General

This story appeared yesterday in The Age, Australia's newspaper of record (ie the big serious one) about a policy being proposed in the state of Victoria:

Doctors want to put the fear of fat into you
Jill Stark
January 2, 2011
Advertisements showing damaged vital organs or people drinking liquefied body fat should be used to shock Victorians into giving up junk food and sugary soft drinks, health groups have proposed.
The Australian Medical Association says campaigns promoting healthy eating habits and exercise have failed to curb the obesity epidemic and shock tactics are now needed.
In a submission to the state government seen by The Sunday Age, the AMA describes obesity as ''Victoria's most pressing public health issue'', and calls for a $25 million advertising blitz to help tackle the crisis.

tinyurl.com/2ftcxvm

Though I can't find it now, I saw a news item somewhere else about a national policy in Japan that levies fines on corporations if their employees do not lose weight and bring their blood pressure and cholesterol levels down.

So, let's assume that one of the founding principles of Size Liberation and Fat Activism is that size is not a good predictor of health, but that perhaps more exercise and healthier eating is overall a good idea for all people, fat and thin. Is it acceptable for governments to terrorise people, as Victoria is proposing? Is it ok to impose fines, as in Japan? Or are these measures we should be fighting against--petitions? letter writing campaigns? collections for ads in newspapers? picketing?--because they are so full of fat hatred?

What do you all think?

I agree. The interesting piece of it, and one I've been musing over a lot lately, is the 'obesity costs taxpayers millions of (insert appropriate currency unit here)'.

I didn't always think this, but I have come to believe that we have a right to pleasure--not any and all pleasure we want, of course, but to the pleasures we choose for ourselves, whether that's a particular sexual practice or smoking pot or drinking alcohol or eating. Life in general is hard enough, given the kinds of hours people are working just to hold things together and all sorts of other pressures. Who's to say that the stress hormones from NOT eating as and when I please wouldn't do as much or more damage than the fat is hypothetically doing? And I'm quite sure the pleasure I derive from being fat does me a world of good, on all sorts of levels!

I *so* didn't mean to shut down the convo. In all seriousness, what do you all make of the arguments that national health shouldn't have to pay for us, because we make our own bad health?

Maybe we should do a thought experiment. Should national health cover smokers who get lung cancer? Alcoholics with cirrhosis of the liver? Fat people who need dialysis from complications due to diabetes?

Yeah. In a sane world, chubbyhoney would be right, and we'd all agree that it's simply too difficult to make the case that people's illnesses are their own fault. Even in the case of smoking, where the connection between one's action and one's illness is clearly demonstrated, it's nonetheless clear that some people smoke and have no ill effects at all. So we are at least talking about something that has more than one cause, as I think most things do.

But we live in a time/culture/society in which obesity (the illness of fat) is clearly thought (despite evidence) to be the single cause of many illnesses. I don't think people are terribly logical, and I don't think logic prevails in policy decision-making. Which is why I don't think it's as out of the question as chubbyhoney does.

By putting obesity as the same category as drugs, drinking, and smoking, rebellious youngsters are going to think it is cool to be fat. And when you take away things from children, they want it more. I know a woman who was not allowed to have one cat as a child has over 100 now. I know of another adult woman who watches Saturday morning cartoons every week because she was not allowed to as a child. Politicans need to stay out of every aspect of people's lives. We did not form governments to be told how to run our lives.