“Discrimination
against fat people remains the only truly socially acceptable form of
discrimination.” ( Shawn, Lee, 2013) Our
society puts so much pressure on the idealized feminine woman that people who
do not fit the mold are at a disadvantage. I think this socially constructed
ideal preys on the masses and seeks to empower the less than 5% or women who
fit into the mold. These beauty ideals
reflect white, abled, and middle class women, and this is not a fair
representation of our society. It discriminates and humiliated non-white, poor,
disabled, and older women. Social media amplifies our views by normalizing this
process. Janet Shaw and Susan Lee’s
Chapter 5 called Inscribing Gender on the
Body discusses the detrimental effects our ideals of the female body can
have on women and especially young women.
1 in 4 children under the age of 14 are dieters. I think that the
problem not only lies in our social constructs that lead to impossible ideals, but
also the inequality it creates. Poor people have less access to nutritious
food, and can’t afford food that will fill you up with low caloric intake. US
consumerism and corporate capitalism have made healthy foods expensive, and
unhealthy food cheap. This inequality is amplified when fat people are
discriminated against and for example are less likely to get a job than someone
who more strongly portrays our strict notion of femininity, which includes
being a smaller size. Nomy Lamm
discusses the revolution that is taking place in her article It’s a Big Fat Revolution. She argues
that the media communicates a message that only thin people are loveable,
healthy, beautiful, talented and fun. She states that every time a person can
accept him or herself as beautiful and realize that fat is not inherently bad,
then you are contributing to the revolution. Although I enjoyed her piece and her advocacy of deconstructing out restrictive notions on femininity I
think she failed to discuss the class inequality that can lead to being over weight, I
think the revolution also lies in projects like this:
I
think this is a very positive project that can really help to alleviate some
inequality in the food choices and availability of food to more oppressed
neighborhoods. Looking at food like it is nutrition and understanding where it
comes from, and eating food that you produced will help people be more
connected to what they are eating, and increases their choices of what to grow
and what to eat. Although this doesn’t directly address our construction of the
feminine ideal, and how restrictive it is, I think it still empowers people to
be more involved in the food they are eating and have more control rather than falling
victim to the corporate capitalism and US consumerism. Overall, projects like this can work to bridge
the class gap by offering more equal choices in food to poorer neighborhoods.
In turn this may lead to less discrimination against poor people who fall
victim to US consumerism placing higher prices on healthier food. If something
so basic as fresh fruits and vegetable were available in poorer neighborhoods,
might this help to lower the obesity rates that are higher in inner city neighborhoods,
and contribute to more class equality? I think that although this is a positive
step there is still a larger one that needs to be taken to deconstruct the body
ideal of the perfect woman.
I think you made a great point. It seems like everyone in society judges the people who are not stick thin, but don't ever think about the kinds of food that society offers. Like we discussed in class, healthy, organic food is not readily available to everyone. The food may be too far or too expensive. Some people don't consider the other factors that contribute to a person's diet. It's sad that 1 in every 4 girls are dieting. It only proves what kind of body image we approve of in our society.
ReplyDeleteThank you! I totally agree with you, I think people sometimes fail to think of the structural barriers that are put on lower class people who do not have the availability of fresh healthy foods. This further adds to the disadvantage through criticism if the body "ideal" is not reached.
ReplyDeleteI really liked this blog, I think you made references where necessary and I liked your incorporation of a video. You used facts such as "1 in 4 children under the age of 14 are dieters." as well as this you talked about some of the things we have talked about in class and applied it to one of our readings. I agree with your argument that pressure is put on us women especially to look a certain way, dress a certain way and to be a certain size. However do you think it's right that fat people are discriminated against? If they don't look after their bodies and have no self control then surely they don't have the mental toughness it might take to do the certain job they're apply for? This may seem shallow and I'm not saying I agree or disagree with it but it's just another way to look at it. Although, you are right healthy food is often expensive, buying a salad from whole foods is definitely more expensive and time consuming than grabbing a quick burger from Mcdonalds and the government should do more to help people eat more healthily. However, in some cases I think money is an excuse for being over weight as at the end of the day it does come down to self control, you can buy cheap, healthy food in wallmart!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment Charlotte! I think I totally agree with you, and I struggle to think about this issue as well when self-control is incorporated. Some people have the resources and money to buy healthy food and make the right choices regarding their diet, but they might have a lack of self-control that lead them to be overweight. I think personally I like to always give people the benefit of the doubt if they are overweight and not discriminate against them, whether they be of lower socioeconomic status and can't afford healthy food, or if they are genetically predisposed to be overweight, or if the pressures of fitting into a size 0 (because of society's construction of the ideal woman) leads them to overeating. I think because many people think that being overweight is solely an issue of will power discrimination against fat people is still so widely accepted, but there are many other issues that can play a role.
