{"id":466982,"date":"2020-03-30T02:00:04","date_gmt":"2020-03-30T09:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/?p=466982"},"modified":"2026-02-12T17:19:34","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T01:19:34","slug":"fatphobia-ableism-and-the-covid-19-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/2020\/03\/30\/fatphobia-ableism-and-the-covid-19-pandemic\/","title":{"rendered":"Fatphobia, Ableism, and the COVID-19 Pandemic"},"content":{"rendered":"

An Unacceptable Sacrifice: Fatphobia, Ableism, and the COVID-19 Pandemic\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n

Finn Gardiner<\/strong><\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n

Over the past several weeks, I have encountered online discussions about the coronavirus pandemic that attack fat people, either because they have supposedly brought COVID-19 risk upon themselves by eating \u201ctoo much,\u201d or because they are dispensing weight-loss advice for people who fear becoming fat while being socially isolated, or because they simply enjoy punching down at others. The rhetoric I\u2019ve seen surrounding fatness, health, and COVID-19 is strikingly similar to some of the ableist discourse I\u2019ve seen about disabled people and the coronavirus: Whether you\u2019re fat or disabled or both, you\u2019re an acceptable sacrifice to protect the rest of the population, whether you have a say in it or not.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t believe fatness is <\/span>in and of itself<\/span><\/i> a disability; however, I do think that both fat people and disabled people live in marginalized bodies and fat disabled people exist. What is a marginalized body? Marginalized bodies are those that are deemed \u201cless than\u201d by society at large: women\u2019s bodies, trans people\u2019s bodies, disabled people\u2019s bodies, fat people\u2019s bodies, old people\u2019s bodies, Black and Brown people\u2019s bodies. Marginalized bodies fail to conform to a stated or tacit ideal, whether that ideal is thinness, youth, or gender conformity. <\/span>Fatphobia<\/span><\/a> resembles ableism and other forms of bodily marginalization because they are rooted in similar principles:<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The lives of people in socially valorized bodies are more valuable than those of people in marginalized bodies, and\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. Existence in a marginalized body is an intrinsically undesirable state.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Moreover, medical models of fatness <\/span>do<\/span><\/i> view it as an inherently diseased state–the demeaning label of \u201cobesity\u201d–regardless of whether someone\u2019s weight requires additional support needs. The existence of \u201cobesity\u201d as a disease state is an unexamined truism that reduces discussions about weight and health to an apolitical conversation denuded of context, individual and social determinants of health, or cultural perspective (Cooper, 2016). People wedded to this idea can scarcely imagine a world where weight and health are independent of each other, or at the very least, are less dependent than they thought. Despite the patina of scientific validity, \u201cobesity\u201d-prevention advocates approach their work with a crusader\u2019s religious zeal (Strings, 2019). Sometimes the religious analogies are explicit: I distinctly remember the \u201cTen Commandments of Dieting\u201d in Richard Simmons\u2019s late-80s <\/span>Deal-A-Meal<\/span><\/i> cookbooks. In other cases, the religious undertones are subtler: thinness is equated with morality, while fatness is immoral by its very existence. Losing weight through dieting and exercise is an act of penance. Achieve your ideal weight, lest you be condemned to a lifetime of sinful gluttony. Fat people must be whipped into shape with <\/span>Biggest Loser<\/span><\/i>-style \u201ctough love.\u201d By turning complex biological realities into simplistic moral truisms, anti-\u201dobesity\u201d advocates strip body size, health, and nutrition of all context. In <\/span>Fat Activism<\/span><\/i>, the British scholar, therapist, and fat activist Charlotte Cooper (2016) writes:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    Obesity discourse is totalitarian, by which I mean it presents itself as the only authority on fat, nothing else counts. Fat is a crisis brought about by a mismanagement of energy balance, it offers nothing of value, it is only an opportunity for intervention. It is always about health, and health is presented as an apolitical fact.<\/span><\/p>\n

    The idea of fatness as an unqualified ill is also dubious: Empirical science \u201cproves\u201d that fatness is unhealthy as much as <\/span>Pioneer Fund<\/span><\/a>-supported studies on race and IQ \u201cprove\u201d that Black people are intrinsically less intelligent than white people. Race and IQ studies explain lower scores among Black people as signs of our intellectual inferiority, rather than indicators of environmental racism, lead paint, malnutrition, centuries of discrimination, educational inequities, and other factors that exist outside our brains. Poorer results on IQ tests may show that people are drinking lead-filled tap water and going to dilapidated schools with harried teachers who can\u2019t give students the individualized attention they need, but people who are invested in the idea of Black intellectual inferiority don\u2019t care about people\u2019s lived realities. And that\u2019s not even accounting for the problems with IQ tests in and of themselves.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    Studies that link \u201cobesity\u201d to diabetes, heart disease, and other poor health outcomes fail to acknowledge how larger bodies are stigmatized within society, and how medical inequities can make it more difficult for fat people to seek out healthcare to address diabetes or cardiovascular disease before they cause long-term damage. <\/span>Stigma<\/span><\/a> on its own<\/span><\/a>, independent of weight, <\/span>contributes to worse health outcomes<\/span><\/a> among fat people. Moreover, the definitions of \u201cobesity\u201d are based on the Body Mass Index (BMI), a crude measure of how much someone is \u201csupposed\u201d to weigh based on their height. The BMI doesn\u2019t account for assigned sex at birth, race, muscle, fat, or other data that may influence someone\u2019s health (Harrison, 2019; Strings 2019) . If you\u2019re above a certain BMI, you\u2019re pathologized and diseased, regardless of your lived experience.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    The devaluation of marginalized bodies and minds leads people in power to treat our lives as expendable if we don\u2019t–or <\/span>can\u2019t<\/span><\/i>–meet their criteria for \u201cnormality.\u201d Both fat people who want to exist in the world without intentionally losing weight and autistic people who refuse to be trained to be indistinguishable from our non-autistic peers are ostensibly violating a cosmic order to pursue an unhealthy lifestyle. Like anti-\u201cobesity\u201d discourses, normalization-focused treatment for autistic people is totalitarian. It admits no other options for healthy existence. Weight-centric medical models and treatments that force autistic people to suppress ourselves are forms of what I call <\/span>compulsory assimilation<\/span><\/i>, or an ethical stance that prioritizes the performance of normality over individual or collective wellbeing. It doesn\u2019t matter if you suffer if you meet our ideals\u2026or die trying to meet them. This morally tinged medical model gives practitioners a justification for denying care to people in marginalized bodies: Because fat people refuse to be \u201cnormal,\u201d and because disabled people can never become \u201cnormal,\u201d we are expendable in a pandemic. Politicians and practitioners who devalue marginalized bodies have made it clear: we are the first to be left to die when doctors, nurses, and other health professionals make difficult triaging choices. There\u2019s no point in asking us; by virtue of the bodies we inhabit, we are expendable. The British government\u2019s guidelines list being \u201c<\/span>severely overweight<\/span><\/a>\u201d (as defined by a BMI above a set cutoff) as a risk factor for severe reactions from the coronavirus, in addition to more concrete risk factors like diabetes and heart disease.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    Prejudice against people in marginalized bodies is <\/span>deadly<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

