Of Mary Ray Worley's 'In Defense Of Fat Acceptance'

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Mary Ray Worley, author of “Fat and Happy: In Defense of Fat Acceptance”, believes that accepting being overweight is key to becoming a happier, healthier human being (164). Worley, member of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA), wrote a first-person account of her time spent in an NAAFA convention in San Diego and how it changed her view of being overweight (163). In her article Worley thought that being overweight meant that she was a “serious personal, social, and medical liability”; however, in San Diego she discovered a “different planet feeling” (163). This was the feeling of being accepted and comfortable in her own body, which was intensified by the mass of people all around her who accepted their weight and excelled…show more content…
She believes that, through fat acceptance, the world will be in a better place if everyone is considered equal. Through “forging a new relationship with our bodies”, Worley states, fat people will become more joyous (167). According to Worley fat stigmatizing is happening on a collective basis by everyone including the medical professionals (165). In her article Worley states that obese individuals, because health professionals are prejudice, will not seek medical attention (165). She believes that doctors will only try to make the consequences from the aliment due to being overweight (165). This idea is backed up by a policy brief called “Weight Bias” that states “in a survey of 2,449 overweight and obese women, sixty-nine percent said they had experienced bias against them by doctors, and among fifty-two percent the bias had occurred on more than one occasion” (Friedman 5). While author Worley effectively states the right fact, she failed to successfully use citations from where she had gotten the information which makes her statement lack most of its credibility but does not make it lose all of its influence (165). Its influence is due to the fact that other people like her have experienced fat medical stigmatizing. Her personal understanding about this issue shows readers why it is important to not stigmatize. Another example in her article is that most people cannot keep weight off when they lose
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    “Fat and Happy: In Defense of Fat Acceptance” Acceptance of one’s self is an attribute that many people strive to achieve in a lifetime. In Mary Ray Worley’s article, “Fat and Happy: In Defense of Fat Acceptance”, she states that Americans would rather die or cut off a limb than be fat (163). Bodily image has become such a large factor in today’s society that people will do, and are doing, anything possible to live up to the standards of the decade. Worley describes a “different planet”, in which

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