{Community} Talk of IowaPR Size Discrimination Discussion

Earlier today I lent my voice to a conversation regarding being plus size and size discrimination on Iowa Public Radio’s Talk of Iowa with Charity Nebbe.

As most of us who are fat know, fat shaming and discrimination is an everyday occurrence from the doctor’s office to the corporate office to the aisles of department stores.

Katie Opperman, a baker starts the conversation off by walking us through her experience with a doctor, who it turns out misdiagnosed her because he basically attributed her health issues solely to her weight.

She also experienced other “medical professionals” who were just downright ugly to her before she found a doctor who actually diagnosed her properly and treated her appropriately.

She also talked about how being fat is basically the last “justified” subject that random people feel no qualms about giving their assumptive two cents, like maybe you should work out, or try to diet, etc

You hear all the time about people being randomly called fat on the street. I have had this happen to me a few times, when some dude didn’t like how I responded to some randomness from them and while I personally could not possibly care any less, I know that this has/is a huge issue for a lot of other people.

Next up was Melissa Zimdars, a graduate student who specializes in the area of fat studies.

She and Charity presented some very interesting statistics about some of the myths and the realities of weight.

For example, there is a study from Yale that showed that weight prejudices start with women when they are 13lbs overweight and men tend to experience weight prejudice when they are 75lbs overweight. (side eye)

A guy named William called in to share his experience when he went out for a job and was told that “I am not supposed to tell you this, you are really big and I don’t think that they would hire you”.

And the interesting part about this is that there really aren’t any laws that treat this kind of discrimination as a protective category, so usually there isn’t much that can or is done about it.

Another caller, Angie talked about the online bullying that occurs a lot of times when fat folks post pictures of themselves online and how she and some of her friends shy away from doing so, to avoid the abuse.

I spoke about my views on the current state of fashion and the need for more space in the stores, more plus size models modeling plus size clothing, etc

It was a great, informative and I think important discussion about the state of fatness today.