By any measure, Dr. Regina Benjamin has had an enormous positive impact on our nation. The first African-American woman and first physician under 40 to serve on the AMA’s board of trustees, Benjamin is the CEO of Bayou La Batre Rural Health Clinic in the small gulf coast shrimping village of Bayou La Batre, Alabama, a practice that she had to rebuild after the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina. She’s a recipient of the Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights, was listed as one of Time magazine’s “Nation’s 50 Future Leaders Age 40 and Under,” and has been awarded the papal cross Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice from Pope Benedict XVI. She served on the Florida A&M University Board of Trustees as an appointee of then-Gov. Jeb Bush, and was appointed to multiple committees of the Department of Health and Human Services the Clinton administration.
In short, it’s hard to see anything on Regina Benjamin’s resumé that indicates anything other than a strong work ethic, a keen intellect, a pure soul, and overwhelming qualifications to serve as America’s 18th Surgeon General. Yes, as a Democratic appointee, there are a few things that will cause her to run afoul of the usual suspects on the right, such as her commitment to abortion rights and her support for a radical overhaul of America’s broken health care system. But as a Democratic president is unlikely to appoint an anti-choice, pro-insurance surgeon general, there’s really nothing to suggest that Benjamin would receive anything other than overwhelming support for her confirmation.
Except for one thing.
She’s a bit overweight.
Now, you may think that it’s bizarre to suggest that a MacArthur Genius Grant-winning, papal award-receiving, universally respected physician should be denied the position of Surgeon General because she, like many Americans, is somewhat overweight. You might think it beggars belief that we could even be discussing the idea that someone should be denied a position because of her weight. But if you’ve been paying attention to the overwhelming fat phobia in our society, you can’t be surprised.
The balanced, mainstream concern-troll look at the story comes from ABC News, which is just wondering, you see, whether this could be a problem:
Dr. Regina M. Benjamin, Obama’s pick for the next surgeon general, was hailed as a MacArthur Grant genius who had championed the poor at a medical clinic she set up in Katrina-ravaged Alabama.
But the full-figured African-American nominee is also under fire for being overweight in a nation where 34 percent of all Americans aged 20 and over are obese.
Critics and supporters across the blogsphere have commented on photos of Benjamin’s round cheeks, saying she sends the wrong message as the public face of America’s health initiatives.
Indeed. If Americans see a healthy, hard-working — but overweight — surgeon general, we might get the idea that being fat isn’t horrible, and then we might actually wonder whether fatness is actually equal to health. We might have a discussion about fatness that is honest. Horrors! We can’t have that!
My favorite part of the story, though, is contained in a sub-header:
40 Pounds Over, Size 18, Blogs Speculate
Yes! Blogs speculate! It’s pretty much exactly like truth, especially since, last I checked, sizes weren’t specifically tied to weight!
Yes, there are a few voices of reason. Joanne Ikeda, a nutritionist at Cal-Berkeley, says, “Maybe now we will stop making the assumption that all fat people are unhealthy particularly in light of new data coming from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.” And Steven Blair, a professor of exercise science at the University of South Carolina, quite reasonably adds, “The focus should be on Dr. Benjamin’s credentials and accomplishments. What difference does her size make?”
But of course, these questions are buried between people concern-trolling that Benjamin is a bad example to African-Americans, just like Oprah. Because for heaven’s sake, who would want their daughter to grow up to be a multi-billionaire talk show host or a world-renowned physician if she might be a little bit overweight? It boggles the mind!
Still, while ABC’s story is obnoxious, to really do completely unfair character assassination, you need the professionals at Fox News, who brought in Michael Karolchyk to discuss the issue.
Remember Michael Karolchyk? Sure you do! He’s the jerkface owner of The Anti-Gym in Denver, which, if you recall, featured such innovations as cupcake-throwing at people on treadmills, a “ravish room” for the men and women who had acceptably low BMIs, and “live DJs [and] cage dancers,” because, you know, that’s what the gym needs. If you want to feel worse about humanity, go ahead and check out his commercials.
