[Guest post from @DCPlod comin' atcha. -ABLxx]
Via Jeff Fecke (who is constantly having to wage war against fat-shaming and fat jokes), this story was brought to my attention. As someone with a mother and grandmother who have both struggled with weight issues, this enrages me:
Disney World has officially joined the fight against childhood obesity — and the reactions are mixed.
An interactive exhibit named Habit Heroes opened on February 3rd as part of Disney’s Innoventions, a two-building playspace at Epcot, the Orlando Sentinel reports. It’s co-sponsored by Blue Cross Blue Shield, and features protagonists Callie Stenics and Will Power who lead participants through a series of activities aimed at destroying “villains” bearing names like Sweet Tooth, Lead Bottom and The Snacker.
Disney, in their infinite moral wisdom, have decided that ‘fighting childhood obesity’ means ‘let’s make overweight kids feel like shit by portraying causes of obesity as villains, and we’ll make these villains fat and ugly too, in case you didn’t get our point that being fat makes you an awful human being.”
This horribly named ‘Habit Heroes’ exhibit is interactive: kids get to take down dastardly do-badders like Lead Bottom – I guess they only refrained from using “Fat Ass” for being too profane, because God knows even mildly bad language is so much worse than fostering ignorance and contempt for other human beings! – and Insecura. Yes, low self-esteem is, according to Disney, a bad habit, and not an emotional/psychological issue that needs understanding and love to overcome. Of course, the people behind this are too fucking stupid and insensitive to realise that treating low self-esteem as such, and indeed this whole disgusting exhibit, is actually going to compound this very serious problem in children instead of helping them gain the confidence they so desperately need.
Yeah Disney, destroying kids’ self-esteem and basically telling others it’s fine to bully people for being fat is going to do wonders to bring down childhood obesity. Turning kids anorexic or even making them resort to killing themselves due to shame and feelings of worthlessness is one way of solving the obesity problem, I suppose. Very Swiftian.
Unfortunately, this is reflective of a bigger problem in society at large – people go on about how bullying is awful, and how we need to put a stop to it. As a victim of bullying myself, I wholeheartedly applaud efforts to do something about this scourge of both childhood and adulthood. And then I see people, often the very same people who deplore bullying, making fat jokes and turning fat people’s weight against them, and the hypocrisy and careless cruelty makes me want to vomit. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve had to call out people for cracking fat jokes about New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. I’ve got news for these idiots: Christie isn’t an asshole because he’s fat. He’s an asshole because he’s an asshole.
Personal appearance has long been the most common reason for people to bully others, but we’ve succeeded in establishing a consensus that it’s not okay to make fun of people for having spots, or red hair, or for being short, etc. But apparently it’s still okay to make fun of people for being overweight. Because, you know, it’s their own fault. If Fatty over there would only lose some weight, they wouldn’t get picked on. We tell bullying victims how “it’s the bully’s fault, not yours. You’re not to blame.” And then we go and make an exception for fat people, for whom it will NEVER GET BETTER. Instead of a “It Gets Better” campaign, we need to make “STOP THIS SHIT NOW” campaign aimed at the perpetrators and enablers of not just fat-shaming, but ALL kinds of bullying. Encouraging the victims isn’t enough – some contributors to those “It Gets Better” videos have gone on to kill themselves – we need to tackle the root cause of their suffering: the bullies, and our own prejudices.
As a start, I’d like you all to read this post by someone who’s had weight problems, read how this ‘Habit Heroes’ exhibit made them feel, and spread the word that shaming people who are overweight is not only counter-productive, but flat-out wrong.
[You can find Danielle at her blog, View Across the Pond or on the Twitters]
“I guess they only refrained from using “Fat Ass” for being too profane, because God knows even mildly bad language is so much worse than fostering ignorance and contempt for other human beings!” THIS.
As a teenager, my mom was a long distance track star in my home town. less than 5 years later, she would never run again.
