There’s a lot to disagree with in Paul Krugman’s recent anti-fat column, but I was particularly annoyed by his opening:
The obvious model for those hoping to reverse the fattening of America is the campaign against smoking. Before the surgeon general officially condemned smoking in 1964, rising cigarette consumption seemed an unstoppable trend; since then, consumption per capita has fallen more than 50 percent.
But it may be hard to match that success when it comes to obesity. I’m not talking about the inherent difficulty of the task – getting people to consume fewer calories and/or exercise more may be harder than getting people to stop smoking, but we won’t know until we try.
So it’s Krugman’s view that we haven’t tried yet?
Holy shit!
I mean, the Feds have been speaking out against America’s expanding waistbands, in increasing tones of panic, for decades. Even as Americans get fatter and fatter and live longer and longer, each successive surgeon general has task forced and press released and new programmed and blue-ribbon scientific committeed against the growing fat menace.
And Krugman thinks they haven’t even started yet. I guess that’s better than admitting that yelling and nagging and guilting and kvetching and scolding and sneering and moralizing and chiding and the-sad-fact-is-ing and reproaching at fat people doesn’t actually turn fat people thin.
And the federal government could (and probably will) try it for another few generations, and you know what? It still won’t turn fat people thin. And we’ll keep on getting fatter. And living longer.
Krugman concludes “that the history of government interventions on behalf of public health, from the construction of sewer systems to the campaign against smoking, is one of consistent, life-enhancing success.” That’s only true, of course, if you ignore decades of failed government interventions to make Americans thinner.
P.S. There’s also some anti-corporate rhetoric in Krugman’s article, which I generally agree with. But why – apart from anti-fat ideology – is only the fast food industry criticized? Krugman not only fails to criticize the huge diet and medical corporations which put their weight behind the anti-fat campaign, he mindlessly repeats their party line.
Krugman’s tactful avoidance of mentioning the increase in employees’ work hours is also noted. Not to mention the overall decline in workers’ wages relative to the cost of living. If fat is really some kind of malevolent force in society, there are two major aggravating factors, ripe for analysis. What is he waiting for ? :/
Also he doesn’t mention the increase in commute times and the increase in the number of sitting-down types of jobs.
I guess Krugman doesn’t count prohibition or the drug war as “government interventions on behalf of public health.”
And let’s not forget agribusiness and its corn-syrup-happy ways. And the FDA with its dubiously high-carb food pyramid. And what exactly are all those additives and hormones in our food doing in us once they’re eaten? Honestly it’s amazing we’re not even fatter and more cancer prone.
I love how it’s always about the consumer, never the providers of our food. Like how you’ll see an article urging Americans to “eat more fish!” for the omega-3, then the next article describes how dangerous fish is with the mercury levels so high. But no reporter in the mainstream press ever says “Hey, maybe there’s a bigger story here than people making bad individual choices.” No one ever asks “Why is it so difficult (economically and practically) to make good food choices anyway?”
How to reduce obesity overnight? Redefine obesity to more than 40 on the stupid BMI. The BMI says I should weigh 135 pounds. I weighed that in 9th grade and was a rail.
I’m frankly surprised a bit at Krugman’s stance on this. He’s usually pretty sensitive to class issues, but seems to have missed the boat here in his enthusiasm to bash corporate/fast food (an area in which I do agree with him). He’s missed the boat totally on the class issues underlying the current obesity “moral panic.”
I’m severely disappointed that Krugman is taking the lead in the liberal brand of fat bashing. His entire arguement is painfully knee-jerk and uniformed. As evidenced by that start where he adopts the all too frequent position that fat people are coddled and the problem is that no one has gotten around to telling us how fat we are. As one would expect, he adopts the liberal friendly “anti-corporate” brand of fat bashing (which still inevitably falls back on personal scolding), but as you point out he is really endorsing a whole host of big industries. The Pharmaceutical industry, medical industry, and food industries all make a mint on the fat hatred Krugman is so quick to embrace. We’ve even got a growing diet industry which takes in tens of billions of dollars a year. He’s upset about the nut-jobs at the CCF? Who does he think his bankrolling the anti-fat movement? But, of course, those corporations are right so they get to that. If a corporation is annoyed that folks keep trying to blame fatness on them, they aren’t allowed to mount a defense. I’m no great fan of the CCF, but they grew out of an industry being treated wildly unfairly. I know most corporate interest groups will say the same, but its actually right in this case. It takes a lot to be offensively unfair to McDonald’s, but folks found a way in trying to scape goat them for the existance of fat people. All the while only ramping up the kind of aggressive stigmatization that inspires people to amputate healthy organs in service of thinness.
Krugman needs to stick to his area of expertise–economics–and quit trying to come off as an expert on everything else.
