
…t people is also out of step with our own stated values of dignity, justice, inclusivity, equality. When we talk about fatness and fat people, we use the logic of bootstraps, tough love and personal responsibility, hallmarks of the rightwing thinking that sacrifices humanity at the altar of judgment. We talk about calories in, calories out like we talk about poor people saving money. We assume that…
Here we were, our size made an epidemic, our wayward bodies creating some national crisis, always on display, but never listened to. Fat people were to be seen, and never heard. We were the bogeymen, the instructive moral of a sad story, and who would listen to a cautionary tale? Who would consider what this new war did to its child soldiers, the fat kids who were suddenly enemy combatants?