My mother struggled with weight issues through the latter half of her life, gaining over 150 lbs in the year after having part of her hypothalamus removed, along with the brain tumor that planted itself there. few knew this, and most saw only obesity, and decided it was “her fault she was fat.” rather than empathize with her efforts to lose weight using the conventional means of diet and daily exercise, she was mocked for the futility of her efforts.
now that my mom has passed away, i tell my story damn near every time someone goes off on america’s obesity problem, in an attempt to educate people one at a time. it isn’t just fast food and bad habits that cause people to gain weight. my mother was a unique case, but there is more to it than most people’s black and white view of health and fitness.
i am a skinny guy, but i know that my weight is not my health, and that needs to be emphasized in the debate. good habits should be promoted, but not at the expense of harming individuals physically or psychologically. personally, i think MO has done more good for the discussion of health in the US than any public figure this century or last.
I have relatives who are overweight. Some, yes, because they have every bad habit under the sun, along with a complete lack of exercise. But most of them have physical issues that they simply can’t not be “fat.” One of my aunts used to complain bitterly about it, particularly when she looked at my father (who is thin). “I eat a balanced diet. I exercise constantly (she was a state lifeguard into her 50′s). I don’t smoke or drink. I’m overweight, have high blood pressure, had three heart attacks, a stroke, and I’ve got diabetes. And there sits my damn brother! Eats the worst crap all the time, doesn’t exercise, smokes like a chimney, and he’s skinny as a rail and healthy as an ox!” Two of her daughters also are overweight, and yes, they’ve spent all their lives trying to get rid of it – but nothing works.
How many fast-food promotional tie-ins has Disney had over the years, by the way?
wow. damn good point.
I just wonder how many parents who decry their children’s obesity are the same type that don’t let them run around outside for fear of the INFINITY BILLION SEX FIENDS they’re told are waiting to PREY ON TEH WITTLE PWESHUS.
Sorry, I’m just bitter that my preferred hobby (gaming) is considered public enemy #2 (right after food) in the War On Teh Fatz.
Not only do I struggle with weight issues for physical, genetic and psychological reasons, I also have some bad habits. That said, I have also, recently been to Disney and went through that idiotic, insulting, annoying Habit Hero display. I came out FUMING. Not just because I had to STAND in line for 40 minutes when I made it clear that I cannot standbut it’s a walk through where you are supposed to un around and I am not capable of doing that. And the jump around and dance to make the fat (and very obviously stupid) blob exercise…. Oh lord, I got so mad I couldn’t see straight. The nerve of those people!
Here’s the thing – all this fat-shaming isn’t about health at all. How do I know? I used to be anorexic, twice starving myself to attain the mythical perfect body. The first time, I couldn’t walk across campus without becoming dizzy and lightheaded, and the second time, I literally fainted at a concert because I hadn’t eaten enough that day. I wasn’t healthy by any stretch of the imagination, but I received profuse compliments as I whittled myself away to nothing. Only my best friends voiced their concerns when you could see my bones through my skin. Everyone else told me how great I looked and how envious they were of me.
There are many ways to encourage a healthy lifestyle, but this isn’t one of them.
One of my college friends talks about how the only time her father told her she looked ‘healthy’ was when she was anorexic. She was going to a school, at the time, where girls would brag to each other in the locker room about their periods having stopped because they were so damn thin.
Another close person to me was put on a thousand-calorie-a-day diet by the family ‘doctor’ when she was seventeen, and pretty much stopped eating altogether in her first year of college. The girls in her dorm intervened, thank God.
As a culture, we conflate ‘thin, oh so very thin’ with ‘beautiful’, ‘healthy’ AND ‘virtuous’. That is a considerable triple whammy, which means that our chances of trying to think rationally about weight are somewhat compromised, to put it mildly.
I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve had to call out people for cracking fat jokes about New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. I’ve got news for these idiots: Christie isn’t an asshole because he’s fat. He’s an asshole because he’s an asshole.
So much approval.
Me too, this.