How Fat Is Your State?

[Louis VI the Fat]

Good read. Some exerpts to wet your appetite:

One of the least flattering images that America is now associated with in France and in other European countries is a ballooning stomach. Pictures of overweight American children and adults are regularly used in French TV news, shows and in the print media. Every campaign against obesity in the land of gourmandise cites the latest statistics on the overweight population in the United States.
[...]
Ironically, as little as ten years ago, the American way of life was synonymous with slenderness in France. Americans were joggers or fitness freaks and non-smokers to boot.

The same rapid transformation in the image of America has been noted in England as well.
[...]
what French and American diets have never shared is the moralizing tone and relentless association of overeating with personal ethical failure, a trait that is present in the United States. Mocking overweight people, now known as “fatism,” has a long history in the United States. Worse, overweight people in America are routinely caricatured as lazy, incompetent and even suspicious. This is all the more stigmatic because in democratic, Protestant America, success in maintaining one’s appearance has long been presented as a personal and moral responsibility which is accessible to everyone. Improving one’s body is assimilated to doing one’s civic duty

Neither the American claim that socialism and moral defects are to blame, nor the French / European claim that Americanisation is too blame, hold up to closer scrutiny. Capitalism is the culprit:

The claim that America is “exporting” obesity is a serious one, and it is difficult to grapple with. It is necessary to use historical-cultural resources which demonstrate how representations of obesity and overeating are the result of a complex interaction between food culture, medical advice, sociological studies, political discourse and marketing strategies. In my research, I have found that current attitudes towards obesity in both countries are in fact the result of ideas which may easily be traced back over one hundred years. The preoccupation with extra weight is not simply a present-day concern and there is much to be learned from taking a longer view of the question. Using recent diet histories, critical exposés of food industry practices as well as nineteenth-century advice literature, I will attempt to address the question of the breaking down of food cultures in America and France, to debunk certain myths about dieting while identifying a key difference between perceptions of the obese in both countries, and to expose how obesity is exploited in publishing and marketing. I will argue that the demagogical rhetoric on American food and obesity in France masks the much deeper responsibilities of international food conglomerates which manipulate guilt-ridden consumers and governments who fail to protect them.