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As I travel through the Southern United States I have determined that there is no longer a social stigma about being fat anymore. It seems like almost everyone is fat especially if they are over 30 years old.
Maybe this is true only in the rural South.
What places is being obese no longer a social stigma?
I'm always shocked when I go back to Iowa how many overweight people there are. Like...a LOT. It certainly doesn't help that the state is so German and they tend to be a little more "stocky" and hold weight in different ways than other backgrounds.
There's still a stigma though, but it seems to have shifted from just being overweight to being very obese. If you're just "normal overweight" these days people don't seem to care.
On the north side of Chicago here, people are much much more thin. Here there is a stigma for being at all overweight. Go to the south side though and it's a whole different story.
As I travel through the Southern United States I have determined that there is no longer a social stigma about being fat anymore. It seems like almost everyone is fat especially if they are over 30 years old.
Maybe this is true only in the rural South.
What places is being obese no longer a social stigma?
I am not sure that being fat was ever a "social stigma". I can recall throughout my life knowing fat people (my first grade teacher was very big - back in 1960). My mother also knew fat people where she came from in California back in the 1940s. They all seemed to be loved and accepted by the community with no problem.
Perhaps you are referring to the current "popular culture" mentality that sends out the message that you have to be young and thin to be "accepted" by society. This is of course, television fantasy that LOTS and LOTS of people buy into because they don't know any better. Being young and thin is great but it is not reality as US demographical statistics bear out. Today's population is usually older and mostly fat (well about 30 percent I believe).
The fact of the matter is that in the real world it has always been perfectly acceptable to be fat. Fat people live, get married, have children, work, play and do all the things that thin people do with just as much joy and gusto. Despite what television thinks.
Food/soft drink/fast-food/restaurant industry wants to sell more calories, so more obesity is needed for their growing profits and makes their shareholders richer...and now they're busy making 2Bn+ people in Chindia obese, too...
Obesity defenders want to avoid discrimination and to pay same for health insurance as non-obese, likely healthier people...
Despite all the nonsense, even today in US, rates of obesity are inversely correlated vs socio-economics....just visit upscale residential/office corridors of highly educated urban regions like NYC and SiliconValley to judge for self...
The stigma against being fat is gone in the South. I live here, and I'd say that probably at least half of all residents are overweight, though a much smaller percentage are morbidly obese.
Why should there be a stigma, though? Who cares what someone else looks like, or how healthy they choose to live their lives. I'm of the opinion that we shouldn't stigmatize anyone, and we should only make comments about someone's overweight if we're dealing with a family member or close friend. Still, it should be done so in a respectful manner.
I'm always shocked when I go back to Iowa how many overweight people there are. Like...a LOT. It certainly doesn't help that the state is so German and they tend to be a little more "stocky" and hold weight in different ways than other backgrounds.
There's still a stigma though, but it seems to have shifted from just being overweight to being very obese. If you're just "normal overweight" these days people don't seem to care.
On the north side of Chicago here, people are much much more thin. Here there is a stigma for being at all overweight. Go to the south side though and it's a whole different story.
I agree. In the South, there's still a stigma with being morbidly obese, but not being normal overweight.
The only reason I don't think that there should be a stigma associated with being overweight is that some people, like diabetics, can't help it. I think there should be a stigma for all others who CAN help it. Why? Because it's unhealthy and if it's preventable then you SHOULD prevent it. If you can't help it, you can't help it; but, if you can, then do.
But I guess I'm getting off topic.
There's not really a stigma in rural Oregon, but definitely a bit of a stigma in Portland, Bend, Eugene...
Never judge someone until you walk in their shoes- that said the South's diet combined with its weather and culture seems more condusive to overeating and less excercise. The upper midwest also has its share of this problem.
It's not just the South - AMERICAN culture is lending itself to overeating and eating in unhealthy ways.
I mean come on - most everything we stick in our mouths is processed to death, and contains enough preservatives and chemicals to embalm a mummy. Heck you can buy tuna in an unrefrigerated pouch on a rack, for crying out loud. Ding dongs, ho hos, wazzooies - we eat it all. Even when you try to eat healthier items in restaurants (salads, etc) you find out you're eating 2.5 times the recommended servings and the dressing has 50 grams of saturated fat.
I disagree that people are "tolerant" toward overweight people, though. For one thing, it's extremely hard to find extended size clothing in regular stores, even though there are lots of people who wear it. For another, look up the thread about overweight people on airplanes and read some of the comments. YIKES.
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