September 24 - 28 is
Weight Stigma Awareness Week. Weight discrimination is spiriling upwards as fast as obesity rates. It "occurs in employment settings and daily interpersonal relationships virtually as often as race discrimination, and in some cases even more frequently than age or gender discrimination,"
researchers reported in a 2008 issue of the International Journal of Obesity. The negative effects of this form of bias, which is peppered with all sorts of misconceptions and misrepresentations on the causes of obesity, are painful at an individual and collective level. We fail to take responsibilities for the socio-economic and cultural causes of obesity, placing the blame solely on the individual. Ongoing reseaerch is discovering the detrimental impact that high fructose corn syrup in industrialized foods has on insulin and metabolism, body weight, and brain functioning. Yet packaged and processed foods are quite often cheapest and the only accessible foods to low income families. Let's stop discriminating against overweight and obese individuals and become consciously aware of our biases so we can take responsibility for effective changes in socio-economic and cultural influences. Let's
recommit to end "fat talk" and reclaim our health through
actions.
