The Curvy Nerd

A 290 lbs man is suing fast food chain White Castle for refusing to enlarge their booths, according to the New York Post.

From the article:

“They’re stationary booths,” he told The Post. “I’m not humongous, [but] I’m a big guy. I could not wedge myself in.”

“As I looked around the restaurant, I saw that there were no tables and chairs that could accommodate a person that merely wanted to sit down and eat his meal,” Kessman wrote.

Kessman claims he has no problem finding a place to take a load off at other fast-food places, and fits easily into airline seats.

<snip>
The Rockland County man says the chain’s uncomfortable booths violate the civil rights of fat people.

The Americans with Disabilities Act is “applicable, not only to me, but to pregnant women and to handicapped people,” he said.

“I just want to sit down like a normal person,” said Kessman, who is suing for bigger chairs and unspecified damages.

I am of two minds about this. My knee-jerk reaction is two fold: a) JFC, enough with litigious America and b) disability? Really?

Here’s the thing: I do not think of myself as disabled. I don’t think of my fellow fat & obese friends as disabled. As victims. To be pitied. (I also generally don’t compare obesity to pregnancy or being handicapped, but oh well) Yes, there are obese individuals who are handicapped by their weight. They can be and are discriminated against and should be protected by the Americans with Disabilities Act. But the average overweight/obese person? Not really disabled, IMO…

Does it really violate my civil rights that I don’t fit into a plastic booth manufactured decades ago?

I don’t think of a 290 lbs guy with a big beer gut not being able to sidle into a booth at White Castle as disabled, or discriminated against. If you click on the article and look at the picture, you can tell what kind of booths they are — some of the old school booth installations in an old fast food restaurant. I’ve been in those booths before. Yes, they are uncomfortable — I’ve banged my knee before, too! It’s not because I’m fat, though. It’s because I’m TALL and these booths were manufactured when people were a lot shorter (and, yes, less rotund, on average).

And I’m sorry, but he describes being humiliated because he hit his knee and couldn’t fit, so he refused to go back? Really? That’s just being overly dramatic and sensitive, if you ask me.

Would it be nice if White Castle reinstalled their booths? Yes. Should they have to? No. Could this man have asked for a bloody chair? Yes. Is this lawsuit over the top and a bit ridiculous. Yes.

What do you think?

Personally, I’m uncomfortable with being told that, as a fat person, I have a disability. I think that further stigmatizes fat as bad, fat people as victims and being fat as something to be pitied. This man wasn’t involved in an incident where someone demonized him for being fat — the company didn’t do anything to him. I don’t think a piece of hard plastic can violate your civil rights, IMO. But I recognize that this is my personal opinion, as a no-longer-that-fat person. So.

(also, I really hate the NY Post headline)

CNN has posted a thought-provoking article on misleading “spot fat treatment” claims, and what really happens to our bodies and shape when we lose weight.

The article’s main contention is, essentially, that we retain the same body shape we had BEFORE we lost weight, after we’ve lost weight. Yet, many diets claim to help “bust that belly fat” or “slim those hips” — they really can’t make those claims if it’s not organic to your body. If you start out a pear, you’re going to end up a pear. Same goes for apple. Top heavy, bottom heavy, whatever.

Why I find this interesting: because how many of us (especially women) beat ourselves up because we “can’t get rid of our hips” or lament that, even though we’ve lost weight, we don’t look like “–insert hot celebrity here –.”  I think it’s an excellent point that weight loss isn’t a miracle cure for a body shape you don’t like – you’re going to be more or less the same, just smaller.

Big shout-out to an expert from my alma mater for delivering some really depressing news!:

Humans carry about 10 billion to 30 billion fat cells. People who are obese can have up to 100 billion.

“If anyone of us overeats long and hard enough, we can increase the number of fat cells in our body,” Fried said. “When we lose weight, we don’t lose the number of fat cells.”

The size of the cells shrinks, but the capacity to expand is always there.

Liposuction can remove fat cells, but this procedure is ideally for people who are not obese.

“The fat cells are actually being removed,” said Tony Youn, a plastic surgeon who performs liposuctions. “It doesn’t mean that fat cells that remain can’t get bigger.”

Basically: UGH. You never lose those fat cells! They’re always there. I really had never thought about this in-depth, and to hear that an obese person might have three times the number of fat cells as an average person? WOW.

I wonder how much long-term damage I’ve done to my body with my yo-yoing — how many excess fat cells do I have that may get smaller, but never go away?

And also: yay shape! I’ve always liked mine, and it’s nice to hear that I’m always going to have those birthing hips!

Stories like this are always incredible, bordering on ridiculous, yet here we have another one: a morbidly obese Ohio man who sat in a recliner chair for the last two years became fused to the chair, and died from the condition. The man was 43.

