CBC and the Headless Fatty

CBC, I thought you were better than this (although I'm not sure why): "Obesity's disease burden worse than smoking".

It is never enough to publish the results of a study on the "obesity epidemic". Such reports require the ever-present image of the "headless fatty" (as seen at the top of the article) to reinforce the feelings of disgust we are meant to experience upon reading about how fat people are a burden on society.

The message delivered by the story and image is this: fat people are failed people (to the extent that they are actually people at all) who, through their personal weaknesses, are not merely damning themselves, but threatening us all. Lovely.

It likely goes without saying, but I cannot recommend enough that you do not read the comments section of the article. I do think, though, that the depth of popular resentment and fear towards fatness -- as the comments on this piece exemplify -- points to a role for social science research.

Sociologists talk all the time about how many health issues are "socially constructed". That is, bodily phenomena are subject to processes of claims-making. I cannot think of a better site for the application of this framework than fatness, since the alleged negative effects of weight are often taken for granted. For one example of work that delves into the political and social issues involved in the war on fat, I suggest this piece. If anyone has any other examples, I would love to hear about them.