TW - fatphobia
What I find most hilarious about this campaign is that they’re justifying the fact that they’re taking pictures of sad looking children and super-imposing rude anti-fat statements on them with the mantra “stop sugarcoating” the issue of childhood obesity in Geogria
FIRST of all, who is actually sugarcoating anything? Have you been inside of a school? or anywhere in society? All we see everywhere we go is anti-fat sentiment. Subliminally in TV and posters everwhere, and literally through teasing and fat-shaming. But now we’re actually taking a bigger step at codifying and sending mass messages of literal fat-shaming because we don’t think overweight people “get it” enough.
but SECOND why this upsets me, and why all these type of ad campaigns bother me, is that these funds would be better spent actually providing low income communities with ACTUAL HEALTHIER OPTIONS. Ironically right before I ran across this shitty picture I was reading this short article: 3 reasons why the poor can’t eat healthy. We close the poor off of actual cheap and healthy food options and then send out hateful billboards when we notice obesity becoming a “problem”.
like, didn’t congress just classify pizza as a vegetable so some company that supplies schools food wont lose money? gtfo
This is what happens when people buy into the idea that people are just poor, in need & not healthy because of some pathological, cultural “we’s just ignant!” type of reason. No, if you want to actually make a difference start with acknowledging how we leave people without resources first before you talk down to people who are just trying to live life & survive…
If we lived in a society where obesity was truly a symbol of neglect and parental negligence, I could see this legislation making sense. However, obesity and overfeeding will never be a sign of abuse in that way. It shows that they are being fed. Perhaps too much, or not enough of what they should be eating, but that is so rarely feasible for working families, whether they are in poverty or middle class.
Fuck this idea.
Removing children from their parents is not the solution. Education, healthcare, fair wages, subsidies on ANYTHING BUT FUCKING CORN, that would help the state we’re in. Not increasing the percentage of children in “temporary” foster care. I grew up obese, and the amount of time it would have taken me to lose enough weight to be “qualified” to go back to my parents would have been agonizing. Why would I want to live with strangers? Why do you think foster parents can afford better healthcare and food for their kids than the people you’d be robbing of the kids they want and provide the best they can for?
Fuck.
This is painfully shortsighted.
I get it, we’re all worried about health and the livelihoods of the kids in this country. It’s not healthy to be overfed and to grow up obese, but tell me how taking kids from their FAMILIES because they are too fat will help them develop healthier ideas about nutrition? That’s a traumatic PUNISHMENT, and shame is an awful way to go about this kind of change. I get that they want to shock parents into “taking care of” their kids with this, but everyone loses in this scenario.
Fuck that.
reblogging for commentary and added perspective!