Of course — funny story — in a rare example of divine retribution, Karolchyk is actually now the former owner of The Anti-Gym, because he lost it in January after failing to pay over $180,000 in tax bills. He then subsequently put his clients’ personal info, including credit card numbers and abusive comments about them, in an open dumpster.
You might think that a failed gym owner wouldn’t be the first person you’d turn to for a discussion of whether someone is qualified to serve as surgeon general, but alas, you’d be wrong:
Yes, he is wearing a “No Chubbies” shirt.
Doubtless, there is no shortage of racism and sexism feeding into this discussion. A similarly overweight white male wouldn’t be getting quite this level of opprobrium, and we wouldn’t be talking about what his waist size was. But more than that, it’s a sign of just how hateful attitudes remain about people who weigh more than the “ideal.” The idea that Benjamin could be accomplished, brilliant, and of superlative character is nothing compared to the fact that she’s overweight. It’s damn dispiriting.
How can you tell that this is about “fatphobia.” A no chubbies shirt could be a joke. Maybe it was the only thing clean in his laundry. Phobia means fear anyway and he doesn’t have to be afraid of fat to oppose seeing it in public. Anyway she is not healthy, would you hire someone with a broken car to be your mechanic? He probably likes lots of other fat people, like how do you know he doesn’t have a fat mother, or a fat wife. You’re not a mindreader so you don’t know that he’s fatphobic. You really should make sure to confirm your claims before you write them down.
You’re so right, Mandolin. What was I thinking? :P
Since someone asked me if I was being impersonated — no, I’m not. I’m just trying to evaluate every claim with the rigor that for “some reason” claims of racism are subjected to. We can’t know that the policeman was racist against Gates because we don’t know what was in his heart. Sure — there’s very little knowledge we have that is beyond any certainty. But why does that claim require a higher level of proof than other claims?
I think maybe the ‘anti-obesity’ lobby is being shot in the foot. Between him and MeMe, all we see is not personal madness, but the madness of ‘anti-obesity’ and it’s crisis.
What I’d love to know is, what is the sane, rational argument against fatness, how does it differ in essence from what he is saying?
How do you make this argument without degrading fat people in anyway?
It seems to me this guy’s problem is his style and manner, his message is the same as those with better social skills, I stand to be corrected.
B. Adu,
“the sane, rational argument against fatness”
I think it depends on how literally you mean “obesity” and “fatness.” If you use the terms as they are being used with regard to the Surgeon General, or as they often are used on this blog — as an aesthetic evaluation or a coarse BMI measurement of weight relative to height — then yeah, there’s no way to argue against obesity or fatness without basically saying what this guy is saying.
OTOH, if you are referring to obesity and fat in a somewhat technical and medical sense — as referring to the level of adipose tissue in the body — then the “the sane, rational argument” against them is that literal fat appears to dull insulin receptors and thereby increase the likelihood of diabetes. In other words, someone like me who is still in the “normal” range in the coarse BMI measurement is actually higher risk for diabetes than most people deemed “overweight,” because I have a very high body fat percentage that increasingly is visceral.
I don’t think there is anything wrong with being concerned about fat in that sense, but the concern would have to be constrained to people’s doctors, physical trainers, et al., because on most people, you cannot simply eyeball whether their level of body fat is in a range that would be unhealthy. Certainly the only person who tells me that I really need to change my diet and greatly ramp up my cardio exercise is my doctor, because she knows what my body fat percentage is and how my tests come back. To anyone who just sees me — even in a bathing suit — I look at most a little overweight, but certainly not obese. In contrast, my older sister gets advice from well-meaning friends and relatives about how she needs to change what she does — when in fact she’s larger-boned, carrying more muscle and in perfectly good health, but appears “fatter” than I do.
PG,
I’d like to ask that you limit your use of personal anecdotes talking about your weight in threads about fatness. I know you’re doing it for illustrative purposes, and your descriptions of yourself are more integrated into your arguments than – for instance – schala’s used to be. But I feel like I know a lot about your appearance right now, and… hm. That’s not inherently a bad thing. But you sort of end up using it as a de facto weapon that’s describing allowable bodies and not allowable ones. “I’m fat, yes, but not that fat, and here’s how my weight is distributed…” It’s happened in a number of threads.
