This is a post I made over a year ago on my private LiveJournal. Even though the news article is dated, it’s still very relevant today, as there are so many place equating “letting” a child be obese with child abuse.
What is up with people saying that physical abuse is better than obesity for children? Judges are taking kids out of their homes and putting them into foster programs, where they might actually be … you know, REALLY abused, because their parents are “abusing” them by “letting” them be obese?
Where the hell is the sense in this? Children who are actually being physically and sexually abused, being tortured, can’t get taken out of their so-called homes because the parents know how to answer the questions CPS give them, but a child who is obese, but other wise in a very loving, caring, nurturing home is taken away from the parents?
How the hell did we as a society end up here? I saw a comment that made me sick to my stomach on another site (http://family.propeller.com/story/2007/0uck1/31/fat-police-put-children-on-abuse-list
). The commenter said: Physical wounds heal, a 500lb man usually dies. I’d take my chances getting beat on. Excuse me? EXCUSE ME?!?!
Only a person who has never been abused, has never known anybody who was abused, and has no compassion could even think to say something like that. Wounds heal? What? So just suck up the physical abuse, fattie, because this is for your own good? Get “knocked into next week” by somebody because that’s SOOOOO much better than being obese? Where do people get ideas like this?
I responded over there. And didn’t say half the stuff I’m saying here, cuz I don’t want to get censured for my ranting.
But really, where do people get off? Oh, wait! I forgot! In this worldwide society of “OMGZZ!!!!!!!!1111111!!!11 Teh fatz r contagious! Teh fatz r unhealthy! Teh fatz r ugly! They r being fatz at me!!!!!!!!” it is SOOOO much more preferable to be anything BUT fat. Even starving your kids (in the name of not letting them be fatz!) is acceptable and not abuse.
Even beating them is better. Cuz yanno, wounds heal.
Ok, I want a ticket off this planet. I want to find someplace where sanity reigns, not this bullshit fear of everything that’s going on right now on Earth. I’m just waiting for somebody to say that “Teh Fatz” is a Terrorist Plot against America! And from some of these posts I’m reading, I don’t think that type of thinking is that far off. *rolls eyes*
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: fat hate |
A Day in the (Fat) Life 
Wow. As someone who is a happy fat adult, and has a million memories of being abused (physically, verball/emotionally) as a (relatively) thin child, anyone who would say that “allowing” one’s kids to be obese is abuse has (pardon my language) no fucking clue about what abuse really is or the incredible long-term damage that it can do to a person.
Frankly, I would have rather been a fat kid in a loving family than a thin kid getting abused, and all children, fat, thin or whatever, deserve to be cared for, loved and supported by somebody, biological family or not.
I completely agree with you.
Gawd, I hate the idiotic blathering this sort of story always propagates.
I think my personal favorite idiotic quote was ” my parents were both very overweight and have heart problems. Obesity and health problems run in my family and I’m scared to death I’ll have a heart attack at 30. I watch what I eat and exercise regularly out of fear. I did not deserve to grow up with this fear”. (ok, paraphrasing, mostly because I don’t want to go back there)
Um, WHAT? First off, quite frankly, in my opinion, if you don’t want to be afraid of what may happen to your body, STOP FUCKING BEING AFRAID. It’s guaranteed to only get you one or both of these things, an ulcer, or NOWHERE. Exercise, eat sensibly, awesome that’s great, stop stressing and making that heart attack all the more likely, sheesh (self fulfilling prophecy anyone?).
And also, um WHAT? to the “deserve” part of this. So kids who are fat DESERVE TO BE ABUSED? KIDS DESERVE TO BE ABUSED PERIOD? WHAT IN THE HELL?
Now to be fair, nobody deserves the prejudice that comes along with being fat. But instead of putting that back on the individual, why don’t we attack society for making it so damn hard to be over x size anyway? (wait, wait, I know, cause that’s actually logical)
I dare one of those idiots to try being a scared abused child for a day and then try to honestly tell me they still think it’s not nearly as bad as being a fat kid in a loving family. What has the world come to? *cries*
It’s very obvious that the people who say “I’d take my chances getting beat on” never had to live in fear, day after day, of just that. Never had to feel the terror of looking at the adults in the household “the wrong way”, and never had to deal with being at the whim of capricious and arbitrary moods.
The part of the comment that said “physical wound heal” shows that the poster had completely turned a deaf ear to all the stories on the news, tv and print, about children who are killed by the people who were supposed to be taking care of them. Physical wounds don’t always heal.
And that says nothing about the emotional wounds that sometimes last a lifetime, no matter how much the survivor deals with them.
Almost nobody has a heart attack at 30 unless they have a congenital heart condition or they are a serious drug abuser. (All the Famous Fatties Who Died In Their 30s Of Heart Attacks — Cass Elliot, John Belushi, Chris Farley, Lowell George — had major drug problems.) Hell, not many people even have heart attacks at 50 anymore, not even big fatty fatasses. Heart disease these days doesn’t become statistically significant in the population until around age 65.
And really, “Wounds heal”? Geez, hear of PTSD much?
Even starving your kids (in the name of not letting them be fatz!) is acceptable and not abuse.
