With many of us rolling out of bed moaning from the food the consumed on Thanksgiving, I felt a wonderfully depressing fat story was appropriate to get us back into our guilt-ridden regimes. Maria Kang, fitness guru and mother of three, is not exactly the bedside nurse that you would want on such occasions. Kang has been banned from Facebook after she criticized an online article showing plus-size women in lingerie. While this is not a free speech issue involving the government, there is a question of whether Facebook should have taken it upon itself to punish someone for her view of obesity and what she views as an unhealthy lifestyle. More importantly, the controversy raises the issue of the expanding definition of “hate speech.”
Kang is well known for her posting of “No Excuse” messages telling people to work out and eat better. She is in that sense not unlike many fitness advocates. You may recall that Richard Simmons once drove around with a license plate that read, “YRUFAT.”
That is clearly not the message of many medical and health experts who note that people often have a genetic predisposition to weight gain and that the public perception of over-weight people is discriminatory and harmful (including pushing young people toward anorexia and other eating disorders).
However, Kang felt that the article in the Daily Mail embodied a new tolerance of being over-weight that has gone too far in the other direction. She told her followers that “I’m just saying the truth. We’ve become a politically correct society.” She added “The popular and unrelenting support received to those who are borderline obese (not just 30-40lbs overweight) frustrates me as a fitness advocate who intimately understands how poor health negatively effects a family, a community and a nation. While I think it’s important to love and accept your body, I was a little peeved because I think that we’re normalizing obesity in our society.”
As someone who struggles with weight (I’m working on it!), I must say that I am not offended by these words even if I think that she could have been more concerned over the constant drumbeat for people, particularly young girls, to be thin at all costs. However, I was quite surprised when Facebook declared the words to be “hate speech” and shutdown her account.
Facebook said that “a user” complained about the “content of her page” and it was removed by Facebook. They later restored it and called it a mistaken decision, but notably it took not only two days but the challenged post was gone.
The Daily Mail reported on Kang and the original purpose behind the pictures of the “plus sized” women.
Kang says that the site was taken down as “hate speech” by Facebook. It seems clear that Facebook does not consider such statements to be hate speech in retrospect, though I would like to know what happened to the posting deemed offensive. Notably, in San Francisco and London, activists are demanding that denigrating someone as fat should be treated as a hate crime like race, age, or faith. “Fatism” is already banned in San Franscisco in housing and workplaces. The San Francisco law even restricts doctors pressuring patients to lose weight. Now, activists are demanding the same type of protection in London. The effort is part of the Size Acceptance Movement, which probably began with the reign of Henry VIII but was more recently formed to end discrimination against the over-sized. Discriminatory businesses and people (who I presume will be called “fatists”) would be treated the same as people who engage in racist hate speech.
I have written columns on the threat of non-discrimination law and hate speech laws to free speech (here and here). We have also discussed such conflicts in blog postings. This case raises such a concern, though this is private not governmental action. Here one person found Kang’s comments to be offensive and triggered a suspension from Facebook as offensive speech. We are seeing a trend toward narrower ranges of permissible speech imposed in the name of tolerance and pluralism. For free speech advocates, it is a far more dangerous trend than prior censorship from governments.
Notably, Facebook’s definition of hate speech is quite broad and includes “attacks” on the basis for disability or disease:
Content that attacks people based on their actual or perceived race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, disability or disease is not allowed. We do, however, allow clear attempts at humor or satire that might otherwise be considered a possible threat or attack. This includes content that many people may find to be in bad taste (ex: jokes, stand-up comedy, popular song lyrics, etc.).
The definition includes and exception for humor but not political speech. Thus a “bad joke” is protected but not an unpopular view of a scientific or societal issue. In my view, the definition invites objections to content and allows too much discretionary and ill-defined regulation of speech.
As for Kang, I doubt I would agree with her views on weight issues but I think that her voice should be heard and debated on the merits — not subject to an effort by this one reader to silence her because of a disagreement with her views. What do you think?
Oxa, Look @ photos of the family. You can tell the kids who have the Christie gene and the ones that have moms. My experience is the face and the lower abdomen/thighs are the giveaway. I’m not a doctor, I’m just giving my observations. I have said, the majority of obesity is environmental.
Weight is also impacted by individual hormone levels, medications and mobility.
So, to put it simply, those affected by the FTO gene are highly responsive to the hunger hormone Ghrelin and hypo responsive to the satiety hormone Leptin. Consider the amount of restraint and control needed on a daily basis when faced with something we MUST consume in order to live. No abstaining from food, unlike alcohol or drugs. No wonder a huge percentage of those who lose weight tend to gain it back.
