The word that I am going to write my blog about is not proper to call someone with. I think some Americans use or have used this word in their lives to describe overweigh or obese individuals, but I sometimes hear people using it in different which I don’t know how to spell it. Since I don’t even know how spell it, I will use the word Fat. It is a bad word that I never call anyone. Fat is a store energy in an individual‘s body according to the scientific description. Fat is of overweight or obese person. Now a day American called people who are either overweight or obese as fat. Obesity is an abnormal accumulation of a body fat in an individual. It is having too much fat in the body. People construct that individual that is too fat may die sooner; and are said to be greedy people. People also come up with some negative words that are associated with fat. For instance, body weight is related obesity and that can cause an increasing risk of illness and disability and death. Eating too much is said to be what causes obesity. They are considered as people who lack physical exercise and activities to help them reduce and burn fat. They are considered as people who love to eat junk food most of their time.
The Stigma of Obesity” by Erich Goode in chapter 24 of Reading in Deviant Behavior, is the clear example of Bertha and how folks make fun of her because she weighed more than 400 pounds. “The Stigma of Obesity” by Goode has shown that people make fun of fat people. When Bertha has trapped in the booth, all eyes on the restaurant were focused on her and many people were laughing because she was so fat she could not get out. Another social construction about fat individuals who are overweight and obese is that an excessive weight will result in many serious life threatening health problems, which include hypertension, increasing risk of coronary disease, increased unexplained heart attack, and a higher prevalence of colon and breast cancer. Obesity is said to be the second cause of death in the United States. It is however a preventable cause of death worldwide. People still have the idea in mind that fat people are always from the minorities such as African American and Latinos American. As social construction goes, women are the common among the obese or overweight people. As discussed in the class lecture, obese or overweight people are being made fun of dehumanized, stigmatized as well as devalue in the society.
People who are skinny are the one most likely to use the world “Fat or obese” but other negative slang words that are not in the dictionary. The underlying social construction about obese or overweight people is that they are lazy can’t do anything like sport and work. They are said to be difficult to understand people who may give them care. Another underlying social construction of the overweight or obese individuals is because they are considered less than thin people. The community that is affected by the word fat or obese in the United States is the overweight or obese individuals. Meanwhile the word is used in reference to the fat people. People use in a negative way to make them feel ashamed of themselves.
The communities that are being impacted the most are the overweight or obese ones. However, the word is use lot because they are overweight than most people in the society. In addition, they are considered as stupid simply. How could that be possible that every overweight or obese individual is stupid? I don’t think that it is true. The negative connotations about overweight or obese individuals make them form their community knowing that people in a society have negative attitude toward them. I think it impacts not only their communities, but some those who date overweight people. Dating obese people makes those who date them feel deviant in the society.
This is related to an article that I read online by Fierce “In defense of Fat” “In defense of Fat”, Tasha was trying to stop people making fan at the overweight or obese or obese people. She also blames the government, food industries, and the media for just making more profits and not doing anything that help to stop obesity problem in the United States. The data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey shows that two-thirds of adult men and women in the U.S. diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes have a body mass index (BMI) of 27 or greater, which is classified as overweight and unhealthy. The obese folks feel really bad about being call fat and obese most of the times. The overweight or obese word results in isolation of the community and always making fun of overweight individuals may bring suicide in the community. The overweight or obese people are view as bad or immoral supposedly they do not want to change the errors of their ways (Allon 1982). The author conveys that being fat is something that is not considered a choice. Stigmatization of overweight or obese people makes them think that they deserve it. I think the discrimination against overweight or obese people is everywhere in all societies but people have different ways of treating those individuals who are overweight or obese. For instance, Sudanese and some part of Africa don’t treat overweight or obese people as bad and less human like U.S. Americans do. I think we can try our best to stop judging fat or obese people though the world we live in it doesn’t do anything about discriminating of the overweight individuals.
Word count 1033
Sources Allon, Natalie 1973. The Stigma of overweight in every day life. In G.A. Bray (ed.), Obesity In perspective. Washington DC. U.S. Government printing office.
Erich Goode, 1996 “The Stigma of Obesity” Erich Goode, ed., Social Deviance. Boston: Ally and Bacon Pearson Education, Inc.
Hiller, Dona V. 1982 Overweight as master status: A replication. Journal of psychology.
Tasha , fierce 2011 “In defense of Fat” in Clutch magazine.
No comments:
Post a Comment