Being bashed for my body
February 28, 2023
Last week, The Paisano published a commentary by Staff Writer Sam Wendorf covering the use of weight loss medications and their negative effects. Wendorf made a valid argument about how weight loss medication like semaglutide should not be a solution for obesity, but they failed to take into account the variety of causes other than sheer laziness.
“Parents should be feeding their children good food and encouraging them to play outside or participate in sports at school,” Wendorf wrote. “Some parents are turning to shortcuts they can use to circumvent the attention they should be paying to their kids’ health and wellbeing. This is lazy parenting at its finest and sets up dangerous precedents for the future.”
More than 34 million people in the United States alone face food insecurities. The “lack of consistent access to enough food for every person in a household to live an active, healthy life” is a common issue due to complex matters like “poverty, unemployment, low income, lack of affordable housing, chronic health conditions or lack of access to healthcare, systemic racism and racial discrimination.” “Good food” is not the most affordable or accessible — I mean, have you seen egg prices recently?
“Some social movements even try to convince overweight people that they are already healthy,” Wendorf wrote.
The definition of healthy is very subjective and hard to pinpoint. Most social movements are intended to empower people through body positivity, not convince them that they are inherently “healthy.” It is unfair to discredit encouraging others to be comfortable in their own skin.
“Obesity in the U.S. is the worst it has ever been, and it will only continue to get worse if we depend on everything but the right choices to deal with it.”
Rather than blaming Americans for being one of the most obese countries in the world, blame suppliers and the government for the lack of proper regulation in what harmful ingredients will be fed to us. Obesity is a wicked problem with many causes, effects and solutions. We cannot reduce it to indolence and gluttony.
