Unpleasingly Plump

When I wrote about Barry Glassner's The Gospel of Food, I mentioned the chapter on the so-called "obesity epidemic" and argued that it was important because of how the overweight among us are stigmatized. I read a couple articles yesterday which brought to mind this issue.

The first was a piece on Kevin Smith who, as you may know, was booted off a plane for being overweight. He was quoted as saying:

"I grew up fat, so I know that you have to stick up for yourself because I know that you're gonna get called a fat guy whether you like it or not. So when you've been wronged, you have to speak out. It's like asking someone whose been assaulted or raped -- why'd you say something about it? It's basically self-defense."



I also read an article up at Salon about Kelly Osbourne - Ozzy's daughter - in which she said that her weight was a bigger issue for most people than her drug addiction.

"I took more hell for being fat than I did for being an absolutely raging drug addict. I will never understand that."



It's easy. Lost of people feel better about themselves if they make fun of fat people.