It was sobering for me to discover, when I got past the rhetoric and actually learned about the latest research findings concerning obesity, that being overweight is usually a symptom of health problems, not so much causing them. If you’re more than a little bit overweight it means something is already wrong with you–and rather than emphasizing finding out what that particular health problem is, everybody wants to slam fat people for lack of discipline. Want to know why we have a diabetes epidemic in this country? There’s a big reason right there.
I’m five feet tall and weigh 145 pounds. If that was all you knew you could go look at a chart somewhere and come back and tell me I have a weight problem.
I work out 4 days a week. I do weights, cardio and yoga/pilates. I wear a size 10 or 12 depending on the manufacturer. I am more fit than I’ve ever been in my life, frankly. You could bounce a quarter off these buns. Not bad for someone staring down the barrel of her fiftieth birtday.
I’ve been the weight the charts tell me I should be. I was bone tired all the time and had no immune system to speak of, I was at the mercy of every passing cold bug.
The whole hysteria over numbers rather than fitness and healthy food choices is insanity.
What’s with the New York Times lately, anyway? First it’s “there’s no such thing as bisexuality” and now it’s “we haven’t begun to fight obesity yet.” At first, I thought this article would be a Big Food Company-bashing op-ed piece, but now after reading it carefully, I just think it’s strange.
People will stop gaining weight when we stop eating animal foods laden with growth hormone. See my response to Krugman here.
Wow. So I’m fat because I eat meat, Morgaine? Good to know.
Oh, wait, I’m a vegetarian.
I’m really sick of people on the left seeking to blame fatness on whatever anti-corporate cause the believe in. In debases those causes, and it promotes hatred of fat people. I’m sick and tired of people seeking to blame my body on anything. By treating fat people this way, you are no different than the people who plainly insult and mock fat people. Indeed, those people are at least not bothering to hide their disdain and disgust rather than cloaking it in the robes of anti-corporatism.
There is much to dislike about the big food industry. Animal growth hormones may well be a reason. But exploiting fat hatred to make your point is annoyingly insulting. Not anything new, I’m afraid.
Well said, bean. While there is some truth to what Dana said, it still feels like an effort to define being fat as fundamentally wrong which still has the effective of making life difficult for fat people. It also overstates things. It is absolutely true that weight gain is often a sympthom of the problems fat bashers claim are caused by being fat. PCOS and Diabetes stick out as obvious examples where weight gain is a sign of the disease, not a cause. Treating the sympthom as the real problem ultimately ignores the cause. While this worth noting, it doesn’t explain away fatness. Some fat people are simply fat people and searching for a reason to blame their fatness on is only counterproductive. In a world where fatness is seen is morally and medically neutral, doctors will be able to see weight gain and weight loss properly as possible signs of disease. Right now, the former is always seen is something requiring diet monger and the latter is always celebrated. This causes major problems to go undiagnosed in both groups.
Also, it cannot be said enough that there is no conclusive proof that diabetes is really any more prevelant today than it has been in the past. There is a lot of reason to think it we’re simply diagnosing more readily, especially with regards to children, than we had in the past. Furthermore, any study depending on self-reported diabetic status is likely to be tained by increasing use of dubious diagnoses such as pre-diabetic for people who are healthy but presumably not healthy enough. Many patients may confuse such edicts as meaning they are actually diabetic when they are not.
Also wanted to add that the esteemed Paul Campos offers a good critique of Krugman’s essay. Well worth a look.
bean wrote:
Word. BTW, an aside to BStu: Sorry if I came across as one of those people who was “seeking to blame fatness on whatever cause we believe in.” I do think the workweek should be shorter so people can pursue what they enjoy, which would include activities that promote fitness. It’s not of much concern to me whether those activities would promote weight loss. It’s enough that they would promote health, not to mention happiness. Who the hell enjoys being trapped in a cubicle or on an assembly line 40+ hrs. a week ?
Oh, and Lee. Nice catch.
emjaybee wrote:
Well, em, nothing must disturb the fiction that The Consumer is Omnipotent King/Queen in the U.S. Else, the companies hawking diets and fast food and urging us to not put down that remote might get offended and take their wads of cash elsewhere. Feh.
Glad I skipped that Krugman column. Mark Morford is another fatphobic coming at it from liberal/lefty arguments. He has never once conceded that fat people can be fit and healthy. I usually like his columns but I immediately skip over anything that begins with his opining “Americans are fat because they eat bad food”…
Here’s what I really don’t get about all this fear of fat nonsense. Why is it anyone else’s business if someone is fat anyway? All the people spouting this crap are free not to want to be fat themselves, to not want to date fat people, to diet and exercise and calorie count to their little heart’s content, but why the need to share their feelings with the rest of the world? Because honestly, all this stuff is more about aesthetics than it is about health. Anorexics are placing their lives in far more danger than fat people, and I’m not seeing any public hysteria about them. The only reason I can think of that someone else’s weight would be at all relevant would be when deciding whether or not you want to date them, at which point of course everyone is free to have their preferences and no one has to date anyone they’re not attracted to. Why the need to constantly remind fat people that you find them undesireable? Because, other than class (which is also a huge unspoken part of this issue), that’s what this is really about.
