Headless fattie pic of yours truly

 

A 2005 report found 3% to 5% of American adults were morbidly obese with a BMI <40, while 25% were obese with a BMI <30, and the rest, 66% were overweight or obese with a BMI <25.  This means that while there are a lot of us really fat people out there, we are still a small representation of fat and not the exception to the rule.  (This new report on obesity rates does not specifically mention the different categories of obesity and does not consider other factors like race, ecnonomic status, how age affects weight, etc.)

Still, when the media, specifically the news, does its weekly “fat is bad” reports, they use our headless deathfat bodies to represent the so-called obesity epidemic. If they used headless pics of people who wear XL and 1X to illustrate the “wow, there’s too many fat people in America” panic, nobody would believe the hype. Yet show someone who looks like me, and suddenly we have a national crisis on our hands. It’s a scare tactic, plain and simple, and a misguided one at that.

So, instead of referring to us as morbidly obese, I think we should be called media obese. If we are what the local news, magazines, talk shows and Internet will always show as an example of what all fat people look like in America, I think that’s a pretty correct term.