Fat= Contagious?

This woman got it right.

Kimberly "Cox" (actually Brittingham) had the right idea of making this fake book and it's about time someone in the "plus sized" community stood up and said something.

For those of you who don't care to watch the video or can't get to it for some reason, Kimberly Brittingham got sick and tired of being picked on in NYC transit for being overweight, so she made a book titled Fat is contagious. How sitting next to a fat person can make you fat. She had gotten many reactions, including one guy bolting to the back of the bus after reading the title. Others tried to find this book, which now exists. (It's fake, still has blank pages with just the title.)

She made some valid points, like people judge way too quickly on fat people. I had recently written a paper on this topic, in which I will quote some of what I've written:

If you ever read an article, or watch a television show, it always portrays a woman who eats out of pity, lacks some kind of hope, and that some diet or someone or something has brought them out of their misery. It always starts out something like “I was always heavy, and I was depressed, so I would eat” or “After I had kids, I could never lose the weight, so I gave up and ….” It is always some pitiful excuse, and for some reason has to apply to every overweight woman and man throughout the universe. It always seems to be the overweight person’s story, no matter who they are and where they are from.

Not every overweight or plus sized person has the same story, yet media shoves it in our faces everyday, as if it is an excuse to cover the possibility that the person may be different. It is always food to blame for our obesity, not the fact that the local gym is too expensive, or our work schedules don't allow time for us to exercise; that gyms are inaccessible or that we aren't taking some kind of medication that adds weight, genetics, or that we quit smoking. It is always about the food and eating schedules, never anything else that may contribute. It is never the fact that people are picking on us, so we stay inside rather than be seen exercising. It is the food that keeps us fat.

There are these other assumptions too. For example, that we eat McDonalds on a daily basis, and that we like donuts. People make assumptions that we hate the gym or don’t know anything about healthy eating and dieting. People think that we like to remain idle, lost in some kind of world that they don’t or won’t bother to understand. The stories, the myths and lies are what cause a separation between the skinny model and the plus sized woman...It is hard because the people that surround me the most do not have this problem. What I see on a daily basis is several things. People walk way around you, as if you’re the size of a bus. Or people walk as if there’s not enough space to get by, and say excuse me as if you’re in the way. People always set your physical capabilities lower than what you can really do. Some people think that all your physical problems relate to your personal weight issue, always blaming the weight as a factor for your medical misfortune that anyone can get. The reason I say this is because I had this one pediatrician, who every time I told him I had trouble breathing when doing certain activity his answer would be "Lose weight." My question to him was (which I never asked, however) How can I lose weight (by exercising, I was already eating healthy) if I can't breathe? Is not one of the ways to lose weight exercising? If I exercise, I tire easily and can't breathe when running, or going up a flight of stairs. It took over 15 years for a doctor to discover I have onset asthma, meaning I have trouble breathing while working out or doing a heavy loaded activity. I was borderline asthmatic. It's really sad that after 15 years and play sports through most of that time, that now I get diagnosed when I barely play sports anymore, and could've used an inhaler sooner.

People have to comment on your body every time you walk by. Then when you hear those comments on a daily basis you start hating yourself, and you never take the person who compliments your body sincere. And it is always a shocker to another person (skinny people) to hear that you have a normal life like everyone else, that your world is not that much different to the average person.

The television, movies and magazines portray the same images, even shows like “The Biggest Loser”. They show the ups and downs, but nothing in between that shows they are everyday human beings, they just show that they are fat and need help. These images are poor, and we the overweight population suffer for it. Unless we become “the skinny person”, no one understands or will understand what we have to go through.

That is what I wrote (I also added some things in there, as my teacher had wanted more specifics in certain paragraphs.) I am in the process in writing my own article to get published, which I am still working on. It gets more in depth of other things besides the stuff mentioned here about big people, and getting more in depth on how oppressing some of these TV shows and articles portray big people. I will probably get more on this topic in a future date.

Link to "FAT IS CONTAGIOUS" article by the author herself