Post # 10: The Fat Push Back: The Fat Pride Movement and Cable News Networks

Issue Summary
Besides the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the most closely followed story in the media is the ongoing national debate on healthcare. Thus far, it seems that the media has done a fair job of covering this highly complicated policy debate. It has interviewed many interest groups such as unions, anti-abortion organizations, and tea party members in order to enrich the national discussion.

But, I have recently learned that the media has excluded the concerns of one population in particular – “The Fat Pride” Community. According to the “Fat Pride Community,” overweight people have unfairly been targeted in the healthcare debate. In their opinion, this debate has been dominated by the idea that overweight Americans are damaging to the nation. This belief has led organizations such as the Council on Size and Weight Discrimination and the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance to take action. The “Fat Pride” community has four goals: 1) to influence the debate by disentangling healthiness and skinniness 2) to prevent lawmakers from attaching penalties to weight gain 3) to ensure that overweight Americans are not stigmatized in the healthcare debates 4) to secure a “public option from which fat people could not be excluded because of weight, and for coverage that did not consider excess weight a preexisting condition.” Many of these goals were explicated by lobbyist to legislators this past May.

So the big question is, why have we never heard of any of this in the mainstream media? To be honest, I had never heard of any of these groups in or outside of the context of the healthcare debate. While I understood that overweight Americans faced discrimination, I never knew that they had formed lobbying groups to influence the healthcare debate until I was glancing through the New York Times.

Why Does the Media Universally Exclude This Group of People From the National Debate?

There are four central reasons why these interest groups have been excluded from the debate.

First, in recent years, being overweight has become synonymous with an unhealthy state of being. Research has shown that an overweight lifestyle can expose an individual to higher risks of coronary heart disease, cancer, stroke, heart attack, hypertension, sleep apnea, and a host of other problems.

Second, this national healthcare debate has fostered the belief that thin people will have to pay for the consequences associated with an overweight lifestyle. Especially during tough economic times, Americans are opposed to paying any more than what is necessary.

Third, since the late 1990s, America has become obsessed with losing weight. This national diet craze is a billion dollar industry that has led to entrenched interests. Consequently, the business community opposes any movement that stands contrary to these interests.

It is because of the above trends and interests, that the “Fat Pride” community has not been viewed as legitimate.

Concluding Thoughts
It is the responsibility of the media to report all of the facts when it is covering a major national issue such as healthcare reform. Irrespective of one’s views toward the “Fat Pride” community, overweight Americans should still be entitled to the same opportunity to air their beliefs on cable television. We should hear the concerns of all Americans. No one wants the new healthcare system to be more discriminatory than the old one.