Brie Shall Overcome

Concern about the health of obese and overweight people is no reason to be discriminatory.

If the growing public hysteria over this country’s perceived obesity crisis has escaped your notice, you probably don’t follow current events closely enough to be reading this article. In recent years, the constant hum of personal concerns over weight and attractiveness has grown to the full-out roar of a national panic attack over our fitness as a populace. The cries for action have grown steadily louder over the years, with obesity claiming its place as the defining public health obsession of the early twenty-first century.

Now, a few legislators in Mississippi have answered with an example of the type of misguided, misinformed policy we can expect when politicians decide it’s time to save people from themselves. Mississippi House Bill 282 proposes “to prohibit certain food establishments from serving food to any person who is obese, based on criteria prescribed by the state Department of Health.”

There are a few problems with this bill. First, imagine the enforcement difficulty. What’s the punishment for the manager of a McDonald’s who sells fries to a 225-pound woman — one who’s technically obese, but doesn’t look all that fat to Mr. Manager? A fine for the restaurant? Jail time? (“What are you in for?” “I served a fat guy a cheeseburger. You?” “Oh, I assaulted a guy.”)

The bill mandates that the state Department of Health enforce the measure. So, presumably, some low-level bureaucrat will walk into Arby’s, clipboard in hand, and case the joint for anyone who looks like they might be obese. Will he question customers as to their weight, or will he just go ahead and cite the establishment? Perhaps the state can begin printing BMIs on driver’s licenses. The absurdity of these technicalities is simply mind-blowing.

That’s not even to mention problems with the BMI itself. Google “BMI project” to see pictures of bodies that actually qualify as obese, then do the calculations on yourself; it will force you to reassess your concepts of “overweight” and “obese,” which we tend to form based on stock news footage of anonymous morbidly obese people, heads cropped for dramatic effect. People you might not think of as fat would qualify under this ludicrous law; you might find yourself turned away at the drive-through.

Of course, it’s unlikely that HB 282 will pass. The proposal is simply too unwieldy and extreme. But what is truly disturbing about the bill is the direction that it indicates the public concern over obesity could be taking. In 2003, the Arkansas public school system began adding students’ BMIs to their report cards. In 2006, New York City, citing public health concerns, banned trans fats in the city’s restaurants. Especially as the nation looks to implement some kind of national health care plan, obesity is becoming a political issue and a crisis upon which everyone expects the government to take action.

Michael Pollan’s recent article in the New York Times Magazine provides a good history of the confusion in the past century about just what we should be eating. Pollan blames our modern confusion on the rise of “nutritionism,” which, by reducing food down to its component molecules, encouraged the development of processed foods.

Remember the food pyramid they showed us in grammar school? That handy graphic, considered the way to teach us kids about nutrition, suggested that your diet should consist mostly of carbs. Whoops! They’ve since altered the pyramid, but how we’re supposed to trust a pyramid that shifts with the changing winds of nutritional fads, I don’t know.

Another recent article, this one in New York Magazine, questioned whether exercise actually makes you thinner. Apparently, scientists are just as confused as the rest of us, not that they want you to know it. Even Weight Watchers’ new campaign says that “diets don’t work.” This is something anyone who has actually tried to keep weight previously lost from creeping back on already knew.

Given all this confusion about health and weight and exercise, there’s no way the government could responsibly make policy to combat obesity — especially considering that our concerns about the overweight and obese might be misplaced to begin with. All we definitely know is that eating right and exercising make one healthier. We should be promoting these behaviors rather than picking on the obese.

Combine this clamor for a solution with a lack of knowledge about how to make people thinner and with America’s vanity and reverence for good looks and, suddenly, life begins to look very unpleasant if you’re one of the overweight. Not only will you not lose weight, you’ll be considered a weak, revolting sign of America’s decline.

We’re constantly bombarded with news stories and press releases insisting that obesity runs rampant among the population; we’re encouraged to look desperately for any promising solutions.

The obese have been thoroughly constructed in the nation’s discourse as a problem, a threat to the country’s fitness and well-being. The rhetoric of crisis tends to make people forget that the fat are citizens, too. The government has no right to restrict where or what they can eat. In addition to being plain asinine, this law is nothing short of discriminatory. The fact that some legislators in Mississippi have actually submitted it as a serious proposal should concern us greatly. More laws like it are coming, and, eventually, some of them are going to pass.

The world doesn’t have to look like V for Vendetta or 1984 for a law to be wrong. Just because it doesn’t apply to you personally doesn’t mean a law is acceptable. Don’t be fooled by panicky discourse into endorsing laws that abridge the rights of other Americans.

Kelly Faircloth ’08 (fairclot@fas) dares you not to serve her that combo meal.