Fat Phobia

Watching the video about fat phobia, and then our subsequent class discussion got me thinking about the subject. Fat phobia affects more people than just the overweight and obese people we instantly associate it with. Yes these individuals receive undue mental stress and social humiliation because of this phobia, but they are not the only ones. There are children who grow up constantly fearful that they will be fat, so they turn to dangerous avenues such as eating disorders and excessive exercise to qualm these fears. This is especially true among young women. Our society has hundreds of magazines and television shows depicting models, who are very often underweight and have eating disorders themselves, as the ideal woman that these young girls should strive to be. This idea is extremely harmful and in itself is a fat phobia, because it gives the impression that if you don't look like these women you are overweight. Our culture has become obsessed with this idea that being overweight causes health problems, and uses this as a justification for the fat phobia it employs. This is damaging to our culture because, as the video states, 54% of women would rather be hit by a truck, than be fat. If that isn't eye opening, I'm not sure what is.

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