"Discrimination Directed Towards Obese People"

Everyone has had an experience with discrimination at some point in their lives. Whether it be based on gender, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, or whatever else, discrimination is never a pleasant experience for anyone involved. What some may be surprised to find out is that there is discrimination related to people’s weight going on in this country also. Research has been conducted that shows that when obese people feel like they are being discriminated against, it can have negative effects on their health. Now obviously, the obesity itself has severe effects on their health, but research conducted by a group from Purdue University says that obese people who feel discriminated against are more likely to have a steeper decline in their health over time than obese people who do not feel as though they are being discriminated against.

The Purdue team surveyed a group of people about health problems, and, as would be expected when this survey was followed up ten years afterwards, the obese people were the ones who had the worst health in the group. But, not as easy to expect, the obese people who felt that they experienced discrimination because of their weight experienced the biggest decline in their health and functional abilities over this period of ten years.

Everyone knows that discrimination is unhealthy for everyone involved. It’s not good for society and it has the capacity to affect the mental aspect of the lives of all involved. Although we mostly think about discrimination being because of race, now we know that it even applies to people who are overweight. I once saw an episode of “What Would You Do?” on TV, and one of the scenarios was that waiters would make fun of larger people for ordering big meals. I couldn’t believe that anything like that would happen in the real world, but now that I have thought about this type of thing more, I am sure that it happens a lot more than most people think it does. I think that, just as we should stand up for people who are being treated unfairly or cruelly because of their race or ethnicity, everyone should stand up for people who are being discriminated against because of their size. Normally, when I am in public, I don’t like to get involved with other people’s business, but now that I know that it is a proven scientific fact that discrimination against obese people significantly fare worse in their health, I will be more likely to interfere with such a discriminatory situation. Everyone deserves a chance at a happy life, and no one should be allowed to take that away from anybody.

Article Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/bysubject/social.php

“Stigma weighs heavily on obese people, contributing to greater health problems”

Image Source: http://civicplatform.blogspot.com/2010/09/how-to-overcome-discrimination-in-world.html