Received: from mailhub.cns.ksu.edu (grunt.ksu.ksu.edu [129.130.12.17]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.7.6/8.7.3/CNS-4.0p) with ESMTP id HAA17676 for ; Fri, 20 Jun 1997 07:35:55 -0600 (MDT) Received: from abc (dcoon@abc.ksu.ksu.edu [129.130.12.3]) by mailhub.cns.ksu.edu (8.8.5/8.8.5/mailhub+tar@ksu.edu) with SMTP id IAA11937 for ; Fri, 20 Jun 1997 08:35:53 -0500 (CDT) Received: by abc (SMI-8.6/1.34) id IAA29842; Fri, 20 Jun 1997 08:35:52 -0500 Date: Fri, 20 Jun 1997 08:35:51 -0500 (CDT) From: "Dave Alan Coon (:" X-Sender: dcoon@abc.ksu.ksu.edu To: Graduate Students International Sociology Subject: Obesity and Discrimination Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Let me start off by saying that the purpose of this posting is not to offend anyone, and I want to apologize in advance if it does. Please understand, these are not my thoughts on obesity but what others have said. I hope in no way to offend anyone. A new study just came out by researchers in Finland that said Obese women are more discriminated in employment, less likely to be hired, less likely to keep their jobs as long, and get paid less than women who are not overweight. In the United States, statistics show that more children are obese than ever before. Obese people have been partly blamed for higher health insurance costs, the argument being that because their heart is the same size as others' it must work much harder, and studies have found a link between obesity and discrimination, stress, chronic liver & kidney failure, pancreatic failure, ulcers, heart attacks, cardiovascular problems etc. One female medical doctor said to me "You never see many fat people in nursing homes because they all die of a heart attack 20 or 30 years ahead of schedule." Also, she told me that "Obese people never seem to have an HDL cholesterol level below the outer reaches of the atmosphere." Two months ago a study suggested that obese women who are married are happy, and those who are single tend to be depressed. In some cultures obesity is a symbol of health. My view is that part of the problem in our (U.S.) culture is that women's magazines and TV often depict women who are nothing but skin and bones, and this is why I feel there are so many women with belemia and anorexia nervosa. U.S. Culture tends to view obesity as the picture of poor health, indeed this view is supported by the medical community. Some have argued that because women have different metabolism, there are more obese women than men. Is this true? Why do most studys about obesity focus on women? Is it because more women are reportedly obese than men? Why have most of the studies in the News Media been done by scientists other than sociologists? I would think that sociology is the most appropriate discipline to study this problem. Sincerely, David Coon http://www-personal.ksu.edu/~dcoon MA Student & Graduate Teaching Asst. Dept. of Sociology, Anthropology, & Social Work http://www.ksu.edu/sasw/ Kansas State University