August 24, 2010
In the fight against fat discrimination, information is everything. The more informed and better educated on the issue that the public are, the more likely you will have people who can understand the issue and make an informed and considered decision. Sadly, I don’t believe that this is in the interest of government, most medical researchers or business.
Think about it. The more people that think that fat means bad, ugly, defective and wrong the more products and services can be sold to make the fat people good, pretty, working and right again. Medical research companies who are putting money into researching how to make fat people not fat need funding. Funding comes through research which shows that the obesity epidemic is getting worse and that the only way to treat it is with their miracle cure. I have read articles promoting the wonders of gastric banding surgery to find out that the people who make the gastric bands are either providing funding for the research or the doctor being reported on is part of the group.
Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, Lite’n'Easy and all those sorts of companies want people to fear being fat. If I am happy being fat, I won’t seek out their services. I need to hate myself and loath who I am so I can spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars trying to fix myself.
What I find annoying is when I read another news article about how the obese of the world are ruining the hospital system or putting a strain on services. Like this one. When you read the headline, you find this lovely statement of “fact”.
Holy smokes Batman! That means almost two thirds of Australians in hospital emergency wards are fat? Err, no. Actually the study focused on a six month period between October 2008 and March 2009 at Melbourne’s Austin Hospital emergency department. Not particularly a large enough or wide enough sample to say “IN AUSTRALIA”. More like “IN MELBOURNE’S AUSTIN HOSPITAL”. Sadly it doesn’t have the same ring to it.
I do wonder why they were doing a research paper into the numbers of fat people attending hospital. Surely they could have just done a quick check of some database somewhere that has all of our information in it (Australia Card anyone?) and just calculate the numbers. Oh no, that’s right. This wasn’t the focus of the study. Or at least the press release, which is all I can access.
The study was about the management and treatment of obese people in society. Now obviously the AAP have access to the article in order to get the percentages of fat people in the study. The press release does say though that it was a study of 750 people. 750 people in a hospital in Melbourne is indicative of the fatness of people RIGHT AROUND AUSTRALIA? Get a grip. Even I’m not going to fall for that one.
What gets my goat is that because I’m not part of the establishment, I can’t read the article. I could go to a library to access their online journal catalogue, but then I have to hope that they have access to the Emergency Medicine Australasia journal. I also would need to find some time in my day, when I’m already working, to sneak to the library to check this stuff out. It doesn’t quite work like that for me.
The institutions that want us to discriminate against fat have the tools and resources to tell other people that fat is the evil that needs to be stamped out. They have control of the information. What I want to see is more Australians in a position of power to fight this. This requires people with access to the information to disseminate across Australia and the world.
Why is there not a large group channelling millions and millions of dollars into independent research on this subject? Where are the reports on the independent research I hear about through other channels that shows that obesity is not about the fact that I had too many cheeseburgers this week, but probably the fact that my body was built this way, or through trauma and being forced on to diets as a 12 year old?
I am sick and tired of reading this claptrap day in and day out. There has to be positive stories of fat people and they need to be told. There is a tide of people out there who will happily deride me and put me down because I am fat. I want to fight this and I need the tools. Somebody give me the Rod-damned tools!
The tool is information. It is access to research to analyse it and critique it. It is time to review and understand this stuff. It is the ability to critically assess information and then teach others how to use critical assessment to come to their own conclusions, not just be force fed those of giant corporations or research bodies. In fact, I don’t want you to take my conclusions as “The Final Word”. You should review what I say critically and tell me when I am wrong. Heck, we all learn when society works this way.
Instead of a one way conversation which goes “Hey fat people, you are a drain and are evil and are ugly. Stop eating cheeseburgers!”, what about a two-way dialogue where we all understand why are bodies are the way they are and then come to work out how we get the best of out them no matter what shape and size they are.
Oh, you can’t market that, can you?
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People shouldn’t have to die to get here
I’m feeling a little conflicted. I firstly want to state that I’m not an expert on the question of refugees, asylum seekers or ‘boat people’. If I get something wrong, please point it out to me.
I hate the fact that people risk their lives to travel in boats that are rarely seaworthy, are overcrowded, with little food or water and a shambles of a crew to come to Australia to apply for asylum or refugee status. More often than not, people die trying to get here.
The thing about our country that is different to so many is that we don’t have any land borders, so people can’t just walk up to the gate and ask to come in to be protected from persecution. A lot of our neighbours in the Asia-Pacific region are either not signatories to the appropriate charters or do not treat refugees and asylum seekers very well, so you can understand why they want to come here.
So how do we get to these people before they get on the boats and put themselves at risk (for very good reasons)?
I don’t know. I don’t have answers. It’s just a question that’s rummaging around in my head and I needed to put it out there.
Australia is a large nation and we can very well afford to assist those who need it. As an aside, I have to wonder how it can be considered cost effective to keep people in mandatory detention when they could be released into the community to work and live until their claims are fully assessed once any issues of security are answered.
I do agree with the concept of ‘stopping the boats’ but only in the sense that we should provide another way for these people to have their claims heard. They shouldn’t have to risk their lives to get the chance to be listened to, assessed and then come to Australia as refugees/asylum seekers (or not if assessed otherwise).
I really want the boats to stop. The people on them should have better options made available to them so that they don’t have to take that massive risk of death just to get to safety. If there were better options, I’m sure they would take them.
This is probably an overly simplistic view. I don’t often speak or write about this issue because it is something that I haven’t had a lot of exposure to. I just hate the stories of people drowning to get to safety. It shouldn’t happen. They should have better options. And as a signatory to the charter of human rights and refugees, we should be providing those better options now. Not tomorrow. Not next year. Now.