a child. I don't think I would feel right letting my overweight child subject himself to a humiliating role if I was the child's mother. But maybe I am just sensitive...

GeezerSue · December 9, 2006

Discrimination against the obese--or at least a preference for the non-obese--exists, and we're pre-programmed to engage in it. Some of it is part of our genetic makeup (I know, you're going to make me find the references) but most of it is cultural.

HOWEVER, all the whining and moaning about "they made me buy two airline seat and that's discrimination" just gets on my last nerve. I have a sister who has a jinormous ass. Last time we checked, she could not close a hospital gown which measured 74" around. She has to choose her restaurants based on which ones have chairs without arms. We all "get" most of that and have had our own troubles fitting in places like that.

But she and her husband went on a cruise a while back and they "got away with" buying only two seats on the plane. That ain't right for whoever is stuck in seat three.

If, for whatever reason, your ass got too big for you to sit in an airline seat without using up your neighbors' "airspace," you need to buy another ticket or rent a car and drive yourself wherever you're going. When I was concerned that I was too big, we bit the bullet and went in business class. There were times I even went part of the way by train, to avoid the whole airline thing for short hauls on small planes...the train has really big seats.

There's a lot of discrimination out there...most of it about stuff over which we have NO control. White people have many better chances at success than people of color do; tall people generally win debates; men have advantages in business that women wouldn't get. Weight is a little bit different. We DO have a chance to change. I wouldn't choose to lose weight so that someone else--about whom I don't give a rat's ass--thinks more positively about me. But the reality is that the assumptions strangers make about me are probably more positive than the assumptions they made when I weighed 113 pounds more than I do now. (Although--and this needs its own thread--there are many obese people who think the world will be perfect as soon as they lose x-pounds...because, they think, the ONE reason they have problems with others is their weight. And then they lose weight and find out that they were harboring a faulty assumption...and some people don't like them for entirely DIFFERENT reasons. LOL)

But back to "fat discrimination." This is a "solvable" problem...while some of the OTHER reasons people suffer discrimination are not. IT ISN'T FAIR. IT ISN'T RIGHT. But most of us have the ability to make it go away.

Nathalie · December 9, 2006

GeezerSue - gotdamn, I believe you and I see eye to eye on this one. *laugh*

I agree wholeheartedly with you. I never whine about being fat, I suck it up and keep on pushing. I don't expect for people to give me anything because I'm fat - not sympathy, not empathy, not pity. I've also never had to pay extra for an airline seat (amen, and thank ya Jeebus). If I did, my ass would be chapped, but it's not anyone's fault but mines. And Duncan Hines. (ha!)

HOWEVER. When people are out and out hateful toward a person of size, it's wrong. There are no ways to make it right. A stewardess can quietly say "I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to ask you to pay for a second seat" and help a large person maintain his/her dignity. To say loudly "Your extra wide load has slopped onto the seat beside you, waddle your chunk to the cashier and pay for a second seat to accommodate your extra nasty fatness" in order to embarrass you in front of other passengers is a whole different issue. I think the "whole different issue" is the subject of this thread.

It's solveable over time - lose weight. However, in the face of it, what are they to do about it when it happens? (LOL @ "they"...)

GeezerSue · December 9, 2006

GeezerSue - gotdamn, I believe you and I see eye to eye on this one. *laugh*
I agree wholeheartedly with you. I never whine about being fat, I suck it up and keep on pushing. I don't expect for people to give me anything because I'm fat - not sympathy, not empathy, not pity. I've also never had to pay extra for an airline seat (amen, and thank ya Jeebus). If I did, my ass would be chapped, but it's not anyone's fault but mines. And Duncan Hines. (ha!)

HOWEVER. When people are out and out hateful toward a person of size, it's wrong. There are no ways to make it right. A stewardess can quietly say "I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to ask you to pay for a second seat" and help a large person maintain his/her dignity. To say loudly "Your extra wide load has slopped onto the seat beside you, waddle your chunk to the cashier and pay for a second seat to accommodate your extra nasty fatness" in order to embarrass you in front of other passengers is a whole different issue. I think the "whole different issue" is the subject of this thread.

It's solveable over time - lose weight. However, in the face of it, what are they to do about it when it happens? (LOL @ "they"...)

Indeed. I just wanted to bitch about the airline seat thing. LOL

green · December 9, 2006

This issue of weight discrimination is a real issue of course. People are much, much nicer to young, slim, good-looking, tall, white people. And being fat is has something in common with those other categories; there ain't much that you can do for yourself without surgery. Fat people do metabolize food differently from thin people. Our systems are more efficient; we get more miles to the gallon. This worked for us in prehistoric times. It's a bummer now.

I think that obesity should be recognised as a medical condition and that airlines should provide the obese with an extra seat free of charge. Let's face it: Those seats that the airlines now provide are, due to their greedy desire to pack us in like sardines, tiny and there is no leg room, either. Note that they have chosen these seat configurations although the average customer is growing bigger. Even for a normo a long distance flight is a nightmare. This is the how the airlines seem to like it, not the customers. Outsized customers should be accomodated at no extra charge to themselves.

ser123 · December 10, 2006

I disagree with Green. My sister and her husband are both well over 6 feet tall. Neither one of them fit in regular airline seats. How should the airline accomodate them?

