(From CNS News, emphasis mine:) A group calling itself the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA) says that when First Lady Michelle Obama created her anti-obesity "Let's Move!" initiative, she unfairly singled out fat kids, turning them into targets.
Speaking at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., Monday, NAAFA public relations director Peggy Howell said the First Lady "essentially gave permission to everyone to condemn the children with higher body weights."
Howell called Obama's Let's Move! campaign "well-intentioned, but somewhat misdirected."
I think this extends to fat adults, too. In a society with socialized medicine, your weight becomes everyone's business; your fatness or thinness starts to be seen as a kind of political statement instead of just a number on a scale. As a fat person, you go from being someone with personal health problems and some bad habits to being part of a larger social problem to be solved. Harassment of the obese is justified as a matter of social/political concern, whereas it was once just a form of bullying or rudeness.
And while I don't think that we should always walk on eggshells when it comes to body issues or self-esteem, this administration needs to consider whether its obsessive focus on this issue is sending an unintended message that it's okay to look down on the obese (especially since the President and First Lady are so worried about the national crisis of bullying).
(P.S. I don't want to write so much about Michelle Obama, obese kids, and school lunch programs ... but I guess I should've thought of that when I started this blog, huh?)
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