Anyway, please do go ahead and use them if you think they’re absolutely necessary. But I would appreciate it if you’d think about how your descriptions feed into narratives about bodies and fatness, and who has access to being able to describe themselves the way you do without fear of significant reproach, and especially how you end up wielding such descriptions since you are often acting as a dissenter in threads about fatness and fatphobia. (We’re glad to have your dissenting voice, but dynamics of privilege work the same there as anywhere.)
So, this is a mod request, but only sort of. I just wanted to bring these issues to your attention as moderator, but I trust you to figure out a way to appropriately deal with it, and if that way is to conclude that your descriptions *are* always necessary, that’s fine.
Mandolin,
OK, I will try to think about this more carefully before using myself as an example of “medically fat yet not socially fat.” I don’t intend it to mean that I consider my body of the type that ought to be allowable, only that it is treated that way by people who are ignorant of my real health situation, and often those exact same people will erroneously judge someone whose body they find aesthetically displeasing to be in poor health, when that person actually is in better health than I. I am arguing what seems to be a minority viewpoint that literal fat does have relevance to health, but I want to be clear that I am arguing AGAINST the idea that an aesthetic judgment of who is fat, or the coarse use of BMI, has any validity whatsoever for health purposes.
I like the Weird Al quote.
Certainly the only person who tells me that I really need to change my diet and greatly ramp up my cardio exercise is my doctor, because she knows what my body fat percentage is and how my tests come back.
Exactly, the same argument this guy’s making about Ms Benjamin. I suppose I had in mind those who ask why they giving this sort airtime.
I say, keep giving him and others like him air time because his crude mentality is throughly in keeping with the crude mentality of the message and the way of life that follows from it. For too long that has been hidden by rank.
I am arguing what seems to be a minority viewpoint that literal fat does have relevance to health,
I am not sure what you mean by the term ‘literal fat’ to be honest, but I think your splitting of aesthetic judgement from health judgement doesn’t tally. If fat is a health threat then an aesthetic judgement is a health judgement and vice versa.
It’s not that I or other’s who support fat acceptance state that fatness or weight is irrelevant to health, we are saying what you’re saying, that you cannot weigh a person’s state of health.
It’s not? Huh?
I am REALLY not trying to be snarky, but in all seriousness I have either been repeatedly misreading a variety of people on a variety of blogs (certainly possible.) Or you are not correct, or you are talking about something else and I’m misreading you now.
Help me out here: Haven’t there been a variety of FA posts here in which people assert that fat is either healthy or not unhealthy; that weight is irrelevant to health (which makes sense irrespective of fat’s health, since weight /= fat;) and the like? Isn’t that sort of what FA is advocating? What am I missing?
Exactly, the same argument this guy’s making about Ms Benjamin.
I am not quite sure what you mean by “the same argument.” I am saying that you can’t tell from merely looking at someone (what I have elsewhere called “aesthetic judgment”) what the condition of that person’s health is. Heck, even the drug companies have been telling us that: remember those ads for Lipitor, the anti-cholesterol drug, that showed a beautiful thin woman falling down on the red carpet from a heart attack because she stupidly assumed that being thin meant she was heart-healthy? I assume the gym owner is not Dr. Benjamin’s physician nor even her personal trainer, and therefore has no clue what her percentage body fat, location of body fat, cholesterol, blood pressure, etc. actually are.
I am not sure what you mean by the term ‘literal fat’ to be honest, but I think your splitting of aesthetic judgement from health judgement doesn’t tally. If fat is a health threat then an aesthetic judgement is a health judgement and vice versa.
Literal fat refers to adipose tissue, something you can’t analyze the level of by looking at a picture of someone. This is the difference between your personal physician saying “I have done a test and your body is 1/3 fat,” and your neighbor pointing at a picture of Kirstie Alley in tight pants and saying “She has fat thighs.” It’s the difference between fat-as-adjective and fat-as-noun. Your physician never should be saying, “You are fat.” (I suppose if you are a supermodel it is valid for your booking agent to say “You are fat” because it’s his job to make aesthetic judgments.)