I don't want to sit next to someone who is encroaching on my space by a whole lot. I use up every bit of my space and don't want to share. I would resent sitting next to someone who was taking up my space because I don't have any to spare. I have flown a lot but can honestly say I don't think I have ever sat next to someone that was sooooooo fat that I thought they needed two seats.

The world isn't one size fits all and being fat sucks a lot of the time because of it.

To me there is a difference between treating someone badly because they are fat and for businesses requesting accountability from fat people.

green · December 10, 2006

I feel for your sister and her husband. I think that we are all victims of the greediness of the airlines when it comes to their unrealistic seat configurations.

Whenever I have flown in third world countries on old, second-hand aircraft I am always amazed at the amount of seat and leg room that these planes have. It is wonderful!

I also remember flying back to Toronto from Amsterdam with an airline that is rumoured to have made every fouth row especially short vis-a-vis leg room. By the end of that flight I was pretty near psychotic!:xena_banana: I think that the damn airline folks oughta hand out tranquilizers as they shoe horn us into our seats.

Thanks for letting me vent. As you can see, I feel kinda strongly on the subject.:heh:

kwhenrykerr · December 10, 2006

I have ask for and recived large first class seats at no more cost. Ask the airlines for reasonable seating.

mariecarmen · December 15, 2006

I want to address another aspect of the original posting. I've been a nurse since 1977. Nursing school is like boot camp. I first attended a hospital program. Generally speaking: The instructors were tough. The hospital staff was not always nice or helpful. The doctors were impatient and sarcastic. We were used like slave labor, endured humiliating treatment (ever get scornfully & loudly corrected in Grand Rounds? Try it. You'll spend a good amount of time crying in the bathroom). I saw student's carefully written and researched careplans torn up in front of the group at post-op conference. I had a paper rejected twice by an instructor who just could not be satisfied.

Granted, this was nearly 30 years ago and things have changed. Instructors can't just publically verbally vomit on the students anymore. But nursing school remains challenging.

It's not high school--they don't care about your self-esteem; they're not concerned with making you feel good about the experience. They want to produce a nurse who can think quickly and accurately on his/her feet under time contraints and in stressful situations.

Could the instructor be fat biased? Yes. Is she also tougher on the younger students? Is she tough on the whole class?

I suggest your wife make an appointment to speak with the instructor in her office. Explain that she is concerned about this incident, ask how she can improve her time management skills. What can she do better next time? No whining, no blaming, no threats of harrassment lawsuits.

Your wife is in nursing school to accomplish one goal--to learn to be a good nurse. If the instructor is a decent human being, her goal is to get your wife to graduation and into a nursing position.

I'm sorry your wife had her feelings hurt. It may not be the last time. Ask her to step back and wonder if she could have planned the day better to avoid this situation. She's in school to learn, and she'll develop good judgment by learning from her mistakes.

coleoptera · December 15, 2006

I am an elementary teacher. One day I visited a new classroom of kindergarteners and we were talking about writng our whole name. "Some people have short names, and some people have long names!" I told them that I used to have a short name but when I got married I got a new name and it was LONG! :success1:

A little girl raised her hand and said, "You couldn't have gotten married!" I asked Why? "She said you are too fat to fit in a wedding dress!":confused:

There is now way a 5 year old could come up with a discriminatory remark like that on her own. SOMEONE is teaching this child how to discriminate. She is also being taught that it's OK to SAY the rude discriminating things out loud! :welldone2:

I did tell the little girl (in private) that I did get married, that I did wear a wedding dress, and not only was I beautiful bride, I am also a beautiful teacher!)

Teresita · December 15, 2006

WOW Mariguita you handle that very well.

coleoptera · December 15, 2006

Thank you Teresita. You may think I handled it well, but emotionally I did not. I still think of that remark and how horrible it made me feel. Sometimes I want to shake some sense into people that say hateful demeaning comments.

Carlene · December 21, 2006

Today I heard that China will begin Jan 1st implementing new restrictions on adoptions. No longer will single people, "old" people, or overweight people (BMI greater than 40) be allowed to adopt Chinese children. Wouldn't you think that if the criteria needed fine tuning they would try to eliminate people with more "undesirable" traits than their weight? I guess fat is the new Leprosy.

Fauxnaif · January 5, 2007

As much as I enjoy being treated like a 'normal' person now, there is a definate bitterness and resentment for it which I know I will carry for the rest of my life. One of the things which means the most to me in my heart is that my husband married me before I had my surgery. It truly is the last prejudice accepted in today's society.

I could have written this. People are so very different now that I'm not much overweight. Men, but especially women, are much nicer. It's like I'm one of them now. Huh? I definitely feel angry about this, too.

I hope I don't do this to people. I tend to try to befriend those who need it most.

My husband married me at my biggest weight and his treatment of me hasn't really changed either. If it had, we would have some serious issues to deal with.