Often times, you see kids that cannot walk properly, waddling by themselves with no friends, and when you pass them by the sidewalk there isn't space for you to walk by. You mentally note that if only they exercised, took better care of them, adjusted their eating habits, maybe you would not have to waste a few seconds of your time waiting turns to keep moving. What one doesn't think about is that if we happened to come across an elderly person, one would patiently wait for him/her to hobble along, maybe smile at the person and pretend not to be irritated or impatient, even if one was in a hurry. When they pass by and unintentionally nudged you, you might use unprintable words to describe your frustration, sometimes, without regard for them. Do you ever wonder how they feel, or why they try their best to hurry along, or profusely apologize even when they know that they could not find a way around nudging you? We need to see beyond their body weight and regard them with warm, open and untainted looks or words.
Obesity is a complex medical problem that involves environmental, genetic, behavioral and social factors. All this factors contribute to the weight imbalance of an obese individual. Research has shown that over 60% of Americans are obese. One is said to be obese or overweight if one has a body mass index (BMI) of 30kg/m2. This problem is caused by an interaction between a lot of single and multiple variable factors such as intake of long chain fatty acids as a child, genes from parents and behavioral patterns that are seen as unhealthy. Although, it is medically explained it does not stop the discrimination, biases and stigmatization of obese individuals.
Obese individual are not the last targets of social prejudice and discrimination. We hear anecdotes about overweight people being ridiculed by everyone. Fat jokes, derogatory comments and portrayals of obese people are common especially in popular media publications.