Fat-as-adjective is an aesthetic judgment. Quantity and placement of fat-as-noun in the body is a health judgment. Being fat-as-adjective isn’t a health threat; having a very high percentage of your total body composed of fat-as-noun is a potential health threat, due in part as I’ve mentioned to the effect of high levels of visceral fat on insulin receptors.
PG,
I am saying that you can’t tell from merely looking at someone (what I have elsewhere called “aesthetic judgment”) what the condition of that person’s health is.
We are talking about concluding things from a person’s size, namely size, fat.
You’re saying that we cannot, because a slim person might be ‘fat on the inside’ as they’ve called it, that then is not an argument against fatness.
Sailorman,
repeatedly misreading a variety of people on a variety of blogs
Yep, you know the score.
What am I missing?
That your -with god or with satan style dichotomy can only respond to, ‘I’m agnostic’ with – then you must be with satan.
B. Adu,
Since you seem to have ignored my entire explanation about the difference between fat as a description of a person’s body, and fat as a type of tissue that we all have in our bodies but that some of us have at higher percentages than others do, I don’t think there’s anything productive to come out of my trying to go into this any further.
Size =/= fat. They are not synonyms if you look them up in the dictionary. When both are used as nouns, they mean completely different things. You apparently have a single concept of what the word “fat” means: an adjective. This is grammatically incomplete and also incompatible with basic anatomy & physiology. Dissect any mammal of reasonable size (my experience is with cats) and you will see fat, the noun inside them, regardless of whether the animal when alive was fat, the adjective.
PG,
Oh dear, you appear to be upset.
you seem to have ignored my entire explanation about the difference between fat as a description of a person’s body, and fat as a type of tissue that we all have in our bodies but that some of us have at higher percentages than others do
Not so, but I don’t really think it matters. It’s simple, health has to be judged on an individual basis, not by weight either way.
I think you agree with that on one level, but seem to be resisting it on another, you’re having an argument with yourself.
I’m happy to get out of the way whilst you work it out.
“not by weight either way”
This is the kind of statement that indicates you still don’t get what I’m talking about with regard to fat-as-noun. Adipose tissue doesn’t have much to do with weight. Indeed, it weighs less than many other kinds of tissue, especially muscle. I’m not upset, just befuddled as to how I can make this any clearer without dissecting a large mammal for you and pointing to the adipose tissue and saying “See, that’s fat” (since I’m not currently taking nor teaching a science class, I don’t know how I’d get access to one; I don’t want to go Bill Frist on this).
I am quite clear on what I understand about fat as relevant to health, whereas you’re hung up on fat always = weight, size, etc.
Honestly, I think it’s just the middle-age spread. What if all the stress of working so hard made her fat? The issues are non-issues. They are just trying to cast doubt on her abilities, work up a newsworthy storm, and throw in a little sexism on the way — perusing this capable woman through a male gaze, implying that fatness is ugliness.
I actually think her size makes her more personable and understanding towards the health issues America faces. Not only that, it may help her stand her ground amongst those naysayers.
PG,
you’re hung up on fat always = weight, size, etc.
No.
I’m referring to the basis of the obesity crisis, which is having a BMI of 30+. We have repeatedly been told that extensive scientific data shows that health begins to decline consistently at this point.
You then made a point about fat as a noun; meaning adipose tissue, which I understood and addressed, I’ll put it another way, your point undermines the basis of the obesity crisis and what we are told is obesity science.
B. Adu,
Except what an *accurate* body mass index captures is indeed the percentage of total body mass that is composed of adipose. That’s why I keep referring to “coarse BMI,” which merely measures height relative to weight, as being useless. Because it’s difficult to get an accurate body fat percentage measure for a large population, public health entities often just go by the coarse measurement, which might capture some truth for a large population, but has no significance for individuals. In scientific journals, obesity is used to refer to a abnormally high percentage of body fat, aka high level of “adiposity.”
As I have been saying since my comment @5, “fat” has both a common and a technical meaning. You had asked @4, “what is the sane, rational argument against fatness” and I have tried to explain that there is one against “fatness” in a technical meaning of the word “fat,” but not against it in the common meaning. You seem to be insisting that there is no sane, rational argument against it whatsoever, regardless of which meaning is used.
ETA: Even Slate picked up on this one.
