And so we appear to have a public consensus that excess body weight (defined as a Body Mass Index of 25 or above) and obesity (BMI of 30 or above) are consequences of individual choice. It is undoubtedly true that societies are spending vast amounts of time and money on this idea… What we don’t know is whether the theory is actually correct…
— from “The Obesity Era” by David Berreby, Aeon.com, June 2013.
“Fat and happy.”
That was one of my dad’s favorite expressions. He was, himself, fat and happy. This was back in the day when people — women and men — generally came in three styles: fat, skinny, and in-between.
Back then, the word “fat” was often perceived as directly correlated with the condition known as “happy”.
Then my mom started buying non-fat sour cream, and skinless chicken breasts. Our TV dinners, which had traditionally been “Swanson’s” now bore the “Weight Watchers” logo.
Maybe it’s my imagination, but it seems like my dad’s happiness slowly faded away, as his weight dropped, and as he added new punch holes to his belt.
As far as I can tell, there’s no scientific proof that fat people are happier than skinny people, but it would seem like a simple thing to find out. You ask a bunch of fat people, “Are you happy?” and then you do the same with a bunch of skinny people. And compare the answers.
But the scientific-medical community doesn’t seem particularly interested in whether fat people are happy. In fact, they don’t even like to use the word “fat”. They now refer to people — who used to be merely “fat” — using the pretentious Latin word, “obese”.
As if being ‘fat’ was some kind of dangerous medical condition, worthy of Latin terminology … like, say, lymphadenitis, or supraventricular tachycardia.
Which, when you really think about it, implies that being ‘happy’ is also a dangerous medical condition. (But it doesn’t yet have a Latin name.)
You can find plenty of news stories, and articles in medical journals, that discuss “obesity”. If you want to scare yourself. I came across one such article the other day, on the website Aeon.com entitled, “The Obesity Era”, written by science writer David Berreby.
According to Mr. Berreby’s research:
For the first time in human history, overweight people outnumber the underfed, and obesity is widespread in wealthy and poor nations alike. The diseases that obesity makes more likely — diabetes, heart ailments, strokes, kidney failure — are rising fast across the world, and the World Health Organisation predicts that they will be the leading causes of death in all countries, even the poorest, within a couple of years…
It’s actually a pretty interesting article, because he notes that “obesity” has been portrayed in the popular press and by medical experts as a failure by individuals — you and me — because we are eating too much, eating the wrong kids of food, and not getting enough exercise.
As if we are each to blame, each of us individually, for the 1 billion obese people now waddling into doctors’ office with all kinds of obesity-related ailments.
But in his 4,718-word article, Mr. Berreby conjectures that we might not be guilty, after all. He notes that even non-humans are becoming ‘obese’.
Consider, for example, this troublesome fact, reported in 2010 by the biostatistician David B. Allison and his co-authors at the University of Alabama in Birmingham: over the past 20 years or more, as the American people were getting fatter, so were America’s marmosets. As were laboratory macaques, chimpanzees, vervet monkeys and mice, as well as domestic dogs, domestic cats, and domestic and feral rats from both rural and urban areas. In fact, the researchers examined records on those eight species and found that average weight for every one had increased. The marmosets gained an average of nine per cent per decade. Lab mice gained about 11 per cent per decade. Chimps, for some reason, are doing especially badly: their average body weight had risen 35 per cent per decade…
We are force-fed the assumption that domestic dogs and cats are increasingly obese due to lack of exercise, and overfeeding. Just like their owners, right?
But… feral rats? Why would animals in the wild also show increased obesity? And lab animals, who are presumably on strictly-controlled, scientific diets?
Mr. Berreby then runs through a whole litany of environmental factors that might be causing humans — and animals — to become obese, all over the world. Industrial chemicals released into the air, water and soil that may be causing bodies to store fat. The spread of viruses that don’t cause illnesses, but instead cause obesity. Changes in the bacteria living in the gut. Central heating and air conditioning.
Could it be… that we can’t help how we’re turning out?
As mentioned, Mr. Berreby’s June 2013 article on Aeon.com contains 4,718 words. The word “fat” appears 41 times. The word “obesity” appears 42 times.
Not a single one of those 4,718 words is the word “happy”.
So here’s the real problem. Scientists, and doctors, and science writers — in their quest to make us all feel guilty for being fat — have totally forgotten that fat people are, in fact, happier than skinny people.
I’m going to go with my dad’s theory. Fat people are happy people.
Which means, the whole world — humans and animals alike — is getting happier by the day.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.