Paul Murphy
Dear editor:
My group is working together to help fight obesity, but we want to expose weight bias stigma and discrimination.
This is the undertow of the obesity crisis.
I am working to create a nation-wide action plan for obesity. Let’s measure fitness using treadmills, blood pressure, and actual devices that can tabulate health.
Fitness comes in all sizes, and we want to shift the focus away from scales.
We are fighting obesity, but we are not fighting obese people. That small change may help to find partners in this process.
Our health care system and the media need an education on weight bias and stigma. Seventy percent of doctors stigmatize the individual, and the media has championed the dieting industry.
When does a diet fail? Diets never fail but people carry the blame. Just dial into the feedback on actress Kirstie Alley, a former diet industry spokesperson.
Kirstie has been vilified in the media and has been banished by the very industry she championed. Is she lazy, unmotivated, unhealthy, and displaying a lack of willpower? This is blame, and it works very well as it isolates the individual.
You can add 2,000 Americans to that list in a single day because 2,000 U.S. citizens will be diagnosed with Type 2 or sugar diabetes each day.
Nine U.S. states are sending children home with BMI scores that many NFL players would not pass. The tragedy is that these children are fighting obesity and the weight bias stigma and discrimination.
Let’s promote a discussion about obesity: fast food advertising, poverty, level of education, urban versus rural perspectives, media influences, and the weight-loss industry. I am eager to find an easy, smart, weight-loss pharma solution, but the real key for me is developing a healthy food marriage.
All foods in balance and as we develop a 20- to 40-point action plan, the key will be to find volunteers to help carry this message: That obesity is a by-product, and we need a real action plan.
I want to welcome all communities and citizens of Northern Ontario to my current website: www.obesitythunderbay.ning.com
Let’s build this action plan together and end our scaling focus.
Thanks,
Paul Murphy
Thunder Bay, Ont.
