To the Editor:
Re “Big Food vs. Big Insurance,” by Michael Pollan (Op-Ed, Sept. 10):
Mr. Pollan is right when he says that agribusiness promotes less nutritious foods and ignores the effect those foods have on consumers’ health. But these are the foods that most Americans—thin and fat—eat every day.
Thin Americans also deserve better choices in food, and their health would also be greatly improved through access to locally grown produce and more nutritious meals.
Leaner people can be malnourished and out of shape, just as heavier people can be well nourished and fit.
Suggesting that weight problems are the same as nutrition problems demonizes heavy people and adds to the already rampant bias they face in our thin-obsessed culture.
Miriam Berg
President, Council on Size and Weight Discrimination
Mount Marion, N.Y., Sept. 10, 2009
Note from KBJ: The website uses the term "sizism," which I have never heard or seen. I love it! Are you a sizist? Come to think of it, President Obama is awfully skinny. Maybe opposition to his policies is rooted in sizism rather than (or in addition to) racism. We know that his policies are unassailable (that goes unsaid), so opposition to them has to be personal, and what else could it be except the color of the president's skin or the size, shape, or texture of his body?
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 