I’ve always thought that forcing your kids to go on a diet is much closer to abuse than “allowing” them to be fat.
earlier this month, i had an uncle die suddenly. he was in his early 60’s, he had a vehicle accident. he died.
we’re a big family. we turned OUT for the funeral. and i started looking at us, mostly women who are blood related in this family, and i REALLY looked at us. every single one of us was over a size 12, except for one cousin who worries herself so much she doesnt eat. those of us who are fat? we arent starving ourselves but i noticed what we ARE eating are normal portions (not overfilled plates) and things full of flavor (generally spices, not sauces). yes there were deserts but i was virtuous and had another small piece of chicken instead, LOL.
but we arent fat because of what we eat, necessarily. our genetics play a LOT to do in it, and people are failing to take that into account. twerps.
kitten
I read your amazing post days ago… and it is just so wow… I just haven’t known what to say… I prolly still don’t.
My first thought is to wonder whether these people who think obesity is worse than abuse… DO THEY HAVE A FREAKIN’ CLUE WHAT ABUSE IS??? It can be soul-crushing. It can be suffocating. I can scar a person for life. AND THAT is BETTER than FAT??? WHA???
Obesity is highly genetic… and in fact can be exacerbated by DIETS. God forbid the powers that be recognize these facts.
I also agree with the bit about some abusive parents knowing how to answer the questions so that they don’t seem abusive. As the daughter of psychopaths, I have seen that first hand… to the world, they seemed like the best parents ever. They were very careful to show their abusive faces only when anyone who might care wasn’t looking. *headdesk* The system just sucks in a lot of ways…
That’s sick. My best friend was beaten from the age of nine, and she will always be scarred because of that experience. I’m sure she would much rather be overweight than be abused.
How is it even possible to compare those things? One can choose to be overweight or not, while the ones who are abused have no choses at all!!
ViktoryiaN
I just got to this article by accident; I was looking for a quote out of someone’s MSN name.
I have to say, I really had NO idea there are people out there that are actually THAT stupid. O-= My god, how can anyone think that being fat is worse than abuse?! Or that being fat IS abuse… Those two can’t even be compared!
Whoever it was on that other site that said that they were scared to die of a heart attack at 30 and something about ‘feeding an 8 year old to practically drop dead of a heart attack’… How dumb are you?! You’re so scared about dieing of fat, but you can eat properly, how the hell do you do that, without research? If you eat properly and exercise, you know why you do it. If you’re scared of a heart attack, find out what the hell it is first and what causes it. If you were so scared as a child (such a great ego too, worrying about yourself, not even about your parents), why didn’t you say anything to anyone? You would’ve been educated about it.
Okay, I do have -a slight- understanding of why they would put obesity on the abuse list. Mostly because they’re dumb and don’t know where else to put it. And sure, obesity is a rising problem, something should be done about it. But pulling kids out of their homes is so obviously NOT the answer. How about a limitation to the amount of junkfood restaurants in an area? Or making unhealthy foods more expensive? Forbidding ‘unhealthy’ commercials? Or going to schools, having kids invite their parents (or something) and e-du-cate them about obesity. How to stop it~ if it can be stopped at all (meaning the genetic causes), what causes it, how to eat properly [including that not all fatty foods are bad], to exercise etc. etc.
Getting children out of their homes will do even more damage to them.
And the ‘physical wounds heal’ thing – COME ONNN!! Does it just seem like it to me, or are people really getting dumber by the minute? Are they closing their eyes on purpose? Practically everyone knows that being abused, always harms a child (or anyone who gets abused actually) and never just in one way. Sure, you’ll stop feeling that slap, but do they have any idea of what goes on in your mind then? The pain doesn’t only get to you physically, but it hurts the mind too. The wondering “Why? Why me? What did I do wrong?” etc. And after the ongoing abuse even feeling guilty yourself. Or when its sexually, thinking that maybe it’s normal or the dirty feeling.
The tears, the fear, the images and the (lost) trust, it’s haunting…
At that point, I get where they put the link between abuse and obese kids. There are people out there that pick on their bigger kids or don’t accept the obesity, making the kid feel unloved, but that can happen to kids that aren’t even fat too. There are people that just call their kid fat or something, because they aren’t or weren’t (at that age) or just for no reason. That can leave a kid feeling very insecure, but that all depends on how much self confidence the kid has. Other kids can pick on a fat kid too, but that’s apart from the ‘home abuse’ so I’m not going to get into that.
About abusing parents that know exactly what to say; it’s true and scary. Seeing them act so sanctimonious, lying right to those people’s faces…
Anyway, the point I’m trying to make is that I understand why they put it with abuse, but it’s not enough reason. Obesity and abuse are two different things. There is a possibility that those two happen to happen at the same time ~to one child, but that doesn’t mean it happens to every obese kid. Making that conclusion is actually being prejudicial and could even make the fat kid feel more insecure, cause they make the assumption he’s being abused, because of his appearance.
So who ever came up with it should’ve given it more thought and should’ve given (good) reasons with it.
Holy shit, I had no idea I wrote that much. o.o