Gory details from the original news story:

Authorities said he was sitting in his own feces and urine and maggots were visible.

Authorities said they had to cut a hole in the wall to get the man out of his home.

Shockingly, two other able-bodied people lived there—another man, who had a separate bedroom, and the girlfriend of the man who was stuck in the chair. Officials say the girlfriend served food to him, since he never got up.

One officer said it was the worst thing he ever responded to. And most said the worst part of all was the smell. Ironically the landlord says the man in the chair rented from her before and used to be a vital active person.

Key takeaways, that I don’t disagree with – it’s “shocking” that two individuals lived with him and enabled him by feeding him. However, I find it an interesting aside from the landlord that he “used to be an active person.” While of course we don’t know details, and clearly something went horribly wrong, but this smacks of “blame the fat person.” He used to be active, yet he sat in a chair for two years eating and is now dead – man, that awful, lazy, disgusting fat person!

Predictably, Gawker commenters take it to the next level:

Wait. He had a girlfriend!?! Are you sure!?!

translation: fat people are unloveable

When do we find Gwyneth Paltrow’s head in a box?

translation: LOL Sloth from the movie Se7en

It’s a shame, because that guy seemed to have so much for which to live.

translation: mocking comment saying that if you’re that obese, life isn’t worth living (nice).

And, happily, one awesome commenter who calls them on it:

Reading the comments on here is sickening. Not everyone who is overweight is simply enjoying a life of McDonalds and Burger King. There are psychological issues that lead to such a lifestyle and many people can’t deal with it on their own.

<snip>

Why didn’t anyone do anything? Because you can only do so much before realizing your attempts are futile: the person has to want to change their situation, and generally speaking, the level of self-loathing/depression in these types of cases are so high that they can’t see a light at the end of the tunnel, so why bother crawling towards it?

The news story is tragic and sad, but what’s almost worse is the way people are reacting to it. I’m not going to pretend that I haven’t felt the same feeling of revulsion seeing stories like this on the news — maggots, feces and skin fusing to things really icks me out — but you have to look beyond blaming the obese person (and exclaiming the shocking fact they actually had someone who loved them) and think about WHY this person gave up on their life.

Maybe it’s people like the news reporters and commenters who think he was fat, lazy, disgusting, unloveable and didn’t have a life worth living.

Oh dear. According to a study from the University of Arizona, as detailed in the New York Times, negative attitudes towards fat people are spreading — including to nations that traditionally have celebrated a more rotund stature. On the one hand, of course, I must point out that in many nations, studies of this kind (1st person interviews supplemented by a test wherein respondants answered true/false questions such as “People are overweight because they are lazy”) haven’t been conducted before, so there’s nothing to compare to. The sample is also small — only 700 people. However, cultures that are renowned for celebrating larger bodies scoring high on fat hate is, regardless, of note.

The New York Times, apparently going to the nearest foreign country they could find, ie: Mexico, features a gem of a first person interview with this lovely quote:

Mr. Miranda said he did not really notice whether his clients were fat or not. But he does when he is wedged in a crowded city bus.

“The fatties take up a lot of space,” he said. “People are annoyed. It’s uncomfortable.”

Ah, yes, those darn fatties. And then the analytical kicker:

To be sure, jokes and negative perceptions about weight have been around for ages. In Mexico, for instance, a nickname like “gordo” which translates as “fatty,” raises no eyebrows.

But what appears to have changed is the level of criticism and blame leveled at people who are overweight. One reason may be that public health campaigns branding obesity as a disease are sometimes perceived as being critical of individuals rather than the environmental and social factors that lead to weight gain.

*snip*

Stephen McGarvey, a professor of community health at Brown University who studies Samoan health issues.. [snip] said: “A public health focus on ‘You can change,’ or ‘This is your fault,’ can be very counterproductive,” he said. “Stigma is serious.”

To wit: depictions of svelte figures in American/Western media & advertisements, going global has contributed significantly to this shift, as have “health conscious” “fat is a disease” and “you have the power to solve it” campaigns.
Now *this* is where I have a serious problem with transformational/inspiration shows such as The Biggest Loser, the plots of many a book/TV show/film and advertising campaigns for weight loss products – often times when you stress the “you’re unhealthy!” aspect of being big, it comes part and parcel with “only you can change this, by using sheer willpower and simplistic formula of eating less and exercising more!” It puts both the triumph of “success” AND the blame of “failure” onto the fat person, completely ignoring elements that are out of your control, or that are so complex, they require years of work. I’m not advocating the fat person as a victim, with no agency or personal responsibility, but this simplistic message, as the study and anecdotal thoughts from experts show, encourages the negative stigma against fat people.

It’s sad to hear that the American/Western brand of body politics is spreading across the world. Not that we shouldn’t encourage healthy body weights and fitness, but there’s a negative backend that comes from sloppy messaging that we don’t think about.