Shoot The Fat Ones

That subject came up the other day when I was having a value (not a valued) meal with a budding photographer at a local fast-food hangout. I was talking about his taking pictures of the fat folks—kids and adults—as they enjoyed their meal. It was clear that they were having a modern-day family experience in this commercial setting, much like some of us used to do at home around our own tables.

My point in bringing up the issue was that I thought it would do good to add some real-life photographs to the growing interest in documenting the role of fast food in our cultural milieu. It seems painfully obvious that for many Americans, established and newcomer, the fast food setting is now a full-fledged extension of their family or peer group lives.

Or should I say deaths, since there is a pretty good connection between that habit and obesity.

One of my passions of late has been for getting empowerment tactics into our nation's food policies. I simply do not believe that we will ever effectively change the way we eat until we collectively have a voice in the decisions that put food outlets on every street corner of our neighborhoods.

Exercise and nutritional education will not do it.

Taking pictures of these people as they enjoyed their gathering (my photographer pal is very good at connecting with emotions) would help put a face on both the importance of the activity for these families and highlight the impact of those choices on their bodies. We all know oral recollections (stories) of true experiences are powerful educational tools; but pictures and graphics are too and can clearly catch some of the uglier or powerful details that sometimes don't get mentioned. 

Besides, it's a good way to connect personal actions to the practices that impact the quality of our lives. Criticisms abound about how our educational strategies under-prepare us for being advocates for change. Or, to put it another way, just as in the schools we learn to eat the knowledge that is fed to us, so too do we just eat the food that is served up in our face—without questioning why or even realizing that we have a right to be involved in the development of the menu, so to speak.

Empowering people to having input into food policies is an exceptional way to teach progressive advocacy, and it comes with the benefit of making smaller and healthier people as the side dish!

What happens when we are not part of these decisions is particularly evident to vulnerable families that count too much on fast and convenient foods—namely poor and newly arriving immigrant families. The meals served at these locations are hot and quick, varied (I always look for the special), and they seem cheap. We even tend to believe the nutritional claims made about certain items.

And of course the physical facilities of the major chain outlets are nowadays essentially giant playgrounds that youngsters can enjoy while the adults take a break from whatever ails them. McDonalds, if you don't know, is now the largest purchaser of apples in the nation.

For young people of color the dangers in these options seem even more profound than they appear to be for native-born young people and families, perhaps simply because they are so communal. MccyD's or BK or Carlos' place are gathering places for the good, bad and ugly things of community living. I've personally seen groups of high school students planning an event or doing homework. And news accounts regularly tell of gang fights and drug deals and shoot-outs in major urban eateries where everyone comes to "chill."

But these results are unhealthy, plain and simple. African American and Latino young people and their parents are getting fatter and fatter each year. Diabetes and heart ailments are pervasive among these groups and most of the rest of us too. Some 60% to 70% of these population groups will struggle with this issue through their adult lives.

Just as white bread and dispensed soda caused the heart attacks of successful Caucasian businessmen, burgers and fries are becoming the health bane of today's ethnic street hippers and hoppers.

The conventional way to deal with this injustice is by demanding that our young people exercise more. But that strategy did not work for the corporate families the first time around and it seems even less appealing to the young people of today; they simply get too many economic and entertainment goodies as promised in the commercials that lead them there in the first place. And we know how campaigns of the past had little influence on smokers who didn't even bother to care about the warnings they were reading.

Some friends and I developed the idea for a Nickel-A-Meal Campaign to specifically challenge these food outlets to inventively collect an extra nickel for each 99-cent sandwich or combo they serve. (I have written about this previously in Five Cents On The Dine, and you can see more details at http://www.nickel-a-meal.info.) The food stores themselves can then turn those nickels into the mega-dollars needed to fund food involvement programs that balance nutrition and exercise commandments with food empowerment projects where we all learn to think before we eat. (Unfortunately, we have not yet found a funder who will help us get this effort moving!)

History has adequately shown us that when we leave empowerment approaches on the side, the likelihood of us getting healthier and more family-oriented solutions goes like burger wrappers and the extra large portions into us or into the trash. Perhaps there are ways that we can make sure that this doesn't happen if we emotionally use the real-life pictures of our families at the table make the point for us.

So from that perspective I agree: it might be wise to shoot the fat ones.