Fat Studies

<p>Would some one mind explaining this class to me? I was watching the interview on the Colbert Report today and the lady was talking about Fat Studies and our "horrible treatment of fat people" and what not. It made sense she was a Women's Studies professor but I still didn't really get it. Some liberal arts kid is gonna have to break this one down for me....</p>

<p>To explore the culture of and discrimination against the obese?</p>

<p>I wonder if people will start majoring in this…</p>

<p>So if I don’t pick a kid to be on my soccer team because he’s fat… that’s discrimanation?</p>

<p>well, I guess it is, but its not for something he can’t control</p>

<p>…Yeah, that would be the only thing I could think of that that class would be about.</p>

<p>I don’t know what all you could put into a class like that. I feel like there’s not enough material for a whole class lol, and I don’t feel like obese people all have one culture.</p>

<p>This just kinda seems weird to me.</p>

<p>

Technically.</p>

<p>

Aside from people with gland problems, yeah. Generally people pick the best players for sports anyway, so don’t expect a lawsuit anytime soon.</p>

<p>Well this lady got mad at Colbert for saying fat people can take a bullet better, because that’s a negative stereotype…</p>

<p>And then when he said “well, the organs are further away right?” She said she wouldn’t go there… what the ****</p>

<p>I just don’t get how this class can be in any way legitimate</p>

<p>Why do people even get mad at Colbert anymore? That just means they lose.</p>

<p>Do you really believe that the only discrimination fat people face is in sports?</p>

<p>“well, the organs are further away right?” </p>

<p>That isn’t to their advantage. I read on CNN that doctors aren’t able to find tumors on these people because of the fat. </p>

<p>If people start majoring in Fat Studies, I will officially lose what little faith I still have in humanity.</p>

<p>I lost faith in humanity when I saw the [List</a> of methods of capital punishment](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_methods_of_capital_punishment]List”>List of methods of capital punishment - Wikipedia)</p>

<p>Wow, Harry, that’s really depressing.</p>

<p>What exactly do you mean by “faith in humanity”? There are people who act right and people who don’t. It’s always been that way and will be as long as there are people.</p>

<p>It may be disgusting/depressing, but you gotta admire human creativity ;)</p>

<p>Ya same of those are classics. I prefer a good stoning myself but I’m an old fogey like that.</p>

<p>Colbert said the thing about “the organs being further away”, and that makes sense. I mean, a bullet would rip through you regardless (unless you were like 700 pounds) but if its a ricochet or shrapnal or something I’d rather be fat.</p>

<p>And no, I don’t think the only discrimination fat people face is in sports, but this “discrimination” is their fault. I’m gonna quote Colbert again, he said “Black people can;t just go to the gym and work their black off” (except for that small small group that can’t control it).</p>

<p>I also wouldn’t pick a fat person to be a model, or to be in a diet ad, or to be my personal fitness trainer, or to do most manual labor (more in shape = more work done, mostly)</p>

<p>It’s ridiculous that some people actually try to make being out of shape okay. For most overweight people, their condition is caused by plain laziness and unwillingness to mind what they eat or total ignorance as to what is healthy for them. </p>

<p>Most fat people bring their plight onto themselves. Of course they aren’t going to get picked as much as smaller people for sports. Of course they won’t be hired for front-desk positions or to represent companies as much as smaller people.</p>

<p>Granted, they are still human with more to them than their outside appearances, but form follows function. Healthy appearance suggests a healthy person. An unhealthy appearance suggests an unhealthy person. </p>

<p>If fat studies touched on all angles of the issue, I think it would be good. At least as a class, at most as a minor.</p>

<p>You want the most useful major combo EVAH!!!</p>

<p>Double Major in Women’s Studies and Fat Studies at a small liberal arts college</p>

<p>companies will beat falling over themselves trying to hire you</p>

<p>Haha I saw that Colbert Report. People like her should be laughed out of their jobs for enabling the unabashed pussification of America.</p>

<p>In addition to simply being a moron (whose response to Colbert’s statement that obesity causes endless health problems and fatalities was that “underweight people are unhealthy too”) , she’s also a dangerous enabler. Obese people should be treated like alcoholics and heroin addicts are and the people who enable their addictions and weaknesses should be similarly called out.</p>

<p>^Nice</p>

<p>10char</p>

<p>Let’s have Michael Moore and Rush Limbaugh join together to spread awareness.</p>

<p>You can take from this what you will, but I just so happen to be in the middle of the prejudice chapter of my social psychology textbook, and there’s a passage on this:</p>

<p>“When seeking love and employment, overweight people–especially White women–face slim prospects. In correlational studies, overweight people marry less often, gain entry to less-desirable jobs, and make less money (Swami & others, 2008). In experiments where some people are made to appear overweight, they are perceived as less attractive, intelligent, happy, self-disciplined, and successful (Gortmaker & others, 1993; Hebl & Heatherton, 1998; Pingitore & others, 1994). Weight discrimination, in fact, exceeds race or gender discrimination and occurs at every employment stage–hiring, placement, promotion, compensations, discipline, and discharge (Roehling, 2000). Negative assumptions about and discrimination against overweight people help explain why overweight women and obese men seldom (relative to their numbers in the general population) become the CEOs of large corporations (Roehling & others, 2008, 2009).”</p>