Yes, fat can be healthy. Thin can be unhealthy. So whenever we make assumptions about a person's lifestyle based on weight, we should know that our judgment is really based on aesthetics, not health. If we won't listen to the many fat acceptance experts who have been telling us this for years, maybe we'll listen to a "cute" thin girl whose diet is killing her.An extremely good point--the point about all this stuff, really--from a tight, well-written piece by Amanda Hess about media coverage of Stacey Irvine, a girl in England who's eaten nothing but chicken nuggets and fries from McDonald's for years and is now suffering anemia and other problems. Cultural bias is so strong that the assumption Irvine is fat persists even though all the articles show photos of her. She's thin.
People seem to be clucking in bemused shock at her. Does seriously nobody care about unhealthy thin children? This worries me as much as the way fat kids are treated.