PG, there are literally hundreds, and probably thousands, of articles in peer-reviewed journals that use “crude BMI” of 30 and over to define obesity.
Regardless of whether or not BMI is a good measure, if a “technical,” “scientific” definition of obesity is defined as one that is used frequently in the peer-reviewed literature, then the definition of obesity you’re disagreeing with is a scientific and technical definitions of obesity. To imply that it’s not, or that the definition you prefer is the exclusive scientific/technical definition, is inaccurate.
pg,
Although I quite rarely agree with Amp and B.Adu on this topic, I have to say that I do on this one.
Obviously, % body fat (as accurately measured) is a valuable tool in predicting health. Obviously, crude BMI as a simple height/weight glance is not an especially good measure of body fat. I don’t think anyone is debating those two statements.
But be that as it may, the term “BMI” is widely used to refer to the crude measurement, in technical and lay writing both. Whether or not “BMI” also refers to the individualized measurement, it is probably a better idea to use “% body fat” or some other descriptive term. At least it is, if you are asking people to understand that you are discussing the accurate personalized measure and not the less accurate generalized one.
SM,
Yes, which is why in my first comment in this thread @5, I acknowledged that there were multiple understandings for the terms obesity and fat, and specified which meanings I thought did have significance for a health evaluation, since B. Adu was calling into question whether fatness ever could be problematic (asking what the “sane, rational argument against fatness” is).
Amp,
In public health studies, sure, as I acknowledged @18 (see also the Slate article I linked: “Some researchers now argue that this flawed and overly reductive measure is skewing the results of research in public health.”).
You can’t do a population study requiring something as precise as a body fat measurement (“It would have been more accurate for the actuaries to compare longevity data with more direct assessments of body fat—such as caliper-measured skinfold thickness or hydrostatic weighing. But these data were much harder for them to obtain than standard information on height, weight, and sex.”).
But such studies also can’t do much about finding causation between a coarse BMI over 30 and various nasty health outcomes, because if you’re using such a large population that your researchers can’t poke and prod each participant, then there will be a ton of confounding factors. At best, you’ll find some correlations (e.g. “people with coarse BMI over 30 die X years earlier than people at coarse BMI of 25 or less”).
For the win. :)
PG,
I think your lingering suspicion of what I’m saying centres on the belief that I represent an ‘I *heart* the adipose cell’ position. I’m more of a sceptic than that, and that scepticism is informed by my experiences and observations. I don’t claim to know all or even any of the answers, but the ‘crisis’ is about stopping at fat=bad, I’m not interested.
I doubt that fatness of any kind is intrinsically pathological, I don’t believe that it’s irrelevant either. I’m curious about it as anyone else and I’m happy to speculate on it; outside the strangling constraints of the ‘I hate adipose’ position.
It often seems to play some kind of defensive role. Over and above any genetic propensity, it seems to be part of the body’s strategy to see off or withstand any threats to it’s integrity, both mental and maybe even physical.
Looking at where it seems most prevalent, I’ve come to the -tentative-conclusion that it occurs most not amongst a class per se, but on the cusp of two classes if you like, that of working class and lower middle class, the working poor, even though they don’t necessarily see themselves as poor. People from humble backgrounds who aspire.
Regina Benjamin is not critiqued directly for being black or female, or even for having the impertinence to go ahead and fulfil her talents, but for that which may or (may not) have helped to ballast her capacity to sustain herself during her numerous achievements. I’m not saying that slim people don’t strive just as hard, but it doesn’t call fatness into play, well unless you’re talking about bodyfat percentage :)
It seems to me, that attacks on fat people are coded attacks on those who don’t know their place and strive to better themselves. There’s a lot of veiled anxiety around the potential consequences of meritocracy.
This is echoed even in whole countries, when you look at the ‘tiger’ economies they are often told that their striving to better themselves is going to cause the whole world system to implode and kill off the planet.
I wish Dr. Benjamin all the best in the latest of her inspirational achievements.
I had the see the shirt myself to believe it. Now, the most facepalmiest of all facepalms has just occured. How do you even think your going to appear the least objective, wearing a shirt like that? Seriously, I’m going to have to lie down for awhile, such stupidity tires me.