Delusions of persecution – a delusion (common in paranoia) that others are out to get you and frustrate and embarrass you or inflict suffering on you; a complicated conspiracy is frequently imagined
Breaking it down further,
Delusion - an erroneous belief that is held in the face of evidence to the contrary. People are out to “inflict suffering on you”.
When Massachusetts began considering making discrimination based on body weight illegal the internet and the blog-o-sphere was inundated with articles and posts confirming just how terrible it is to be a fat person in America. To the Fat-o-sphere, being a fat person is akin to being a black person in the “Jim Crow” era south.
Fat discrimination we are told is completely out of control. Some even claim it is at an all time high in frequency. Yet, the best evidence that can be mustered are anecdotal experiences of “turned down” fat people going to job interviews, as if this qualifies as real proof of discrimination. Generally speaking a rejected applicant almost always is incorrect in figuring out why he or she didn’t get a job. Let’s get realistic here in all likelihood the person doing the interview, statistically speaking, is overweight.
All these articles are short on actual proof, or even personal related experiences from fat people. Making unfounded claims of persecution where scant evidence is offered certainly falls in the realm of being a delusional perception.
After all in a country where more than half of all people are overweight, how much discrimination could there be for fat people? Let me suggest that this is the most fat friendly nation and culture in the history of man kind. Exhibit “A” in my argument are the electric fat cart’s that line the entrances of every big box mart in America.
Being denied SPECIAL privileges is what gets fat activists most animated. If airlines don’t provide free extra seating to the grossly obese, they consider this as discrimination and “hate”. Another shining example can be found in the complaints that chairs in waiting areas and restaurants (heaven forbid!) HAVE ARMS, OMG! Guess what? I like arms on a chair, and I don’t want to have to pay more for my airline ticket so a fat person can fly in two seats for the cost of one. Complaining about discrimination and persecution because you aren’t given preferred status is certainly demonstrates a disconnect with reality.
Even, an Intellectual difference in opinion with Fat Acceptance qualifies as fat persecution. Fat bloggers are often bold enough to suggest that disagreeing with them constitutes advocating physical violence on fat people. Implying that people who differ with fat advocacy are encouraging physical attacks on the obese is clearly an indicator of a loopy perception of oppression.
Like all delusions of persecution, “fat persecution” includes a healthy element of the conspiratorial. In Fat Acceptance’s case the paranoia is directed at the “Diet Industry”. For the record, the diet industry has a sales volume of 35 billion dollars. A lot of money, huh? But, compare that to the restaurant industry reaping nearly 550 billion dollars last year, in sales? Wal-Mart ALONE does 50 billion dollars in grocery sales. The food marketers of this country have a lot more at stake than the diet pill pushers. For every diet supplement, or weight watchers advertisement, a consumer gets hundreds of food and restaurant ads, most of them for the processed high calorie crap.
The pharmaceutical industry has very few products on the market for combating obesity. Xenical from Roche being the star of this field. If anything the pill masters make more money from a person becoming and staying fat. The statin drugs Crestor, and Liptor are the biggest sellers in the world. Not to mention medications for diabetes and high blood pressure.
I don’t know where the true root of this false perception lay. Perhaps these people were taunted on the playground and in high school. Maybe they face a lot of rejection on the romantic front. Perhaps the people they find attractive aren’t interested in them physically. But these are things that can’t be corrected with legislation. They can not FORCE people to like them and approve of their lifestyle. Everyone faces a certain degree of rejection, insecurity, and criticism. Most learn to live with it. There isn’t a cabal of anti fat activists that are making fat people’s lives miserable and keeping them down. People often judge fat people as gluttonous and lazy because despite the PR campaign, many fat people DO eat too much, and despise physical activity. Exaggerated complaints of persecution and demands for special treatment will do nothing to change people’s perception. In fact it is far more likely to create a great deal of resentment.
The reality is that fat people are the majority in the United States. If anyone faces harrassment it is those who chose to be responsible for their bodies and eat well and exercise, despite the accusations of being “anorexic”, “self hating”, and “juiced”.
The fat acceptance activists would have us believe that fat people eat just as healthily and exercise just as much as thin and fit people. In this rhetoric it has become discriminatory and blatantly “racist” to imply that obesity is a result of gluttony and sloth.
I can’t help but wonder where all these obese but healthy and active people who frequent the fatosphere blogs are hiding in real life. I know some clearly overweight people personally, and most of them are intelligent and deserving in character – but the reason for their obesity is evident: too much of the wrong kind of food and too little exercise. This seems to be the case with each and every fat spouse that we hear about over at http://www.myfatspouse.com too. You can be a lovely person and succesful in your career, you can even be a veritable pillar of your society – and still be way too fat due to a poor diet and inactivity.
