Moral Panic
Is the current “obesity” obsession really about health? If you look at the data, it isn’t.
Yesterday at lunch a coworker of mine told me that he was at a part with a lot of rich people. I asked how he could tell they were rich and he replies “they were all so fit”. In our culture weight has become a class marker.
It can be very difficult for working people to find time to exercise an hour every day and eat right. And it is impossible for them to afford trainers and nutritionists. And if you don’t have time to cook and you can’t spend more than $5 on a meal your choices are limited to fast food. So poorer people are more likely to be obese or overweight. The culture has picked up on this and decided that obese people are lower class people. And then in order to provide some kind of moral cover we have all decided that there is an “obesity epidemic” and that all these people are so unhealthy because of their moral failings, when in reality they are unhealthy because they are poor.
