Please stop declaring war on fat people

The government recently announced that they’ll be pushing an anti-obesity campaign under the guise of helping people “slim down” in case of a second wave of COVID-19.

They’re at it again, talking about fat people using words like “obesity epidemic” and “war on obesity”. This needs to stop. Everything they’ve done to tackle obesity so far isn’t working, in fact it’s only making matters worse. We’ve been living through a pandemic, and they think they can now “help” fat people by declaring war on us.

Boris is encouraging people to “slim down” before a potential COVID-19 second wave, clearly laying out whose fault it will be if that happens. This is a classic distraction technique. Instead of the responsibility sitting with the people at the top who make the decisions, it’s placed on us — as individuals. If I get COVID-19, it’ll be my fault for being fat. If there’s another wave it’ll be mine and the other fat people’s fault for spreading it. Fat people are not protected from discrimination — size is not a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010. There has been various discussions on if obesity should be classed as a disease or disability, but for many people who are fat shamed, they may not even technically be fat anyway. On social media, literally anyone can be called fat, including models with what many people would think are “perfect” bodies.

Fat is seen as one of the worst things you can be. As a society, we’re used to being able to pick on fat people. It’s allowed, it’s normal. It’s even seen as helpful by supposedly concerned people who think tough love is the best approach to get people to lose weight. Opposing industries work perfectly together, selling us the burgers, making us feel guilty for having eaten them, then selling us the diet to solve all our problems. When that diet fails, we never blame the diet industry. We think it’s because we’re too weak to be able to stick to it. Nothing to do with the fact that capitalism is thriving off us hating ourselves of course.

So the government plans to stop showing fast food adverts before the watershed on TV. Fine, I doubt it’ll make any difference. But they’re also going to start labelling more foods — products and menus — with calories. This is really dangerous for people with eating disorders. It’s only going to promote food anxieties and encourage disordered eating, which is generally what I call dieting now. The lines are very blurred between dieting, disordered eating and eating disorders. The main difference is having a health professional diagnose you, something which is a major problem judging by the many stories I’ve read of people being turned away from eating disorder treatment because they’re “not thin enough”.

When a fat person is on a restrictive diet, the behaviour is praised. The same behaviour in a thin person is an eating disorder. Both are having anxious thoughts around food, an anorexic voice that tells them they should not eat. That’s right — fat people can be anorexic. It’s a statement I’ve said many times, often to be confronted with laughs or confusion. A fat person is unlikely to be diagnosed with an eating disorder due to weight stigma and fatphobia in the healthcare system. Healthcare professionals, and eating disorder professionals too, have grown up in the same fatphobic world we have. They have unconscious biases that negatively affect the treatment of both eating disorders and obesity. Eating disorders are complex psychological problems — it’s to do with a person’s mental health, not their body size.

The more the government tries to tackle the “obesity crisis” the more they are exacerbating another crisis in our society — mental health, including eating disorders.

It’s not a war. It’s not an epidemic. Fat people don’t need a fight, or to be “cured”, we need to be respected and supported. It’s time we focussed on the real issues of weight stigma and fatphobia.

Research shows that, ironically, weight stigma causes a heightened risk of obesity. Weight stigma and fatphobia are factors driving the “obesity epidemic”, increasing the risk of eating disorders, mental health problems, chronic illnesses and other health conditions.

We need a bigger cultural change to help stop discrimination towards fat people. The focus needs to be on changing the attitudes and stereotypes, instead of placing the blame on us for being fat. We can’t tell anything about anyone’s health just by looking at them, but even if we could — someone in bad health doesn’t deserve any less respect. Society pretends that it’s about trying to help people be healthier, when it’s really a deep-rooted anti-fat bias which we all have. Unpicking that means starting to question when and where we learnt all those messages. For many of us, it will be in early childhood. I guarantee that for many fat people it started in primary school, it certainly did for me. People say that kids are mean, and yes they can be, but they’ve learnt it from somewhere. Even at a very early age, kids know that being thin is good and fat is bad. We need to take this very seriously as a society.

