The oversized community has been all abuzz since last week’s
announcement from no-frills Southwest Airlines: When a flight is
fully booked, anyone possessing a rear end wider than a single seat
will have to pay for two. Though the company has had that policy
for 20 years, it now plans to be more consistent about enforcing
it.
Sounds fair to me: Take up extra space, pay more. And like many
things that are strictly “fair,” it’s also a bit insensitive. But
to hear it from some fat activists, such a policy isn’t fair at
all. It’s downright discriminatory. In fact, being fat in America
today has been compared to being a black in America in the
1960s.
Here’s the executive director of the American Obesity
Association, talking
about Southwest’s policy with the Guardian: “It’s a return
to the worst kind of discrimination. It’s like putting
African-Americans at the back of the bus.” She also mentioned that
her group would look to the feds for relief from such policies.
The civil rights movement comparison also pops up on the
website of the National
Association to Advance Fat Acceptance, on a page intended to
convince the overweight not to diet. Dieters, we find out, are not
only foolhardy but craven, too: “You probably will receive better
treatment if you get thinner, but this is an individual personal
solution to a general societal problem. Where would the civil
rights movement be today if African Americans were still searching
for the perfect skin lightening cream or hair straightener?” Rather
than change yourself, says NAAFA, “why not change other people’s
attitudes or challenge a few laws?”
People, please: If kinky hair were all black Americans had to
worry about, there might never have been a civil rights movement.
But beyond that, there’s a second problem with the comparison: a
major wing of the fat activism movement wants obesity classified as
a disease, suggesting that the fat are powerless to control their
expanding bellies. In fact, it’s in the AOA’s mission statement: to
“move society to re-conceptualize obesity as a disease” and “to
fashion appropriate strategies to deal with the epidemic.” (NAAFA
meanwhile seeks to end fat discrimination by getting the fat and
everyone else to embrace their rolls — both kinds — as natural
and good.) Rhetorically, it seems a little irresponsible to
classify obesity as a disease — i.e., something nasty to be
eradicated — and then compare it to the historical plight of black
Americans.
The old cliché “you can’t have your cake and eat it too”
is especially apropos here. Demanding that society share the burden
of girth isn’t going to kick the discrimination problem — it’s
going to exacerbate it. First, it invites the professional nags to
interfere with people’s eating habits and health care decisions.
But almost worse, it hastens the humiliating scorn of the cramped,
irritable airline passenger who either has to share some of his
seat or watch while a fat customer sprawls out over two chairs for
the price of one.
