An Eye for Fat
Americans seem to have been born with a sort of fat vision, by which they possess the ability to categorize one into two groups, either fat or not fat. We Americans also hide behind disguises for the word fat with more kind sounding terms, such as plus size, chubby, and fluffy. By medical standards a body mass index (BMI) ranging from 25-29.9 classifies someone as overweight, and a BMI greter than or equal to 30 labels someone as obese. To calculate BMI one needs to take and individual’s weight in kilograms and divide by their height in centimeters. For the average American who doesn’t walk around with a scale that is set to measure in kilograms and a meter stick, it would be quite hard to determine if someone on the street was overweight, by definition. This BMI scale is also flawed because Olympic athletes who have accumulated lots of muscle weight are often calculated to be overweight or obese according to this scale.
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Particularly the piece discusses Glamour Magazine’s assignment of comedian Amy Schumer to the fat group. Glamour Magazine decided to include Schumer in a page of their special plus size edition, which sells for a wonderful $12.99. Having a special plus size edition of the magazine is intrinsically wrong. By not including plus sized models in the magazines regular publications the magazine is encouraging its readership to be able to make the divide between thing and plus sized, and when they say plus sized they really mean