And you know what? I have my preferences just like everyone else. I have a deep-seated dislike of male body hair. I can deal with hairy legs, armpits etc, but hair on the torso turns me off. And yet somehow I manage to refrain from running around screaming “hairy chests are gross!” at every guy I meet. I truly do not understand why the fat-o-phobes can’t just shut the hell up and pay fat people the same courtesy.
And just FYI before some troll jumps in with the “you’re just justifying your decision to stay fat” crap that this topic always seems to attract – nope, wrong. I’m a size 8 – not skinny, but certainly not fat either. This is a matter of courtesy, good manners and tolerance. I’m having difficulty understanding why our society has decided that fat people are not entitled to these things just like everyone else.
Simply put, because fat is a moral issue. All issues of attractiveness inevitably end up sounding like ugliness is a moral failing, but never is the association so explicit and pushed as with fat people. We aren’t simply unattractive. We’re sinfully unattractive, so people see that as a justification. People may have similiar attitudes towards people who short than they’d like or have a nose shaped in a way they don’t like, etc, but I think those are attitudes are more difficult to actively treat as one of immorality. They may think less of a person based on how they look, but they also know they can’t really justify it because all of those things are universlly judged to be out of a person’s realistic control.
With fat, there is a myth of change which allows the moral issue to prosper. Would the behavior be okay if fat was really a choice? No. But I think that’s an issue quite beside the point because the premise for the attacks is flawed in its own right. Its like with the Plame case. Even if all the excuses offered were Rove’s behavior were true, it wouldn’t excuse is reckless and irresponsible behavior in blowing cover for a CIA agent. But the excuses aren’t true, so there is no room to concede that fight. If fat was a choice, the discrimination and hatred directed towards fat people would still be wrong. But its not a choice, and that’s still the primary justification used against fat people. If you take away the justification, it obviously becomes a lot more difficult to make their arguement.
The difficulty is that this is a premise that is nearly universally believed. Even nearly all fat people assume guilt and responsibility for their bodies. In spite of the obvious experience to discredit the idea, they continue to believe that they are at fault for their weight. They presume that they just must be doing something wrong. They must have “willpower issues”, they must overeat, they must be too sedentary. Sometimes, these become self-fufilling so the negative assumpsions have a harmful effect in and of themselves. It also means that when they are shown intolerance and hatred over their size, they are inclined to agree with it or at the least not put up a fight. This is a major factor in the continued oppression of fat people.
nothing seems to bring out more anger than the fat thing, I agree a person may decide he or she doesn’t like fat people, that is fine, but to impose their views on others and expecting them to change it so they don’t have to look at your fatness anymore? that is wrong.
I personally don’t like hairy chests or backs on guys, but that doesn’t mean that all guys with hair there should shave it off or get it permanently removed, I don’t like most guys with long hair (except some I have seen that really make them look cute) I guess because some guys don’t take care of it and it looks tacky.
no one would argue for hair removal because it is considered a health threat or something or that guys with long hair are immoral, is ridiculous but when it comes to fatness the rules change, all of a sudden everyone elses opinon is more important to impose on others .
don’t they have more important things to worry about anyway? we have aids, cancer, heart disease in thin and fat alike, we have people starving in this country let alone others, we have job losses increased cost of living and the uninsured to worry about we have possible serious global climate change, we have pollution effecting people’s health, we have smog, we have serious crimes being commited and no one knows how to rehabilitate people who do serious crimes,, why are they so focused on fat?
could the motive be MONEY!!!!!!!!!!!????
RR
BStu – Agreed. It still pisses me off, not only on the grounds you stated but on the grounds of pure civility. If a person commits a crime that actively harms other people, then it’s appropriate to pass judgement (and even then only within clearly defined limits). In any other circumstance, people need to keep their feelings to themselves. This is why I hate it when people use the term “PC” in a sarcastic way – if you really think about it it implies that there are some categories of people who we should be free to insult and make feel bad at will, and that is not the way a civilised society should be behaving.
For a smart guy (usually), Krugman has gotten completely taken in. Who does he think is paying for a huge number of the books, conferences, ‘continuing education’ sessions, studies about how bad fat is for you etc? Doesn’t he realize that Big Pharma is out in force on this topic? Hey, if obesity is the world’s worst problem, and diet and exercise recommendations don’t seem to be helping much, then why don’t we just give everybody the anti-fat pills that the drug companies are all working on. Gosh, what a good idea.