Dickinson Professor Educates Baltimore about Fat-Shaming

Fat-shaming and the rhetoric of food activism were the topics of discussion last Thursday, Sept. 28, during a visit by Amy Farrell, Dickinson professor of American Studies and Women and Gender Studies, to the National Aquarium in Baltimore.

Farrell was brought to Baltimore by the Dickinson Office of Alumni Relations to give a talk relating to the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues’ 2016 fall semester theme of food. Her speech presented the argument that food activism movements use fat-shaming as a tool in their rhetoric, and how this is not only problematic, but also damaging to the food activism movements themselves.

Farrell began by discussing the various ways fat shaming is embedded in food activism’s rhetoric. Although it is easy to recognize overtly derogatory remarks, says Farrell, food activism movements have relied on a much subtler form of fat-shaming, using the idea of “fighting the obesity epidemic” as a reason to support food issues ranging from veganism to the local foods movement.

“So much of this food activism relies on images of ‘headless fatties,’ or images of fat people without their faces, so that we don’t actually see them as human beings,” says Farrell. “[This] really misrepresents the more complex information we know to be true about fat, that actually the dangers of body size are more connected to either end…when you’re very thin or very, very fat.”

In fact, a study done by the Center for Disease Control in 2013 found that people who were overweight had significantly lower mortality rates than those at a normal weight. And the study further found that moderately obese people did not have significantly higher mortality rates relative to people of normal weight.  It was only in the extremely underweight and extremely obese categories that significantly higher mortality rates relative to normal body weight were found. What this suggests is that “[the truth about fat] is way different than what many people know about body weight,” says Farrell.

This use of fat-shaming by the food activism community also “legitimizes the stigmatization of fat people,” according to Farrell. “We know that the most likely reason a kid is going to be bullied is for being fat. That’s really dangerous for a child; it…increases suicide risk and we know if you’re stigmatized…you will be unhealthier because this adds to stress.”

Around 80 people attended Farrell’s talk on Thursday, according to Jennifer Reynolds ’77, chair of the Dickinson Board of Trustees, who hosted the event. Some of Farrell’s former and current students, along with their families, attended the lecture, a few of whom offered some critical insights.

“One of my former students asked a really spot-on and hard question, which was ‘This all suggests that it is alright to be fat but only if you’re healthy. Does this reinforce the idea that we should only treat healthy people well?’” says Farrell. “I said that she was absolutely right, and I think that’s a danger. To suggest that we should have a right to discriminate against people if they’re unhealthy, that’s a problem.”

Farrell suggests that food activists stop including fat as part of the discussions around their important issues. “I think we all need to think about ways that we can express how important our issues are without linking it to a rhetoric that is really damaging,” says Farrell.