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ReplyDeleteMieke, I agree the point you are making about socioeconomic class's connection to obesity is a very valid point as healthy food is often not easily obtainable by the lower class due to cost constraints. I am willing to recognize that healthy food does cost more for a reason with reason being that it costs more to prepare or produce foods in an organic, not chemically enhanced way that makes those foods healthier and more nutritious, yet I do think there should be a way for lower class people to obtain healthy options as well.
ReplyDeleteBeing a lower to lower middle class member of society myself, I understand it is not feasible for us to shop at places like Whole Foods and Natural Grocers because we simply cannot designate that much of our money to groceries. We have to budget within reason and ,unfortunately, eating all healthy organic food is not possible with our lower budget. However, growing up on rural farmland, my family has been fortunate enough to raise our own livestock for beef and to grow our own vegetables like corn, green beans, squash, etc. and that allows us to eat healthy for a lower cost, but lower class families who live in urban areas don't have that option like I did. For this reason, I do think there is something more we could do for urban lower class families to help them obtain healthy food options.
At the same time, I do recognize that lower class families can receive financial assistance such as food stamps and such to assist with grocery shopping and maybe how families use their food stamps in terms of what stores and on what products could also be reassessed. If lower class families are use to budgeting, maybe they could start budgeting their money and food stamps to have a higher portion allocated towards healthy ingredients they can use to create multiple meals versus spending money and stamps on quick, easy, cheaper, and less healthy items. It's like the saying goes "Everything in moderation" meaning lower class families still can purchase quick,easy food options, but maybe they should budget accordingly to allow for the quick, easy, cheap, unhealthy options to be the minority or smaller portion of budgeting and the healthier options to be the majority of the budget for food.
Thanks for the comment Brenda! I agree with you for the most part, and I think this my example in the link will give people living in urban communities an opportunity similar to yours to grow their own healthy fruits and vegetables to help supplement for some of the unhealthier options found in the grocery store. I still think though that when you look at the more extreme side of people dealing with food stamps and a very restricted budget it is hard to buy oranges and apples with your food stamps that won't fill you up. The cheapest calories are the unhealthy ones, and those are the ones that will make you full. I'm not talking about shopping at Whole Foods, just look at the prices in Walmart, I'm not even sure if healthier options that carry more nutrients are more expensive to produce or simply priced higher, but there is definitely a disadvantage when it comes to food choices that poor people can make. For some very disadvantages families I'm not sure if they have the choice of buying fruits and vegetable because there just isn't money in their budget for it.
DeleteI thought this was very interesting! I know I'm not the only one who looks around today and sees a world that needs to be educated on a lot of different issues. And I think it is interesting that people look to these huge programs to try to solve their problems. Now I know that the stuff from the video you posted is generations upon generations in the making because stuff like that doesn't happen overnight, but I also know that as far as education about food and it's effects should start in the home. When I was born and in my early years of life we were so poor that there were times my mom wouldn't eat as much, even though she was pregnant with my sister, just so I could eat. My dad worked really hard to provide for us and with time and hard work we were able to move into our house in Phoenix. There, my mom taught my sister and I to garden. It was mostly flowers and stuff like that and we were taught to eat healthy but also it was about eating when you were hungry and don't eat if you aren't. I feel like if parents make it more simple then a lot of those problems wouldn't happen. You know? And we didn't grow up watching a lot of t.v shows besides stuff on the Food Network. No one watched anything with celebrities and there were no magazines with skinny women around the house. Of course I still saw these women. In the grocery store, at friends houses, everywhere! But I was educated that it doesn't matter and that I was beautiful the way I was. It begins in the home. Even if you start at the bottom. And I truly wish it had a bigger impact on the bigger problems at hand.
ReplyDeleteHey Brogan, thanks for the comment! I definitely agree with you that this project will take a lot of time to get integrated. I think your parents teaching you about gardening is a great example and similar to the values that the children can learn in this video. I think one quote was "If kids grow kale, kids eat kale." Just teaching kids simple things about nutrition and nourishing your body can go a long way, and how to be critical of media!
