Obese In The Simpsons

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What it Means to be Obese in The Simpsons Although people are familiar with the term “obesity”, excess body weight, few of us see it as a disease. Worldwide, obesity is the sixth most risky factor to the overall burden of disease.（I want to see the resources here） Obesity diminishes life expectancy and causes harsh consequences such as diabetes and heart problems. Consequently, when obesity is displayed on screens, it is a sensitive and controversial topic. Take aside obesity as a problem, obese individuals are treated and perceived unfairly by society. The Simpsons shows Homer, one of the main characters, obese in the episode “King-size Homer”. Homer, already overweight, gains 61 pounds in this episode and becomes obese in order to work at…show more content…
The degree of obesity is often directly related to the degree of prejudice and discrimination encountered in social and employment settings.” Children are not immune from this prejudice. Researchers found that “when shown a fat person’s silhouette and asked to describe the person’s characteristics, children aged to 6 to 9 years old said: ‘Lazy, lying, cheating’ ”( Cassell 424). To children who have not formed their values of the world, they judge obese people based on the impression they received from the appearance of person. When they see people who are obese, children might believe that those people gain weight because they don’t exercise because of laziness. They believe that obese people are lacking in self-restraint, so they eat a lo. They lie to other people because of this personality. Consequently, obese people, before showing other people who they are, receive such assumption of moral decrepitude that science doesn’t support. As the research shows, “attitudes toward overweight people have been formed throughout history”. At first, when the food was scare, “fashion declared that being overweight was a sign of prosperity and well-being”(426). Later, after the notion of “dieting” comes out, people’s pursuit of beauty changed and attitudes toward obesity emerged. Since then, due to the long-lasting attitudinal inclination against obese people, the way they are viewed and treated has the influence of the past and is embedded in people’s thoughts. Discriminating against obesity is never a single problem that certain individuals have, it is a common error that people make when they interact with obese people. In order to fight against mainstream ideas and prove people who they really are, obesity people live under a huge pressure that consists of contemporary and historical judgment. Long-lasting stereotype about obesity that perceives weight problem as
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