When people grow up being told that their body is wrong, they can have low self-esteem, mental health problems, physical health problems, difficult relationships with food, difficult relationships with people… the list could go on.

Being told you’re not good enough traumatises you for the rest of your life.

So what can we do?

• Tackle inequalities, discrimination and maltreatment of fat people in our society — we need to stop the discrimination, not blame the victims
• Ditch the BMI chart — there’s even an article published on the NHS website saying that we need to re-think the categories on the BMI chart as researchers have found that the healthiest weight seems to be in the “overweight” category. But how about we scrap it altogether? Much better! Throw the scales in the bin, stick two fingers up to the diet industry and work on loving and nurturing our bodies.
• Encourage kids to learn yoga/meditation techniques. Teach them that health comes at any size and that the thin ideal isn’t attainable.
• Tackle other intersecting inequalities, such as race and disability.
• Listen to fat people. Respect us. Support us. It’s hard to have respect for yourself when others around you don’t give you respect. Yes, we should work on validating ourselves, but discrimination, bullying and abuse makes it very difficult to be happy in your own skin.
• Prioritise mental health — on a wider level we need to be improving funding and access, but on an individual level, you can help de-stigmatise going to therapy. Counselling is helpful for everyone, not just for when you feel like you can’t cope.
• Take eating disorders more seriously — the number of people struggling is likely way more than we think, as people may not be coming forward due to either stigma or not realising that they have an eating disorder.

Write to your local MP

I have written to my local MP and to the Prime Minister’s office. Here is the wording I sent to my MP — feel free to copy and paste/adapt accordingly. To find contact details for your local MP click here.

I understand the government is planning a campaign to address obesity levels in light of the Covid-19 pandemic. The fat shaming approaches taken to “tackle obesity” so far have proven not only unsuccessful but in fact harmful. Research shows that weight stigma actually results in a heightened risk of obesity. Weight stigma and fatphobia are factors driving the “obesity epidemic” and causing eating disorders, mental health problems, chronic illnesses and other health conditions.

This campaign will only heighten stigma against fat people, increasing discrimination, bullying and abuse. Shaming people into losing weight doesn’t work and there is little evidence that diets are effective in reducing obesity.

Increasing the labelling of calories on menus and food products is potentially dangerous for people with eating disorders. It will likely lead to the development of eating disorders too, due to heightened anxiety around food, the pressure to diet and to live up to the thin ideal.

I am calling for the government to stop declaring war on fat people’s bodies. We need to take a holistic and therapeutic approach rather than stigmatising weight and placing blame on individuals. Obesity is a complex issue, influenced by many factors including genes, poverty, culture and trauma. It is therefore important to take a big picture approach, focussing on tackling inequalities and discrimination, and increasing access to mental health services.

I am also asking for the planned campaign to be evidence-based utilising the extensive research from Health at Every Size (HAES), and for it to be informed by eating disorder and mental health professionals.

You can also send a message to the Prime Minister’s office here. It’s limited of 1,000 characters so here’s a shorter version of the text:

Re: obesity campaign in light of the Covid-19 pandemic. Research shows that weight stigma results in a heightened risk of obesity as well as increasing the risk of eating disorders, mental health problems, chronic illnesses and other health conditions. There is little evidence that diets are effective. Labelling calories on menus and food products is dangerous for people with eating disorders. I am calling for the government to take a holistic and therapeutic approach rather than stigmatising weight. Obesity is a complex issue, influenced by many factors including genes, poverty, culture and trauma, so it’s important to focus on tackling inequalities and discrimination, and increase access to mental health services. The campaign needs to be evidenced-based utilising the extensive research from Health at Every Size (HAES), and for it to be informed by eating disorder and mental health professionals.

They’ll then send a confirmation email so you need to click on the link in the email to send your message.

This is a very important issue, please help by doing what you can or by sharing.

Thank you.