Do we choose to be fat?

One of the things I like about the online community is that no one knows if you’re fat or thin, male or female, black or white or purple with pink polka dots, unless you tell them. And even then you could be lying, unless you took a nap in the same room as a toddler with magic markers. However, if you’re an asshole it becomes apparent pretty quickly, which it did when I was reading a TV blog many weeks ago.

On this blog there was a post about an actress donning a fat suit for a made-for-TV movie and one of the first comments was that fat people were outcasts by choice. The argument was that fat people choose not to exercise, choose to eat large portions, and choose to eat unhealthy foods. Thus they choose to be fat and are personally responsible for becoming the type of person that the world generally discriminates against.

Is being fat a choice? I’d have to say yes and no. But reflecting on my own period of being overweight, [...]

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