A: Weight stigma is judgment about a person’s character, personality, lifestyle, work ethic and other features based on their weight, and it has many faces. It’s seen in the insults, teasing, name-calling, and other hurtful language directed at someone because of their size.
It’s seen in the stereotypical notions that fat people are lazy and weak-willed, which leads to discrimination and prejudice in the workplace and elsewhere. It’s seen in the bullying of a larger kid on the playground as well as a larger adult who is shamed in a physician’s office.
It’s seen in the lack of accommodations for larger people, such as medical equipment or inadequately-sized public seating such as on airplanes. It essentially derives from the patently false notion that people should all be within a certain size range and that fat people cannot be healthy.
Addicts are always seen as lazy and weak willed. Food addicts are seen as greedy lazy and weak willed.
Its no good being aware of the stigma; no good being nice to food addicts while they are lost in their addiction. The way to help any food addict is to address the addiction head on. And the people most resistant to that idea are the food addicts themselves, for they find the idea of being called a food addict insulting. (Some of them do, anyhow, but not all: the sensible ones recognise their food problem for what it is.)
Food addicts are choosing to be addicted to their food. I have been working hard for over 20 years to try and discover why - I am close to an answer and it's all to do with your prenatal experience.
More on another occasion about this! In the meantime, enjoy Weight Stigma Awareness Week!
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