There seems to be some confusion as to the “correct line” on the urgent public question of obesity. On the one hand, Time magazine devotes most of this week’s issue to the “obesity crisis”. ABC News and Ralph Nader put the blame where you might expect, i.e. on greedy corporations — aka fast food — and the trial lawyers are readying their class actions accordingly.
On the other hand, there is a large body (as it were) of feminist writing against the “beauty myth” — key phrase: “fat is a feminist issue”. The New Republic runs a pro-fat (or at least anti-thin) cover story by Paul Campos entitled “Rubens Was Right“. Campos, a quirky but left-of-centre law professor, has just published a book entitled “The Obesity Myth” insisting that fat isn’t so bad and that it’s false consciousness — manipulated by “experts” — to think that it is. The media are taking note, and The Guardian, Britain’s left-wing broadsheet, has published lengthy excerpts from Campos’ book.
Is there dissonance in the progressive camp on this question? Or is corporate greed guilty both of making us fat and making us want to be thin?
Perhaps this question can be resolved by a closer study of the classics…
Comments are closed.