Bias against fat people remains open and pervasive

[Guest guest]

This article ran in the Akron Beacon Journal Sunday.

I thougt it was worth sharing with the group.

http://www.ohio.com/bj/news/national/docs/008590.htm

Bias against fat people remains open and pervasive

Negative views form early, are felt in school, job

market. United responses are rare

BY CAREY GOLDBERG

New York Times

NORWOOD, MASS.: Walk in Deidra Everett's shoes a

moment: You know that you dress nicely, that you are

well-spoken, that you are clean and friendly and funny

and smart. Yet when you go for a job interview, your

potential employer's eyes tend to sweep your body and

fill with horror.

You can joke about it -- ``The Look'' -- but it has

happened so many times that you have almost given up.

The unemployment rate in Massachusetts is under 3

percent. Your office administration skills are in

desperate demand. But you, as you are often reminded

by stares and gibes from strangers, are fat. Fat.

``I'm an upbeat and confident person,'' said Everett,

33, who is 5-foot-10 and about 440 pounds. ``But you

get kicked enough and even the strongest people say:

`You know, I just don't want to be kicked anymore.

I'll be strong in my own little world.' ''

Studies suggest that weight may now draw more open and

widespread discrimination than race, gender or age. A

1988 study found that students would rather marry an

embezzler, a cocaine user, a shoplifter or a blind

person than an obese person.

Opposition to such discrimination is growing, and it

takes the form of lawsuits, ``size acceptance'' and a

current campaign by a fat woman for bigger seat belts

in cars. There have been pushes in San Francisco and

elsewhere recently to pass ordinances banning

discrimination based on a person's size.

But these efforts appear tiny in a country in which

more than half the population is considered

overweight, and nearly 18 percent are obese --

considered 30 or more pounds overweight.

Unlike other groups that face discrimination, fat

people have not organized extensively to demand their

rights. Their most prominent advocacy group, the

National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance, has

only about 5,000 members.

Opinions form early

The task before such advocates is daunting. Studies

indicate that opinions about fat people turn negative

in childhood and stay negative: As early as nursery

school, they have found, children prefer drawings of

peers in wheelchairs, on crutches or with facial

disfigurements to those who are fat.

``Fat hatred is being taught to our children,'' said

Miriam Berg, president of the Council on Size and

Weight Discrimination, a national nonprofit group. ``I

know from how children react to me. At age 1 1/2,

babies love me and smile at me; you come to 2 1/2, and

already they look at me with fear. It begins that

young, unless they grow up in a household with people

of different sizes.''

According to a national survey, 16 percent of the

general adult population would abort a child if they

knew it would be untreatably obese, said Dorothy C.

Wertz, an ethicist and sociologist at the University

of Massachusetts Medical School who specializes in

genetics and who performed the study. By comparison,

she said, 17 percent would abort if the child would be

mildly retarded.

By elementary school, another study showed, children

use words such as ``dirty,'' ``lazy,'' ``ugly,''

``stupid'' and ``sloppy'' to describe the silhouette

of a fat child.

By adolescence, fat people such as Zimmer, an

eighth-grader who lives near Seattle, may be used to

the teasing, but moments of mortification still

abound. Recently, said, she went to a fair and

found that the restraints on the roller coaster were

designed for bodies smaller than hers, so she could

not ride.

``It was just so embarrassing,'' she said. ``I was

with my brother, and he thought I was mad. And I said

no, not mad; I was just dejected, depressed. What if

somebody I knew had seen that happen?''

Such humiliations do not occur daily, she said, but

she has become paranoid, trying to avoid them at all

cost.

Things do seem to be getting better as she grows up:

``People are respecting me more, because they realize

I'm not just fat; I'm a human being,'' she said. ``I

have talent, I have a 4.0 grade-point average, and I

play a musical instrument, for crying out loud. I hope

that impresses them a little bit.''

But for all her brains, one thing still baffles her:

``I don't understand what people are trying to do by

making fun of fat people,'' she said. ``It's not going

to make them thin; if anything, it's going to make it

worse.''

Talk about Ohioan

Yet the teen-age compulsion to be cruel to peers who

are fat appears to be powerful. Consider a volley of

1998 messages still posted on the USA-Talk Web site

about a fat eighth-grader in Willowick, a Lake County

suburb of Cleveland.

``He is the most disgusting slob I know,'' one posting

reads. ``Maybe it's the six chins, or thunder thighs.

Any way you look at him, you have to be disgusted. A

group of us are planning a little prank at the next

pep-assembly. We're going to jump on him, drag him

into the locker room and strip him naked. We'll then

shove him out into the gym for all the school to see.

Maybe then people will see what a disgusting person he

is.''

Other writers eventually censured the person who

posted the message, but first there were supportive

postings such as this: ``Oh, and you failed to mention

the fact that his gold chain around his neck is buried

under a mound of fat.''

A National Education Association position paper says

that, ``for fat students, the school experience is one

of ongoing prejudice, unnoticed discrimination, and

almost constant harassment.''

``From nursery school through college,'' the paper

continued, ``fat students experience ostracism,

discouragement and sometimes violence.''

Indeed, studies have shown that fat students are less

likely to go to college and that their parents are

less likely to pay for it; once there, they face

hostile attitudes from fellow students.

Employers' concerns

The job market presents other challenges. Studies have

found that fat white women tend to earn significantly

less than their thinner counterparts. One study found

that highly obese women earn 24 percent less, while

the moderately obese earn about 6 percent less.

Another survey found that among 81 employers, about 16

percent considered obesity ``an absolute bar to

employment'' and 44 percent considered it conditional

medical grounds for passing over an applicant.

The elements of such discrimination may be complex.

Mark Roehling, an assistant professor of management at

Western Michigan University who published an analysis

last year of the extensive research on weight

discrimination, said employers described several

concerns, including the impact on health insurance

premiums and customers responding negatively to a fat

employee.

The only places to have passed laws against

weight-based discrimination are Michigan; Washington,

D.C.; Santa Cruz, Calif.; and San Francisco.

Elsewhere, fat people are increasingly taking

discriminators to court, experts say.

Sondra Solovay, author of Tipping the Scales of

Justice: Fighting Weight-Based Discrimination, argues

that ``discrimination against fat people is the civil

rights hurdle of the new millennium.''

Perhaps the trickiest question is whether obesity

should be considered a disability. Courts have ruled

that the Americans With Disabilities Act provides

protection in some cases, particularly those

concerning highly obese people, but not in others,

depending on the circumstances.

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