The Fear of Fat: Our Last Acceptable Bias
A sexist, racist history of anti-fatness and a for-profit “health” industry has left the U.S. with a weight problem—but not in the way you might think.
The U.S. has a problem with its weight—but not in the way you might think. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 70% of Americans are either overweight or obese, but there’s another side to the “obesity epidemic” that isn’t spoken about enough: fat bias.
Americans who aren’t fat live in fear of becoming so. An estimated 45 million are on some kind of diet. According to a Gallup poll, 45% of Americans fret about weight, and in one study, almost half of girls ages 3 to 6 said they worried about being fat.
This is not new.
The 20th century opened with a rip-roaring debate about corsets. S...