File this one under “Fat is a feminist issue“:
MUCH of the debate about the nation’s obesity epidemic has focused, not surprisingly, on food: labeling requirements, taxes on sugary beverages and snacks, junk food advertisements aimed at children and the nutritional quality of school lunches.
But obesity affects not only health but also economic outcomes: overweight people have less success in the job market and make less money over the course of their careers than slimmer people. The problem is particularly acute for overweight women, because they are significantly less likely to complete college.
We arrived at this conclusion after examining data from a project that tracks more than 10,000 people who graduated from Wisconsin high schools in 1957. From career entry to retirement, overweight men experienced no barriers to getting hired and promoted. But heavier women worked in jobs that had lower earnings and social status and required less education than their thinner female peers.
At first glance this difference might appear to reflect bias on the part of employers, and male supervisors in particular. After all, studies find that employers tend to view overweight workers as less capable, less hard-working and lacking in self-control.
But the real reason was that overweight women were less likely to earn college degrees — regardless of their ability, professional goals or socioeconomic status. In other words, it didn’t matter how talented or ambitious they were, or how well they had done in high school. Nor did it matter whether their parents were rich or poor, well educated or high school dropouts.
The solution can’t be just promoting more healthful behaviors (although that should be Public Health 101); promoting health has to be for the point of promoting health, not to “end obesity.” And schools should be making concerted efforts to take on anti-fat bullying and counter poisonous social narratives about weight and one’s worth.
I’ve long been critical about The Obesity Crisis(TM), but of course it’s worth promoting public health initiatives that focus on health eating, and particularly on getting health food into schools. Schools shouldn’t have to sign contracts with Pepsi in order to buy books; kids, and especially lower-income kids who rely on schools to provide some of their daily meals, shouldn’t be fed over-processed high-calorie low-nutrition slop. Public education funding should be sufficient to help pay for gym teachers and sports teams. Schools and teachers shouldn’t tolerate or promote anti-fat teasing or commentary. And health-promoting initiatives should be instituted because the point of public health initiatives is to help people be healthy — not to shame people for their physical size.
Fat-hate hurts everyone, but it particularly hurts fat women. And it’s hurting fat women in very real ways — they’re poorer, less educated and less successful in the job market because of the culture of shame and judgment we’ve created around weight.