IS ‘FATPHOBIA’ A CLASS ISSUE?

Annie Zimmerman is a psychology PhD student at the University of Bristol. She is the co-founder of Understory, the eating experience studio that researches and develops novel experiences to change our understanding of eating, food and the human experience.Discrimination against people with obesity is rife within our culture. While society expresses sympathy and support for the unhealthily thin, there is comparatively little recognition of the existence of eating disorders in people with a larger body.

Anorexia and bulimia are widely acknowledged – certainly in the medical and scientific communities, but also among the general public – as chronic mental illnesses, stemming from deep-routed psychological issues and requiring extensive clinical therapeutic treatment. Conversely, people with obesity are held personally responsible for the “crime” of fatness, being vocally condemned for their laziness, greed, lack of self-control or even outright selfishness.

In reality, weight gain can often be an indicator that an individual is struggling with emotional or social issues. Indeed, people who feel out of control of their eating may have similar underlying psychological issues to those who exercise too much control. The outward expression of the problem may look very different, but the root cause can be the same. Society’s distaste for the obese stems at least in part from our inability to recognise that eating disorders come in very size – people with obesity may be suffering just as much as people who are underweight or of a “normal” weight.

But where exactly does this entrenched fatphobia come from? I’ve recently come to view such discriminatory attitudes to obesity as tied up with a deep-rooted class snobbery. Eating problems and social class are inextricably linked. Being healthy is a symbol of privilege; a thin, lycra-clad body holding a turmeric latte has become a uniform for the elite middle-class. Those with the economic resources required to maintain the “wellness” lifestyle pursue it not only for the perceived benefits to the individual, but for the fillip to their online and real-world status. On the opposite side of the spectrum, fast food and obesity have come to be associated with those on a lower income.

It’s true that the prevalence of obesity is significantly higher among people of lower socio-economic status but eating disorders do not discriminate. Working-class people can suffer from anorexia, orthorexia or bulimia and middle-class people can suffer from binge-eating disorder or obesity. Anyone can have a fraught relationship with food, regardless of their income or status, yet our culture remains heavily prejudice. What I find frustrating is the different value judgements we make about the overweight poor versus the overweight rich.

Our society has a cruel tendency to fat-shame working class people. Just last week Giles Coren made a nasty joke at the expense of people with obesity in his Times column, jeering that ‘[Obesity-related neck strain] is an injury that affects people like you and me when we’re out and about constantly turning sharply to say, “Jesus look at the size of that one”.’ Isolating people with obesity from ‘people like you and me’ (aka the white middle-class elite) is a lazy justification for laughing at larger people simply because they do not have the same privileges as the rich. This discriminative mentality is perpetuating the dangerous vicious cycle in which people are blamed for both their obesity and their poverty.

This demonisation of the working-class is blatant in peoples’ understanding of the underlying causation or maintenance of obesity. Larger people are labelled as ‘non-compliant and uneducated’. The two most common replies I receive when I tell people that I’m doing a PhD in obesity and psychology, is that fat people ‘need better education’ and ‘need to get off their arses and exercise some self-control’. Treatment failures are blamed on patients, rather than interventions (David Cameron accused people with obesity of ‘unwilling to accept help’) and parents are directly blamed for their children’s overconsumption and inactivity. Professor Dame Carol Black horrifyingly suggested we strip people of their benefits if they don’t comply with weight loss treatment. I can’t help but wonder if this attitude would be the same if obesity was considered a middle-class problem?

Working-class people are more vulnerable to fatphobia and are also more likely to be indoctrinated by diet mentality. It is working class women who tend to fall victim to the claims of diets that promise instant weight loss, buying into the false advertising of brands or supplements with the hope that thinness will bring them the respect, compassion, social status and self-worth afforded to those higher up the pecking order.
I was jubilant when Jamie Oliver spoke out last week about the failure of the government to create health policies designed to support the dietary demands of working-class people. He reasoned that ‘when you get trapped in the disadvantaged cycle, the concept of middle-class logic doesn’t work’. The fact is that vegetables are too expensive and ready meals/value brands are too cheap. The quinoa-centric world of the wellness-elite is unfathomably alien to a mother trying to feed her family on a fiver.

Poverty and inequality are the very things that can exacerbate binge eating and weight gain. Aside from the obvious economic barrier to healthy eating, constant financial anxiety takes its psychological toll. Poverty and inequality induce people’s propensity to seek high calorie foods. A low income is a huge risk factor for mental health problems. It’s no surprise that people use food to cope with the taxing emotional pressures that come with being disadvantaged. Research shows that stress and uncertainty associated with food scarcity makes us attracted to higher calorie foods. If someone is constantly concerned about being able to afford their next meal, they exist in a climate of psychological and nutritional deprivation. People often compensate for food deprivation by overeating, like how people binge eating in retaliation to a restrictive diet. How unfair that the very disadvantages contributing to people’s eating issues are preventing them from receiving compassion and adequate treatment.

Eating disorders can take many forms, and are no less tormenting for the individual affected if manifested in the form of over or undereating. All those with a broken relationship with food deserve the same level of empathy and support. We’re beginning to hear more activists shout that eating disorders come in all shapes and sizes, but there is an absence of voices reminding us that eating disorders come in all classes too. It’s time for that to change.