Reply #15: It IS very much a class issue [View All]

The wealthier you are, the thinner you tend to be. In Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed, she described how difficult it was for her to eat healthy while posing as a minimum wage worker. If I recall correctly, she eventually gave up trying to obtain and prepare nutritious meals and started eating fast food like her temporary compatriots. I think that is part of the disrespect toward overweight people. On a visceral level, we associate obesity with poverty. Naturally, poverty is a sign of poor character as we are conditioned to believe. So it is not surprising that people, even those who are heavy themselves, disdain fatness.

And with women we've got the sex/status object thing to contend with where you see that the more successful the man, the thinner the wife.