PA7 - Steven Miller & Talia Lerol

Paul Campos, Being Fat Is OK

At first glance, it is not obvious that any of the other writers in section thirteen of They Say I Say are arguing with Paul Campos. In the section, various writers argue who is to blame for the supposed obesity epidemic. John Banzhaf, a public interest lawyer, takes Congress to task for shirking their “responsibility to do something meaningful” about what he calls “America’s second most important and expensive preventable health problem.” Susie Orbach, a feminist professor, claims that being fat is a “social disease.” Confusingly, Orbach then wonders why women “respond” to social pressures by “getting fat.”

Campos neither argues that Congress has no responsibility to “do something” about “health problem” that is being fat, nor does he argue that women do not “get” fat because of social pressure. Rather, Campos takes an axe to the foundation of their arguments; the premise that being “overweight” is a problem to be solved.

Pointing to the New England Journal of Medicine, Campos notes that there is no solid data linking being overweight and death, in fact there is even some data “suggesting that weight loss increases mortality.” Hard evidence is required before labeling something a major “health problem” as Banzhaf does. Similarly, Campos points to data that shows, repeatedly, that dieting often leads to weight gain. As Campos says, overweight people can not simply chose to not be fat, and by the same token women do not “respond” to things by “getting fat.” Both Banzhaf and Orbach approach the subject from the vantage that being overweight is a problem to be solved, where as Campos argues that many people are just fat because that is who they are. Unfortunately for Banzhaf and Orbach, that leaves no one for them to blame.