    My body is marginalized many times over: I\u2019m queer, fat, Black, disabled. I am terrified that if I encounter serious complications from the coronavirus, I will be left for dead for one reason or another. When I encounter people on Twitter or Facebook blaming the \u201cobese\u201d for the spread of coronavirus, or advocating for triaging that protects the young and healthy and leaves disabled people high and dry, my pulse quickens. My blood pressure and sugar levels rise. An overwhelming sense of panic suffuses my body. I am reminded, yet again, that my life is somehow worth less than people without marginalized bodies.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    It doesn\u2019t have to be that way. We are people, not just BMI scores or diagnoses. I am not your cautionary tale. I am not your epidemic. Humane healthcare policy looks beyond actuarial tables and at the complex social, material, and medical realities in which we live. History will judge us by how our leaders handled the COVID-19 crisis. Medical practitioners are therefore faced with a moral dilemma: Do we embrace Social Darwinism, or do we embrace humanity?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    About<\/strong><\/h3>\n
    \"Photo
    Photo of Finn Gardiner, a bald black man in his 30s wearing glasses and a red and grey sweater.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

    Finn Gardiner<\/strong> is a disability rights advocate with interests in educational equity, intersectional justice, comparative policy, and inclusive technology. He holds a Master of Public Policy degree from the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University and a bachelor\u2019s degree in sociology from Tufts University. He also recently finished a fellowship in Leadership and Education on Neurodevelopmental and Developmental Disabilities\u2014LEND\u2014at the University of Massachusetts Medical School\u2019s E.K. Shriver Center.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    He is currently the Communications Specialist at the Lurie Institute for Disability Policy at Brandeis University. Throughout his work, Finn combines disability advocacy, policy analysis and research, and written and visual communications through policy briefs, original reports and white papers, and contributions to research projects. His research and advocacy interests include education and employment for autistic adults, comparative disability policy, inclusive technology, LGBTQ cultural competency, and policy that takes into account the intersections between disability, race, LGBTQ identities, class, and other experiences.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Twitter: @phineasfrogg<\/a><\/p>\n

    Further Reading<\/strong><\/h4>\n

    Campos, P.\u00a0 (2004), <\/span>The Obesity Myth: Why America\u2019s Obsession with Weight Is Hazardous to Your Health<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/a> New York: Gotham Books.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    Cooper, C. (2016), <\/span>Fat Activism: A Radical Social Movement<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/a> Bristol, UK: HammerOn Press.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    Harrison, C. (2019), <\/span>Anti-Diet: Reclaim Your Time, Money, Well-Being, and Happiness through Intuitive Eating<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/a> New York: Little, Brown Spark.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    Strings, S. (2019), <\/span>Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia<\/span><\/i><\/a>. New York: New York University Press.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Support Disability Media and Culture<\/b><\/p>\n

    DONATE<\/b><\/a>\u00a0to the Disability Visibility Project\u00ae<\/b><\/p>\n

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     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    An Unacceptable Sacrifice: Fatphobia, Ableism, and the COVID-19 Pandemic\u00a0   Finn Gardiner   Over the past several weeks, I have encountered online discussions about the coronavirus pandemic that attack fat … Continue Reading Fatphobia, Ableism, and the COVID-19 Pandemic<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":467000,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6701202,1],"tags":[159346,33397,587152846,542382631,214695644,113093,11795,587152856,587152857,587152858,1460,374471960,587152859,587152622,1642963,587152861,587152762,587152567,587152860,13443,587152623],"class_list":["post-466982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-guest-blog-posts","category-uncategorized","tag-ableism","tag-bodies","tag-coronavirus","tag-crip-bodies","tag-disabled-bodies","tag-discrimination","tag-eugenics","tag-fat-hatred","tag-fatmisia","tag-fatphobia","tag-healthcare","tag-healthcare-barriers","tag-marginalized-bodies","tag-medical-industrial-complex","tag-medical-model","tag-medical-racism","tag-medical-trauma","tag-non-conforming-bodies","tag-obesity","tag-racism","tag-systemic-ableism","post-has-thumbnail"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/header-.png?fit=1024%2C512&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4H7t1-1XtY","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=466982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466982\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/467000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/disabilityvisibilityproject.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}