DeleteMieke,
ReplyDeleteObesity and the availability of healthy foods is a big issue today and the Ted Talk video that you posted offers a great solution to the problem, showing that you can raise healthy food even in urban environments. While I do agree that the idea of a Perfect Woman and the idea that everybody should be rail thin is flawed, I do not think it is the government's place to step in a make people be healthier or skinnier. I believe that we live in a society that is more informed than ever with all our warning labels and the ease of gathering information. Also, I believe that there are healthy options available that will not break the bank. It isn't necessary to shop at Whole Foods, vegetables can be found at all grocery stores, and foods do not have to be certified organic to be healthy. Is an orange that was grown on a farm that used pesticides healthier than a candy bar? Probably. I think that while there are more unhealthy options available to us than ever before, we still need to take responsibility for ourselves and make the right choices. The government already has many other issues to deal with, especially ones that as individuals we could not deal with on our own.
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DeleteThanks for the comment nicole! I agree with you that there is a lot that need to be done to break the ideology of the perfect woman in our society. I'm however not talking about shopping at Whole Foods, I think the video talks about organic fruits and veggies simply because it is just easier and healthier for both the environment and people to produce, no need to put on a mask and spray pesticides on produce you are growing yourself! An orange with pesticides if definitely healthier, but what would you rather have for dinner, or rather what would fill you up more? I also think that the government plays a large role in enforcing the unhealthy foods that are available. For example in school lunch programs the government won't sponsor a school if their lunch doesn't provide at least a minimum amount of calories, and that is not met by a sandwich, chocolate milk, and an apple, but is met by fries and a hamburger. I don't think government necessarily has to intervene, but it can do a lot to change it's current structural barriers it places on society that increase the obesity epidemic.
DeleteI completely agree with your blog. I think it is an important issue that has started to get some exposure to everyone. I think the projects that you discussed are a great start to this bigger problem. I also agree with Brogan that the education needs to start in the home, but I think that it also needs to be changed in the school system. The schools lunch system was created to give kids enough calories, so that they could sustain until the next day, if they weren't getting dinner. This may still be the case in many situations, but I think we have learned that there are ways that we can give students enough to eat, without the food being very unhealthy, like it currently is. I know some school districts have started to notice this, but I think this is a systemic issue, just like the education in the home. I think you are right though, most of it needs to start with these smaller programs, that can start educating people on these issues.
ReplyDeleteGreat comment Kailaini! I'm glad you brought up the issue of school lunch programs at school, I think this is also an important issue. I think offering kids healthy options and small projects like this, and maybe a school garden are great ways to educate people on education and also provide them with the tools to have access to healthier foods without spending money.
DeleteI thought this blog was interesting, it wasn't my favorite to read because I don't exactly agree with you on your stance that just because people are poor they are fat in return. I do however agree with you that being fat is the only socially acceptable from of pubic discrimination that is reinforced through the media. The reason I disagree with you on poor=fat is because just because a family cant afford healthy food doesn't automatically make that household a family ffatties. They still can go to free parks and family exercise together and there are grocery stores that have low prices, such as WINCO, Grocey Out-Let that let low income families afford the fresh produce. I do however like how you incorporated the video and how it ties in with your idea of how that this is a step in the right direction, but there is a ways to go in your view. Overall I thought you did a good job organizing your thoughts and incorporating our readings into the piece, so good job.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment Dominikka! I agree that there is still a long ways to go. I don't mean to say that being poor will make you fat, just that you are more limited on choices of healthy foods especially because they are prices higher even in places like Walmart. I also don't think that exercise is a viable solution, to burn off a Big Mac, fries and a coke will take over 3 hours of running which is not reasonable. The goal of the video I posted is just to make options of fruits an vegetable more available to lower income families and eliminate some structural barriers they have to accessing these options.
DeleteI really liked a lot of points in your article. First, while it makes total sense, I never really thought about workplace discrimination as a reason for heavier people having less ability to increase their income. So thank you! I also agree that Nomy Lamm's article did not cover class inequality very well, most likely because it was a very personal article and she didn't deal with that aspect much in her life. The TED talk on growing one's own food was very interesting! I think it's a great idea! It would take a while to implement however as people would need to be trained in how to grow their own food. On the bright side however, this would also help people survive in the event of a national crisis in which food supply was cut off throughout the nation. Families would still be able to survive on their own food and it would be a movement back to the roots of how people eat. I read some article that almost every city has the ability to grow food for its own inhabitants, thus allowing imported food to be used to fight the hunger and poverty around the world. Very interesting concept indeed.
ReplyDeleteThanks Matt!! Very interesting I did not know that each city can actually provide enough produce to feed it's own population, just another reason why growing your own food is such a great idea. Imagine if everything you ate was local! I guess we would never get pineapples or oranges though, but still a great concept!
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