THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION TO ADVANCE FAT ACCEPTANCE (NAAFA) will hold its annual convention beginning August 6, in Atlanta, Georgia. According to the official schedule, the gathering will get started with an “Afternoon Sightseeing Tour of Atlanta including a stop for lunch on your own.” The next day, after the welcoming brunch, attendees can choose from a wide variety of lectures, panel discussions, and seminars. At 2:30, for instance, one can choose either “Workshop 1-Water Aerobics,” or, for those with more modest objectives, “Workshop 2-Movement.” Other activities during the week include a pool party sponsored by the Hipsters Social Club, a “Woman of Substance Slide Show,” a Fashion Show, and even a storytelling session where participants will “raise [their] voices in a celebration of size.” The week ends with a session called “Taking it Home,” a self-esteem workshop that “will use discussion, humor and roll [sic] play” to keep “positive feelings throughout the year.”
NAAFA seemingly has official policies on everything size-related–employment discrimination, weight-loss drugs, obesity research, even discrimination against those who might be called grandesexuals. (According to NAAFA literature: “Based on anecdotal evidence, five to ten percent of the population has a sexual preference for a fat partner,” and the public opprobrium associated with such a predilection leads to “a disruption in personal growth and inadequate development of social and interpersonal skills.”)
Fat people have apparently had their fill of these double standards, and pro-fat groups increasingly have been weighing in on these and other issues. One issue of growing concern involves airline seats designed for normal-sized people. NAAFA has long battled to expand the seats to better accommodate the fat. That fight has taken place without significant media coverage.
But the story is now getting attention on a much larger scale. The tipping point came last week, when Southwest Airlines decided to begin collecting what amounts to a surcharge on the extra-large. Since 1980, Southwest has had a policy of making fat people pay for two seats on sold-out flights. But that policy has been largely ignored. And even now, it will be used only on sold-out flights, and oversized passengers will get a discounted ticket, often between 35 and 55 percent off. “The policy is used only when absolutely necessary when a person of size might encroach on someone (else’s) seat,” said Southwest spokesman Edward Stewart.
The fat interest groups aren’t buying it. As Morgan Downey, executive director of the American Obesity Society, memorably told the Associated Press last week: “It’ s just discriminatory and it’s mean-spirited. This is singling out a group that’ s been very heavily stigmatized rather than making some accommodations in their cabins.”
It’s probably worth adding, at this point, that I don’t come to this issue lightly. Nearly two months ago, I made a weight-loss wager with a friend. At stake: a dinner at Smith and Wollensky’s for the one who could lose the most weight by Flag Day. The bet was long overdue. According to the Body Mass Index calculator available at the website for the Centers for Disease Control, I was technically “obese” when I started. I’ve lost 15 pounds since then–yes, I’m losing the bet–but I’m still considered “overweight” by the CDC. I do manage, however, to fit comfortably in an airplane seat, and even after my customary pre-flight feasts have never even considered asking for a seat-belt extender.
The NAAFA wouldn’t like my weight loss, because they don’t like the CDC research and because a good chunk of it came from dieting. Because the NAAFA is a group dedicated to fat “acceptance,” they have little patience for diets. According to the NAAFA website, “the primary goal of obesity research should be to improve the health and well being of fat people rather than on weight loss.” (Those two goals are at least unrelated, perhaps even contradictory.) NAAFA goes so far as to recommend that the National Institutes of Health “discontinue funding investigations into dietary, pharmaceutical, and surgical treatments for fatness.”
So, fat people should stay fat, even celebrate their fatness. And Southwest should shoehorn them into their seats, no matter how it affects other passengers.
It’s not only Southwest. Other airlines–Northwest, Continental, and American–have similar policies. The last of these is the official air carrier of the 2002 NAAFA convention in Atlanta.
That could be a huge problem.
Stephen F. Hayes is staff writer at The Weekly Standard.
