In the Everybody-Give-Me-A-Hug victim culture in which we live, the obese want a spot at the table along with those who face discrimination based on the way that God or Nature or our Intelligent Designer created us.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
If you see in any given situation only what everybody else can see, you can be said to be so much a representative of your culture that you are a victim of it.
So instead of beating myself up for being fat, I think it's a miracle that I laugh every day and walk through my life with pride, because our culture is unrelenting when it comes to large people.
We live in a society of victimization, where people are much more comfortable being victimized than actually standing up for themselves.
There is a fetishization of victimization in our culture. And I just am not interested in victimhood.
Obesity is a societal issue. We have to come together with government, business, civil society, and NGOs to create solutions for this.
To be sympathetic without discrimination is so very debilitating.
I considered obesity a disease. It can destroy you from within. It almost destroyed me, and I do not want that to happen to anybody.
I know what it feels like to carry a lot of weight in a society that's very image-conscious. It's a thin person's world, and we try to navigate within it without being made fun of.
It is not OK for anyone to be obese. There needs to be a cultural shift.
Our cultural discussion of fat bodies and how we clothe them has nothing to do with health concerns, the obesity epidemic, or the comfort of fat people. It has everything to do with what we expect from women, what we've been told by the fashion industry, and the value we place on 'perfect' bodies.