I’m working on a longer post about the way fat and health are talked about in pro-food circles, but in the meantime, I just read something that really frosted my shorts. Since it’s incredibly unlikely that the New York Times Magazine will print my letter to the editor, I figured I would share it here.
Dear Editor:
David Leonhardt is right to identify cheap soda and expensive vegetables as a public health issue that interlocks with the current health care debate. And while I am relieved to see that he doesn’t, in the final analysis, endorse the idea of overcharging fat people for health insurance (something that should be universal in the first place), I was very disturbed by two elements of his recent article. First is the idea that people are in control of their weight. The truth is that diets don’t work: the multibillion-dollar diet industry and its medicalized support system has never produced a success rate higher than 5 percent. Second is Leonhardt’s unquestioning acceptance of the conventional wisdom that a high body mass index is automatically unhealthy. A growing number of researchers and journalists (e.g., Linda Bacon, Health At Every Size“; Paul Campos, The Diet Myth; Laura Fraser, Losing It: False Hopes and Fat Profits in the Diet Industry; Glenn Gaesser, Big Fat Lies; Michael Gard and Jan Wright, The Obesity Epidemic; Eric Oliver, Fat Politics) have shown that this conclusion is not supported by evidence.
Lisa Jervis
Oakland, California
I was trying to keep it under 150 words (basically the only chance of being published), but I also felt that it was important to include the citations. Because, let’s face it, whenever you question the fat=unhealthy equation, most people think you’re just making shit up. Seriously.