Confronting people near and dear to you because they are destroying their health with poor lifestyle choices does not constitute harrassement and discrimination, it’s simply stating an unconfortable but evident fact. The same goes for the society in general, concern about the health of the general public has nothing at all to do with discrimination and persecution.
Right on!
What I can’t stand is how fat people seem to try convert everyone else to their lifestyle. Misery loves company! I’ve had fat friends tell me I’m too thin even though I’m 6 lbs over my ideal body weight according to health charts. I have to cook everything myself to keep healthy because 90 percent of what restaurants serve is grease, because that’s what fat people like. Grease gives me indigestion! And of course I have to pay a fat tax through my health insurance premiums. I pay for my own health insurance, and the reason it’s so expensive is because of all the fatties on Lipitor and Norvasc and Glucophage! I think we should start TAXING FAT PEOPLE!
Does contiuning to consume after a faithful and loving spouse has asked you to stop indicate a greater love for food than one’s mate?
Here is a comment to one of the persecution- and discrimination rants on one of the fat acceptance blogs. This anonymous poster puts it much better than I ever could:
“Fat Acceptance… Just what MLK, Jr was fighting for–so chubby white women could avoid lynchings,
michelin men being burned in effegies on front lawns, etc.
Fat is beautiful. Just what my family who ran like hell to get away from the lynch mobs in Mississippi was praying for–the rights of fat white people to feel good about themselves.”
Hear, hear!
I love the whole argument that stores discriminate because they don’t sell sizes up to a 20. Seriously???? That isn’t discrimination. These overfed whiny, middle-class fools can’t comprehend the meaning of the word if that’s what they think it is.
The whole thing boggles. I lost a really cool internet friend over this crazy mess. She stopped talking to me because I had the nerve to say the people at myfatspouse.com weren’t really monsters.
yoganut, that is not why i stopped talking to you.
I have read through the MFS site and realize that yes, there is more to it than seen at first glance. There are people who do care about their spouses, still love them and want to be with them. If it were a case of no longer loving them, it would be a matter of divorce and end of discussion. As it stands, it is not my place to judge the condition of anyone else’s relationships.
I stopped talking to you because i felt you were being rude and argumentative. If you’d like to work it out, i’m sure you remember how to find me.
All that being said, by the way? Doesn’t really excuse, IMHO, some of the incredibly nasty things that do get said there. Granted, this IS the internet, and everyone is entitled to their own opinions. *shrug*
[...] want to stay fat. All this is sprinkled with healthy doses of cherry picked studies, and paranoid delusions of persecution, including diet industry [...]
I only recently started reading Fat Acceptance Blogs. I couldn’t believe there was such a thing, and I thought it was a great idea. However, the more I read, the more I noticed the head-in-the-sand attitude a lot of FA bloggers have. I have been fat most of my life, and I know it’s because I ate too much of the wrong kinds of food and I didn’t exercise enough. The argument that eating healthy and exercising doesn’t work is silly. I recently moved to Asia, and have lost over 35 pounds in two and a half months just because I eat healthier food and get more physical activity. I had no intention of losing weight, I am not starving nor depriving myself. I’m simply not eating fast food any more and walking to and from work every day. That’s all it takes.
Most people on MFS.com have mentioned that they wouldn’t see any problem with the fa movement if they stuck to things like not treating people poorly or being mean to people, but its the whole ‘head in the sand’ thing that you mention that takes their credibility away.
Its full of things like twisted and cherry picked studies, never mentioning (or at least attributing) any health problem to being overweight, saying that anything they did in their lives contributed nothing to it etc, and the funny thing is that when members of the fa leave (or are kicked out), they actually admit to what they were doing.
Many even mention that they didn’t believe what they were writing when they wrote it, and always questioned their version of science but were to worried to say so incase they were ostracized sooner.
You get kicked out so easily if you don’t toe the party line on many of those blogs.
I’ve also never understood the idea that not wanting to be (very) overweight equals a hatred of overweight people.
For the same reasons wanting to earn more money doesn’t make you a hater of those with less money, or wanting more education doesn’t make you a hater of those with less.
Putting on muscle doesn’t show a hatred of those not as strong.
Gaining athletic ability doesn’t make you a hater of those with less.
The list goes on.
I don’t want to be overweight for the main reason being because it can only lessen what i can do, but i’ve never felt anything in any way shape or form constituting hatred towards someone else for being overweight because of that.
Being fat is a lifestyle choice you make every time you choose the wrong foods or to lounge on the couch instead of hitting the gym.
The Fat Acceptance people want to stay fat. It’s that simple. Many of them are probably food addicts or people who are so comfortable with the status quo that they don’t
know how to change or they are simply afraid
to change.
I know how painful it is to be overweight and how difficult it is to change your life. I lost weight three times and gained it all back three times. The fourth time was the charm for me when I learned I had to make a lifestyle decision.
Being fat is not a natural state of being. People may be predisposed toward overweight genetically, but they don’t have to be fat. They choose to be.