Off my soapbox now.
Nick Spinelli said: “For many people it is genetics. Look @ Gov. Christy and his kids, it is w/o question genetic for that family.”
Uh, they all share the same environment, don’t they?
Nick, the book is truly interesting so I’m glad you got it. I love her last name too!!!
I got to hear her confront an MD at a prestigious university. Let’s just say the MD did not come out looking well.
Fat protects against some disease and is harmful in other cases. Exercise will not necessarily make a person thin. It will help them feel better, be stronger and have better health.
Anorexia does not make people feel better, be stronger or have good health. When people have anorexia, they have a high risk of death and will have lifetime detrimental health consequences. Yet, many people will compliment an anorexic on how good they look. That’s really screwed up. It shows clearly that our society is not looking at weight from a health perspective! Glad to hear you are feeling well!!
The entire concept of “hate crimes” is a wishy-washy one, prone to the slippery slope. Criminalize behavior, not thought.
How the hormones Ghrelin ( hunger hormone) and Leptin (satiety hormone) are affected by the FTO gene.
Would it have been okay if she put a smiley face at the end of her comment?
A more in depth look at the FTO “fat gene” and how it affects people who have it.
For many people it is genetics. Look @ Gov. Christy and his kids, it is w/o question genetic for that family. But corporate, processed food, fast food, etc. is what has turned people not predisposed to obesity into obese, unhealthy people. Getting fit is the key. Being HEALTHY is the goal, not being the unhealthy anorexic chic look foisted upon women by other fashionista women and gay men.
Jill, Thanks much for the lead on the book by Linda Bacon. You gotta love the last name! I’m ~40lbs overweight and diabetic. Type 2 diabetes is rampant on my mom’s side and they’re all skinny! Anyway, over the course of 10 years I’ve lost ~50lbs. by GETTING FIT. I eat a good diabetic diet[not yesterday] but I walk 5-10 miles a day. I miss it when I can’t walk. I’ve had problems that has limited me to 3 or so miles a day. My doc NEVER bugs me about weight. She sees good quarterly A1C’s, a very gradual weight loss, and great cardio fitness.
Thanks to you, a book was sold. I just ordered this book for our daughter. She has not gotten to the point where she likes exercise. When you break on through that point, to where you WANT TO exercise, your life changes.
Study of severly obese family leads to gene discovery.
Jill I was thinking along the same lines. We are blaming victims for their genetics.
This woman has a right to put out ignorant, false and stupid opinions, just like anyone else does.
Fat hatred is shared by many, many people in this society. It is cruel and it shows a lack of education and understanding which needs to be confronted.
I wish to confront her hatred with evidence. The following website contains information not readily available in a society dedicated to the hatred to people being fat:
http://www.lindabacon.org/haesbook/
http://www.haescommunity.org/
People who engage in insulting derogatory speech generally eventually get reeled in by the people surrounding them by peer pressure alone. Pretty soon they find themselves speaking to a party of zero. If a person desires respect, they should remember it’s a two way street. Using a law to do what can be done without one is unnecessary in many cases. Civility rules, not civility laws.
Online websites have a difficult task. Successful websites have a protocol to delete comments that are libelous, slanderous, vengeful, etc. My wife had a person write a hateful and libelous review of her book on Amazon. The comment was reported as abusive and it was promptly removed w/ sanctions taken against the abuser. But, those are the easy ones.
Fat people are one of the few unprotected classes in our culture. It’s always open season on fat people. Struggling w/ weight as do I and our daughter, we know the hurt. You can belittle fat people w/ impunity in our culture. It is cruel. That said, I do not believe in this type of censorship and I do not believe in hate speech , speech codes, or any of these politically correct fascist rules and laws.
Schmuckbook.
“denigrating someone as fat should be treated as a hate crime like race, age, or faith.” I’d have expected this to be dated April 1. It’s saying being Black is as bad as being fat. Racist lardbuckets.
This is gonna be Huge….. Like really, really, really big show……
I’m not a fan of fat-bashing people, but the removal of Ms. Kang’s page was silly.
I have had YouTube do the same thing to me. A paper posted a video in a police abuse case, and I posted the same video, but I had written what had actually happened, since I had FOIA requested info on it.
They also classified it as hate speech, even though I had pointed out that the second shift of police at the jail had not backed up the lies of the abusive shift. And I had proof to back up everything I had posted.
They then referred me to their posting policy, and by their own policy they should not have restricted my video….
I guess these outfits just get too big.