Like a lot of guys my age (early sixties), I'm carrying a few extra pounds. That's a result of some lifestyle choices, to be sure; I love cheeseburgers and steaks, have been known to have a few beers on occasion, and just to add to the mix, I like a good cigar now and then. Those are my choices; I accept the risks of these things, and I attenuate those risks by regular exercise added to the normal exertions of maintaining a rural homestead.
However, unlike some folks, I'm not seeking to have government enshrine the results of my bad habits as legally protected.
....Colorado, America's slimmest state, where Boulder is situated, is set to become the first state in the US for 50 years to ban 'fat phobia' by law. And it is not alone in its aims to legislate in this way. Across America, politicians have been planning laws to add a person's weight to the list of characteristics such as race, age, religion and sexual orientation that are protected from discrimination.
There's an enormous (hah) difference, of course. Race and age are immutable. While religion is protected under the First Amendment, sexual orientation is not, but if we accept the repeated claims of the left that sexual preference is inborn, then does not that make it immutable as well?
But obesity is not immutable. It is, overwhelmingly, the result of personal lifestyle choices. However, it is now apparently "fat shaming" to point out the health risks.
In fact, in almost all cases it is Left-wing cities and states that are pandering to the 'anti-fattist' lobby with new legislation – and very often the same ones that have tried to decriminalise drug use with disastrous consequences in terms of increased addiction rates and crime.
Health experts warn that the new legal protections could further fuel the appalling problems of obesity in the US caused by sugared drinks, highly processed junk food and sedentary lifestyles by normalising the condition.
Not only is it a result of choice, but obesity carries with it many health risks. This, the crying of "fat-shaming" opponents aside, just isn't a matter to be debated. To employ a claim oft-used by the left, in this issue, the science is settled.
But that doesn't stop fat activists (I can't believe that this is a thing now) from raising Ned whenever anyone points out these risks.
Pleasance Comedy Poster of the Day! #5
— Pleasance Comedy (@PleasanceComedy) August 6, 2019
LOVE this one from Sofie Hagen @SofieHagen, like a magic eye you look close enough, you can see all the stars! ⭐️
You should flaminGO and see The Bumswing, 7:00pm QueenDome! pic.twitter.com/lp9L4ij0Zf
Warning: coarse language
In 2018, London-based Danish comedian and fat acceptance campaigner Sofie Hagen accused Cancer Research UK of 'fat-shaming' after it had the temerity to run a campaign raising awareness that obesity is the biggest preventable cause of cancer after smoking.
'How the f***ing f*** is this OK?' she wailed on social media, demanding the adverts be withdrawn.
Describing dieting as 'dangerous', she insisted it 'has been proved time and time again to be one of the worst things you can do to your body'. The charity countered that only 15 per cent of people know about obesity's link with cancer and its campaign was based on scientific evidence.
No. This is just wrong. One doesn't have to go on a radical diet to get healthier; it's just a matter of physics. Consume more calories than you expend and you'll gain weight. Consume fewer calories than you expend and you'll lose weight. It's not complicated. Yes, fad diets frequently don't work, because even if people lose weight on these fads, they too often see them as temporary measures; when they go off the diet, the weight comes back. Being healthy and staying healthy, including watching one's weight, requires not temporary measures but lifestyle changes.
These laws will accomplish nothing, of course; they are purely virtue-signaling and vote-buying on the part of leftist politicians. One cannot legislate away the feelings of aversion most people feel when confronted with the morbidly obese, and one cannot deny the very real health risks obesity brings. It is ironic, indeed, that these laws are almost universally championed by the same leftists who wag their fingers at us if we enjoy a good cigar or an occasional tipple of good whiskey, lecturing us about "health risks" and "costs to society." What about the costs to society of obesity?
I'll keep my active rural lifestyle, my healthy diet, and my few extra pounds that are creeping down a pound or two a week. I'll keep my occasional cigar and my occasional drink. I know the risks, and I accept them. But morbid obesity presents far, far more risk than a once-a-month cigar, and if people are worried about the societal cost of health care, obesity should be discouraged, not protected.
Nobody should be proud of being fat. It's unhealthy and, honestly, unattractive. The very idea of "fat pride" is one of the more ridiculous social contagions of our ever-more ridiculous times.
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