ne never knows what group of people will take themselves a little too seriously.  One can find an association for just about anything.  There is the morally despicable group NAMBLA (North American Man-Boy Love Association).  And then there is NAAFA.  Did I mean  "NAACP"?  Not at all.  The National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance is a real association,.  Though undoubtedly NAAFA’s name draws its inspiration from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the differences between the two organizations are real enough.  NAAFA’s statement of purpose reads as follows:

Founded in 1969, the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance is a non-profit human rights organization dedicated to improving the quality of life for fat people. NAAFA works to eliminate discrimination based on body size and provide fat people with the tools for self-empowerment through public education, advocacy, and member support.

There is, of course, a respect in which NAAFA is quite right.  People should be respected regardless of their body-type.  It is simply a fact that we are not all beautiful.  Likewise, it is simply fact that we are not all intellectually gifted.  And in the same vein, it is a fact that we are not all thin.  Nonetheless, there is no getting around the truth that we are all deserving of basic respect, equal treatment, and general politeness from others. 

If the above were NAAFA’s position, then I would find NAAFA’s aims most acceptable and appropriate.  Indeed, I could even be tempted to join it or, in any case, to deem the association worthy of a charitable donation. 

I take it to be true that no one deserves to be the object of abject ridicule simply on account of her or his size.  Fat people, no more than midgets, are not the exception to this rule.  But from none of this does it follow that being fat is a good thing, and that we should simply be accepting of it. 

What is true, to be sure, is that there is a fine line between encouraging persons to reduce their body size and not being respectful of them.  And if NAAFA had drawn attention to this truth, while offering helpful suggestions in this regard, that would have been wonderful. 

The group proposes that we stop using the terms “obesity” and “obese” in reference to children.  There are many respects in which I find this quite acceptable if only because children are quite fragile.  Not only that, in most cases the problem lies with the parents rather than with the children.  But surely our aim should be to help children lose their obesity.  Yet, this aim is not one that NAAFA advances. 

Again, the proposed law for the State of Mississippi that would require restaurants to refuse service to obese people is just plain ludicrous.  The proposed law, House Bill 282, is fraught with so many difficulties that one has to suppose that it was only for symbolic measures that the bill was introduced.  In any case, NAAFA rightly opposes it.

But where NAAFA has simply missed the mark is in its idea that obesity should simply be accepted in precisely the same way that ethnic differences should be accepted.  The comparison flounders from the very start, since being of one ethnic kind or another is not a health hazard to anyone, anywhere. 

Obesity is not just a different body size.  It is a body size that is quite injurious to a person’s health.  In one respect, I am prepared to say that adults can do pretty much what they want to do with their bodies. But children are another matter.  For their own health and well-being, both in the present and in the future, we should certain encourage children to lose their obesity.  And it is NAAFA’s failure to see this that makes it a somewhat despicable organization. 

Given two equally talented potential employees, one clearly obese and one clearly not obese, an employer would be a fool merely to flip a coin.  For there are health risks, and so costs, that come with the obese one merely in virtue of the person's obesity that do not come with the one who is clearly not obese.  This is obvious that one cannot say "Two equally talented potential employees . . . who are also equally healthy".   It does not follow from this, though, that an obese person who is hired should be harrassed and ridiculed; and I have not initimated any such thing.   

NAAFA’s motto reads:

We Come In All Sizes...
Understand it.
Support it.
Accept it.

To say that we should accept obesity is akin to saying that we should accept (read: embrace) self-destructive behavior (on the part of those who have control over their body size).  That is an absurdity which brings into to sharp relief the truth that the parallel between obesity as merely a different body size and ethnic differences is rather bankrupt.  We may acknowledge that people have the right to engage in self-destructive behavior.  No such acknowledgment entails that we should embrace such behavior as a good thing for anyone to pursue. 

It is simply not a good thing for anyone to be obese.  And in general, it is the result of poor eating and health habits.  Nothing should make us lose sight of these two truths.  It is woefully disingenuous either to claim or to suggest otherwise.  And to do so when it comes to children is to proffer what can only be countenanced as an ignoble lie.

Still, I am mindful of the fact that we should always be respectful of others.  Rather than pretending that obesity is akin to an ethnic type, which is woefully misguided, NAAFA could be putting its resources to much better use by proffering insight into how we can be respectful to those who are obese all the while fighting against willful obesity.  That, alas, would be progress.