Daniel Callahan, a bioethicist from The Hasting Center, just earned the Worst Person in the World award. It’s not one I give out lightly, but the vileness of his idea truly strikes new depths of turpitude.
His big idea to help the obesity epidemic, it turns out, is this: Public Shaming.
Yep. Shaming. Of fat people. Presumably with things like bilboards and posters that read lovely things like:
- If you are overweight or obese, are you pleased with the way you look?
- Are you happy that your added weight has made many ordinary activities, such as walking up a long fight of stairs, harder?
- Would you prefer to lessen your risk of heart disease and diabetes?
- Are you aware that, once you gain a signifcant amount of weight, your chances of taking that weight back off and keeping it off are poor?
- Are you pleased when your obese children are called “fatty” or otherwise teased at school?
- Fair or not, do you know that many people look down upon those excessively overweight or obese, often in fact discriminating against them and making fun of them or calling them lazy and lacking in self-control?
This must be the types of things grade school bullys propose when they grow up and work for vapid think tanks.
I don’t even know where to begin with this, except to remind people that you can look at an obese person, and assume that they got that way through gluttony and sloth, or they got that way because they have a hormonal problem that causes them to store fat. (I’m going to forgo things like prolactinomas and other causes of morbid obesity outside the domain of these). It’s pretty clear to see which camp Callahan is in on this debate. In his mind, obesity is the result of the following:
The causes of obesity include age (the body’s metabolism slows with age); gender differences (more common in women); genetics (obesity tends to run in families); illness (hypothyroidism); cultural acceptance or indifference (poverty, race); sedentary habits (long commutes, sitting at a desk or work bench all day, watching T V, lack of exercise); poor diet (few fruits and vegetables, processed foods, overly large food portions at home and in restaurants, sugared beverages); and, too often neglected, all the luxuries we possess—automatic garage door openers, can openers, food blenders and mixers, escalators, elevators, golf carts, automobiles, and so on.
Yep. Automatic garage door openers and can openers are contributors to obesity. While he does suggest that too much sugar is a contributor, it’s far behind the nefarious contributors like, “cultural acceptance” and “age”.
Seriously, I’m not quite sure to begin with this guy, so I think I’ll end with this personal entreaty to Mr. Callahan: Maybe you should spend some more time learning about obesity before you go around proposing solutions to the problem that are clearly prejudiced and based in ignorance.
If you want to read his report, you’ll find it in the resources below.
Resources
- Obesity: Chasing an Elusive Epidemic
- The Hastings Center
- Fat Shaming May Cure The Obesity Epidemic, Bioethicist Says, Jan 24, 2013. Today Health
- A Case For Shaming Obese People Tastefully, January 23, 2013. The Atlantic
- ‘Fat-Shaming’ Strategy Pushed By Bioethicist Daniel Callahan To Help Curb Obesity, January 24, 2012. Huffington Post
