A Canadian professor who specializes in "fat studies" claimed that aiming for an obesity-free future was "fatphobic" and blasted the "biopolitics" agenda as an attack against fat people.
Fady Shanouda is an associate professor at the Feminist Institute of Social Transformation at Carleton University in Canada. Shanouda "draws on feminist new materialism" to examine the intersections between "fat studies, "colonialism, racism…, and queer- and transphobia."
The Critical Disability Studies scholar wrote that it was "fatphobic" to have a public health conversation and to tamp down on obesity, according to a Monday article in The Conversation.
Being overweight or obese increases the risk of type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, joint problems, liver disease, gallstones, some types of cancer, and sleep and breathing problems, according to the NIH.
In particular, Shanouda believes the marketing of the drug Ozempic – as a method to combat obesity – was the latest example of fatphobia in the culture.
"The latest wonder drug… [was] invented to help diabetics regulate blood glucose levels, but has the notable side-effect of severe weight loss. It has been heralded by many to culminate in the elimination of fat bodies. The fatphobia that undergirds such a proclamation isn’t new," Shanouda said.
"What makes this moment different from the others, however, is the dangerous rhetoric in which it is lodged. This rhetoric elevates the banal and commonplace fat-shaming that fat people must endure and resist to an unprecedented level," the professor added.
About 26% of Canadians 18 and older (roughly 7.3 million adults) were classified as obese, according to 2018 data. In the United States, the rates of obesity are far worse. More than 2 in 5 adults (42.4%) have obesity (including severe obesity). And about 1 in 11 adults (9.2%) have severe obesity.
The professor lamented how the effectiveness of obesity treatments could eliminate "fat activism" and "the fat liberation movement."
He added that treatments for "the so-called obesity epidemic" were "steeped in fat-hatred."
"Ozempic could drop one from the requisite weight associated with the danger zones of obesity or morbid obesity," he wrote. "Yet, in a world marked by scientific uncertainty, the promise of ‘a cure’ as a magic elixir is the ultimate expression of science vanquishing the bad enemy."
Shanouda was contacted for comment and did not immediately respond.
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