Kyrsten James WIBIS 188-005 October 15, 2012 Word Count # Fat Is a Feminist Issue By: Susie Orbach Obesity and overeating is a topic that is ongoing within the United States and in many lives of woman today. Fifty percent of women that live in this country alone are estimated to be overweight. Individuals of our society are always looking for new diets, dietary plans, supplements, and or advice. Every woman would love to be considered physically fit, and beautiful in the eyes of others, but this within itself is a challenge. Everyone perceives beauty in different ways, shapes, and forms.
Anorexia usually begins when a diet is started. Most anorexics still fell fat even when one fourth of their body weight is lost. A person with anorexia has a lack of self confidence. Not only women have anorexia but men too can have this eating disorder. The average teenage or adult woman needs to eat between 4000 to 7500 kilojoules each day to stay healthy.
I believe that Orbach’s article is written in way that is responds to all of the social stereotypes that plague women in general, not only larger women. Yet, with this wide scope she manages to narrow her thoughts down to fat women. I completely disagree with the Orbach in the selection “Fat is a Feminist Issue.” When I graduated from high school and got my first job, I was going through a lot of stress and I didn’t care about my health. I didn’t care what I ate or how
At the age 20 of Miss Gladys started suffering from uncontrolled hypertension which runs in her family and contributed to her parents’ death, Miss Gladys is short in height and overweight. What Nutrition related risk factors have you identified in her eating pattern? The Nutrition related risk factors I identified in her eating patterns are high blood cholesterol and obesity/overweight which are caused as a result of eating large breakfast with ham, eggs, bacon which contains high cholesterol and drinking large container of soda at every meal which contains high level of sugar. Because hypertension runs in her family linage therefore her cholesterol level may be affected by heredity. The result of excess body fat increases the risk to develop heart disease and stroke even if they have no other risk factor.
Britt’s audience is fat people. I don’t really think she cares if thin people read her essay, she is writing to amuse fat people and maybe make them feel a little better about themselves. A few rhetoric strategies she used were pathos, humor, repetition, compare and contrasting, and cause and effect. Britt uses cause and effect in her essay to explain why thin people are the way they are. One example of this is when she writes, “Thin people turn surly, mean and hard at a young age because they never learn the value of a hot fudge sundae for easing tension.
Discrimination at Large Growing up, obesity has always been an issue in my family. I have watched most of the women in my family go from diet to diet in the hopes of losing weight. We as a society have placed so much emphasis on looking a certain way or thinking skinny is healthy that we have created a stereotype where being overweight is seen as gross or unhealthy. Obesity is stereotyped in a negative way in many countries. Studies have shown that adults describe obese people by undesirable attributes such as lazy, unappealing, unhappy, unpopular and sloppy (Harris et al., 1982; Tiggemann and Rothblum, 1988; Ryckman et al., 1989; Cogan et al., 1996).
Her mom continues to remind her how overweight she is and says things like “Look at you! Enormous!” (Carmen, RWHC). Carmen tells her she would be beautiful is she lost weight. Ana doesn’t listen to her because she knows there’s more to a person than just looks. There is even a scene where she strips down to her lingerie at work, where they were all women, in front of her mom.
Often, I observe fellow students commenting, “I probably shouldn’t eat this, but…I don’t care.” Thoughts such as these allow the perpetuation of nutritionally poor decisions, especially if a woman is able to maintain her weight, but most times, weight is an unreliable indicator of good health. Stephen Hennigar, Ph.D. candidate in nutritional sciences at Penn State University, describes the issue with using weight as an indicator for good health, “We know that being underweight is associated with increased health risks and that overweight or obese individuals are at a higher risk for chronic diseases and have a shorter life expectancy. However, we also know that weight alone does not capture the whole picture. A more comprehensive assessment that includes indicators of diet and lifestyle and physical and biochemical analyses is a more accurate indicator when assessing overall health,” (“Answer to Q’s”). However, as a society with an obesity epidemic, we tend to believe in weight as an indication of health, especially since obesity is a health problem that is diagnosed based on weight or body mass index.
Tall, short, skinny and fat are all distinctive traits that people may have. But these are more than just mere physical traits though; they are also traits that contribute to a person’s identity. 80% of 10-year-old girls have dieted. 90% of high school junior and senior women diet regularly. Young girls are more afraid of becoming fat than they are of nuclear war, cancer, or losing their parents.
Obesity in America health implications and need for government action America is fat. This is plainly evident through the plethora of news reports, frequent warnings of health experts, and ironically, the omnipresent ads for the next miracle weight loss solution. However, as the number of obese people have increased disproportionately within the last thirty years, so has the cultural acceptance of obesity as part of America. Despite the well documented health risks associated with obesity (higher chance of heart attack, stroke, diabetes, cancer, just to name a few) people continue to gorge themselves to an early death from one super sized meal to the next. To combat a this widespread problem, the United States government should take action to improve the quality of food marketed, served, and sold, especially among children.