Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Do "fat" people actually choose to be fat?

A couple of us here in the office read an article in one of Australia's leading women's magazines, "Womans Day", that we found interesting.  Interesting in that someone is actually putting forward theories that we've been saying for decades.   Being overweight, even a little or a lot, does not necessarily mean being lazing and eating too much!  

Yeaaay!    Dr John Dixon (Melbourne obesity "expert") recently said:  "Many people are overweight through genetic predisposition and/or environmental factors"   We'd also like to add here that "economic factors" combined with genetic predisposition, have something to do with it too!

But then Dr Dixon goes on, "Studies show that if you feed two people on a high-fat diet, some will get fat and others will not.  So certainly what we need here is understanding, not vilification."

How can we get "the powers that be" within the media, including advertisers, to see size as merely one aspect of a total human being, and to treat everyone fairly and equally within their pages?   What escapes a lot of people's common sense, and this particularly applies to advertisers, is that large people buy their products in the same quantities as slim people.   

They're doing a disservice to society at large, as well as to their own profit-lines by denying the plus-size to participate (by way of being included within advertisements as a positive representation of "customers" rather than being made fun of) as well as recognising that plus size people do their bit to keep those businesses going.  

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