Fatty, Fatty, Two by Four...

My uncles told me a story when I was young that I didn't realize was a joke until I was older. They would say, "Dad was training a horse not to eat. Just as he got him trained, it up and died on him."

I was reminded of that story today as I read a horrible and bigoted blog post today on the Marie Claire website and then watched as the Twitterverse and Blog-o-sphere went nuts beating up on the magazine editors and the blogger. The post was a critique of the new CBS show "Mike and Molly," a comedy about two people who fall in love after they meet at an Overeaters Anonymous meeting. The blogger wrote about how obese people gross her out and how obesity is something that most people have control over, if they only put their mind into it.  Then the former anorexic gives advice on how to lose weight. How helpful.

Fat-bashing is really the last acceptable bigotry. If she had taken her piece and substituted Black, Jewish, Hispanic or any other nationality, she might have realized what she was really saying.  I'll take one of her paragraphs and change all the fat references to Black.

"I think I'd be grossed out if I had to watch two black characters kissing each other ... because I'd be grossed out if I had to watch them doing anything. To be brutally honest, even in real life, I find it aesthetically displeasing to watch a black person simply walk across a room – just like I'd find it distressing if I saw a very drunk person stumbling across a bar or a heroine [sic] addict slumping in a chair."

She's ticked off a lot of people. At last count, the blog post had almost 600 comments!  And I would assume Marie Claire had many canceled subscriptions.

Her comparison to an addict (regardless of her poor spelling) upset people, but it might not be very far off. An addiction to food is the toughest addiction to beat because unlike alcohol and drugs, a food addict still has to eat to stay alive. You don't see many alcoholics being told that they still can drink, but only in moderation. 

Our society's image of the perfect body is impossible to live up and there are hundreds of therapists who have a booming practice because of this impossible standard.

Interestingly, another magazine -Redbook- got blasted because they airbrushed a photo of Faith Hill because you could see her wrinkles and slightly messy hair. Faith Hill gets airbrushed?

So we can't age or gain weight or have a bad hair day - EVER?

My guess is that the blogger's body image issues manifested themselves as this vile post. Doesn't make it okay, but provides proof that discrimination touches so many people.