Prejudice Against Fat People Still Common -- Tyra Banks Excluded

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Americans are getting steadily heavier, yet conversely the image of the ideal body shape is getting steadily thinner. This widening chasm is causing societal friction and a hardening prejudice, not toward a minority, but paradoxically toward a growing majority.

This month, supermodel Tyra Banks hit back at the media for ridiculing her "heavier figure". Banks, who purportedly is 5"10 and weighs 161 lbs, infamously told the media to "Kiss my fat ass." But, the problem is she recently modeled a bikini, in which she appeared thin and sexy. This flew in the face of her attempts to be a spokesperson for overweight women.

"The people that were staring and laughing in my face shocked me the most."

Tyra Banks, Supermodel (when she wore a fat suit)

Svelt supermodel Tyra Banks (above left) donned a special fat costume (above right) to make her appear to be 350 lbs. in weight . Which would you discriminate against?

It was back in the fall of 2005 that Banks, the cover girl for Cosmopolitan, Elle, Vogue, GQ, and Bazaar, wore a special fat costume that made her appear to weigh 350 pounds. It was quite a shock for the svelte supermodel, accustomed to turning heads, to suddenly experienced prejudice for being fat. This supposedly started her on her crusade to fight fat prejudice.

"The people that were staring and laughing in my face shocked me the most." Banks said, "There's no excuse for rudeness. There's no excuse for ugliness. And there's no excuse for nastiness and that's what I experienced. " This started her on her path to be less concerned with being ultra thin.

Putting the paradox of a supermodel representing fat people aside, it appears our society is still hung up on "thin is beautiful". Most recently, actor Eddie Murphy make deep cutting jokes about fat women in his new comedy "Norbit", where like Tyra Banks, he wears the costume of a super-obese woman -- comedy at the expense of fat people.

The U.S. is demonstrably prejudiced toward fat people. "Fatphobia", "weightism" and "sizeism" are all terms which have been used to describe the pervasive cultural prejudice in our society which unfairly discriminates against people of size.

But the most misery and unhappiness in being overweight, is not the health threat, per se, but the negative attitudes and prejudices. Such attitudes cause overweight people to hate themselves, to develop eating disorders, and to injure their body through yo-yo dieting practices.

Fat prejudice causes people to be discriminated against in the employment sector, to be denied health insurance coverage and to be constantly judged by those around them: family members, peers, and perfect strangers on the street.

TV Sets The Example

Our attitudes are heavily influenced by the media. And the media hates fat people.

According to research at Michigan State University, overweight characters on screen are less likely to date, unlikely to have sex and very likely to be the butt of bad jokes. Plus, they are rarely portrayed in leadership roles and often appear to have no friends of either sex.

"The last socially acceptable prejudice is against fat people," said Bradley Greenberg, MSU's professor of communication and telecommunication.

His research inventoried body shapes, then compared the findings with the physique of the average person on the street, as measured by the National Institutes of Health.

"The female differences were staggering," Greenberg said. Only one in 300 female characters is obese. In real life, one in 4 women is either overweight or obese. Reality TV is no help, 9 out of 10 women on these shows are thin. "Out here in the real world, only 5 out of 10 can make that claim".

Other findings of the study included:

On screen large women had 1/3 fewer romantic interactions than women who were thin; large men had ½ as many.
Larger men were twice as likely to be seen feeding their faces than were men of average or less weight.
Fewer than 15% of the chubby male characters were judged to be charming or smart, compared to 25% of the average or skinny male characters.

An Association To Fight Against Fat Discrimination

Most of us don't realize it, but there is actually an organization to fight discrimination against fat people. It's called the National Association To Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA).

Its mission is to work towards providing equal opportunity for fat people wherever obstacles and/or discrimination exist and to serve as a forum where issues affecting fat people can be discussed in an unbiased setting. www.naafa.org.

Posted 02/16/2007

Source: FitCommerce.com

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