Fat Representation in Books for Kids
thisislitblog.com
thisislitblog.com
fat shaming is everywhere, and bullies will always bring up that its unhealthy to be that fat. But they don't actually care about that persons health, they just want to bully that person. It's sad.
I know a lot of people who struggle with weight. some who seem to do it in a positive way and some in a not so positive way. but either way, they have to deal with people bullying them and I feel so bad for them being bullied.
I also know a lot of people who don't struggle with their weight. I don't know if most of them have ever had to struggle with their weight, or if they were ever bullied for their weight. But, I do know they don't bully other people for their weight, 'cause I don't hang out with those sorts of people.
good read, I hope a lot of people read it and get their kids to read these books. not just the chubby kids, but all the kids.
It's amusing to me that the author has so much anger about Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. She attacks it:
> So tell me, why did adults think this was appropriate reading for little kids?
Well, it's because adults didn't want their children to become fat, you see.
> His portrayal in the book follows typical straw man tropes of fat characters in that we’re supposed to assume that Augustus deserved what happens to him because he’s fat, eats a lot, and has overindulgent parents who let him do that to his body.
Just about everyone in that book gets some kind of comeuppance that is poetically appropriate for their personal sins. Charlie, the poor but honest boy, manages to get through mostly unscathed, on the strength of his character; this is the point of the book. Wonka wants a successor! Agustus Gloop would not have made a good successor, as he would have eaten all of the product.
> When kids read fatphobic books… > …they become fatphobic too. > Literally no one is born with anti-fat bias.
I wouldn't be so sure about that. Children have all kinds of 'biases', at least in the sense of ingroup vs. outgroup. Children that grow up with healthy people will see obese people (and I'm talking 300lb plus American-tier obesity) as an anomaly, and will ask, "Daddy, why is that woman so BIG?" in a totally innocent way. The reasonable response is something along the lines of "eating too much will make you big, and it's not good for you, but that doesn't mean you should be mean to that lady, or treat her differently from anyone else".
When kids become "fatphobic", we are arming them with important health information that can increase their lifespan and health, reproductive fitness, and more. If they follow through and live healthier lives, they will be happier people.
Imagine this. Let's say we come up with "Natural Dental Acceptance", "natdent" for short, a burgeoning movement for people who believe plaque is a protective coating for one's teeth and that "bad breath" is fake news that can be sufficiently combated by chewing Mentos. I could imagine now the blog post claiming children's literature is "netdentphobic" by claiming children need to brush their teeth etc, filling their heads with visions of "mouth bacteria" that nobody can even see. That's the level of ridiculous this post is.
I wholeheartedly believe it's possible to teach my children that being fat is unhealthy and undesirable while teaching them that fat people are just people like anyone else, not bad, not good, just people, and not to be treated badly in any way. Moral maturity brings with it the ability to understand that people are not their vices, and that people can be accepted without accepting their vices as being integral to their identity.
This is a sOuNd argument. It stands to reason that as you mentioned, it is something you can totally teach your children without engaging them with books like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, where the verses literally compare fat people to pigs and portray them as disgusting beings. Do you really think it teaches kids to eat less or to hate fat people?
> The reasonable response is something along the lines of "eating too much will make you big, and it's not good for you, but that doesn't mean you should be mean to that lady, or treat her differently from anyone else".
Some people, including my friends, are fat because of genetics and health disorders. Things that they cannot control. I've seen them eat very less compared to anybody else, practically starve and still remain fat. Eating too much is not the only reason.
The author never in any manner specifies eating too much is okay. All the author tries to say is that being fat doesn't make someone less of a human being. How exactly do you think you'll be able to teach your kids to not grow into being fatphobic when you portray being fat an undesirable quality, as you're trying to say here. Apart from themselves, doesn't this automatically burn the image into their heads that they should never love anyone who is fat?
I remember the exact kind of argument being used to tell kids that "you shouldn't treat queer people differently from anyone else, but you cannot be queer yourself".
> Imagine this. Let's say we come up with "Natural Dental Acceptance", "natdent" for short, a burgeoning movement for people who believe plaque is a protective coating for one's teeth and that "bad breath" is fake news that can be sufficiently combated by chewing Mentos. I could imagine now the blog post claiming children's literature is "netdentphobic" by claiming children need to brush their teeth etc, filling their heads with visions of "mouth bacteria" that nobody can even see. That's the level of ridiculous this post is.
This doesn't make a shred of sense. Nobody is preferring about random blog posts over science/good health here. Being fat and being healthly are two different things. Some bodies are just fat, and that doesn't make them unhealthy. All the author wants is for kids to be not bullied over their bodies and not form opinions on others or themselves just based on how they look. I can't even fathom how you went from there and arrived to this messed up logic.
> When kids become "fatphobic", we are arming them with important health information that can increase their lifespan and health, reproductive fitness, and more. If they follow through and live healthier lives, they will be happier people.
Wow. I regret posting this on hackernews. I genuinely believed smart people would be able to understand issues faced by other "undesirable" people in our society. By your argument, an unhealthy child should not exist/can never be happy. I am thin and I have a rocking bod and I have asthma, a condition that's going to exist as long as I live. Basically, you're trying to say that I can never be happy and I shouldn't exist.
Does this reply seem like I'm totally misunderstanding what you're trying to say? Yes, I was going for it, because that's what you've done with what the author is trying to say. Maybe you should first teach your kids to not grow up to be like you.
I don't care if this gets me blocked from here, while people advocating fatphobia, racism and denial of basic human rights, still get to say whatever they want on hackernews. This place isn't good for anything other than tech, especially not social issues. People here seem to have decent IQ and very little to zero EQ.
Sorry, but ultimately, I don't believe this. I do believe that people can be genetically predisposed to obesity, but the fact is, you cannot actually grow larger if you consume less calories than your body needs for maintenance. The laws of thermodynamics don't allow it.
What is actually probably happening is an unfortunate and frankly sad cycle of starving themselves and then binge eating when nobody else is around; it's an eating disorder, which is something treatments are evolving for, and something that can be prevented by heading off the problem before it starts. This begins with good food in proper quantities as a child, and it begins with learning self-control.
> By your argument, an unhealthy child should not exist/can never be happy.
You've run really far and wild with your interpretation of my response here. I really can't fathom how you got there from what I posted. All I am saying is that parents have a responsibility to instill a sense of personal responsibility for consumption in their children; and that this follows from understanding what life situations over-consumption leads to. I specifically said I educate my children to not treat fat people badly - but that doesn't mean I'm going to paper over it and pretend it's not a problem. I've also told them to treat smokers with respect and not jump on them and attack them for their habit; I see fatness much the same way. A regrettable thing that can be prevented with early intervention.
If a bit of fear is required for this to work, so be it; it's a great motivator for a childish mind, and works for many other things, like "don't jump in the pool or you might drown", "don't run off in the woods or you might get eaten by a bear", etc.
> I don't care if this gets me blocked from here
It shouldn't. We're just having a discussion. Disagreement is healthy. Chill out, I have plenty of EQ.
Part of that is understanding that healthy people have advantages in terms of their own psychological state by virtue of knowing that they are in a sound body and that they've done what they can to ensure their own fitness and liveliness. We can't just fix the psychological, physiological, short-and-long term health issues, and emotional downsides of being fat by having everyone pretend that "fat is beautiful". It isn't; it never will be; tens of thousands of years of evolution have pre-trained the neural networks in our brains to recognize reproductive fitness, and that is linked 1:1 with physical fitness in any reasonably evolved civilization.