Prejudices don't measure up for all eyes
By Bonnie Fitzpatrick, south news editor

     One has to love good old accepted prejudices. It seems that once one accepted prejudice dies, another pops up to takes its place. Even worse, no one really seems to learn from them.
     As a nation, we seem to have—as well as possible—overcome racial prejudice. Even though a few racists still linger, they are typically frowned upon and ridiculed by society as being "behind the times," so to speak. For the most part, racial prejudice has been vanquished.
     Therefore, to continue the cycle, another prejudice has to have taken its place. Never fear, whereas the former prejudice was against one for the color of one’s skin, the new prejudice is against one for the size of one’s body.
     Yes, now it’s chic to hate the obese. Whereas hearsay and ignorance fueled racial prejudice, the very medical community fuels the size prejudice movement. It’s okay to hate and ridicule the obese; it’s for their health.
     Here is a very poignant example of size prejudice at work. On a bulletin board in one of the academic classroom buildings on South Campus, is a cute, cartoonish poster of a rather clumsy, bumbling, pudgy elephant in pants, bending over. The caption: "Too much food makes for a great waist." How cute! However, it’s not so cute in the eyes of the obese.
     Now to put it in perspective: take this same poster, but have it depicting a Latino individual and an African-American standing side by side. The caption would read: "Too much brown makes for a wasted mind."
     This would be insinuating, of course, that the darker someone’s skin, the dumber he/she logically must be. This, to many, would be an unbearably offensive poster, and it would promptly be removed from the bulletin board, with wide spread and justified, support.
     To many, a poster stating that overeating is basically the only way one can be overweight, and that, thus, an obese person is a waste (look closely to catch the dual-meaning), is perfectly acceptable.
     Yes, acceptable, perhaps even in the view of future doctors, nurses and other members of the medical community, many of whom will go on to treat the obese and must show compassion when they do so.
     Why should this be such an issue? It is widely reported that thousands of obese Americans are misdiagnosed each year with obesity-related disorders they don’t have or suffer from disorders which go undetected because rapid, excessive weight gain is a symptom, such as congestive heart failure. Congestive heart failure is only one of many disorders where overeating is not necessarily the cause of weight gain. However, the continual myth that overeating is the only cause of weight gain still runs rampant.
     A sign such as the one on the bulletin board is not only offensive, it is also misleading and dangerous, not to mention embarrassing. Imagine being obese, sitting in a seat, waiting to enter your classroom, catching sight of someone looking at that sign, then looking at you, automatically associating you with the poster. Then later you sit at lunch preparing to eat, as that person eyes you, taking inventory of what you’re eating and deciding whether it’s too much food. Oh, the humiliation.
    If only we could end this vicious cycle before it gets out of hand, and learn from the mistakes of the past. It took our nation hundreds of years to learn that racial prejudice was cruel, wrong, unjust and unfounded.
     How long will it take to find that size prejudice is the same, and how many will suffer indignity and illness until we do?