COVID-19 and Raised-Poor Fat Women
Confusing and contradictory messages are being given about the COVID-19 crisis that make it hard for people to think about their health.
COVID-19 IN ENGLAND
Apparently large/fat people are not more likely to become infected with COVID, but we are, according to our government, more likely to become seriously ill or die from it. I suggest that we not accept this “fact” at face value—it is not straightforward and at least not the whole story.
In my country, England, those most at risk of dying from COVID also tend to be poor and working class, over sixty, from the Global Majority, male, and with pre-existing conditions—and often several or all of these.
A media headline recently stated that the government is considering forcing “obese” people into a total lockdown, along with people over age fifty. For people like me, who have been responsibly observing social distancing and not putting myself or others at risk, this came as a shock! The day before that there was another proposal that schools regularly weigh young people and put those with a high BMI [body mass index] on programmes to lose weight, with regular monitoring. History repeatedly shows that this approach, which focuses on an already bullied, stigmatized, and shamed group of people, does not in any way work.
Although health is often talked about as an individual issue, it is clear that the most important indicators of health and well-being are social and economic ones. People born poor in the United Kingdom are likely on average to live nine to ten fewer years than others. In other parts of the world this figure is even starker. More than anything else, the COVID pandemic has exposed the ever-widening income gap.
Like many other governments, the English government has made a tragic mess of the COVID crisis, and many people have died unnecessarily. It delayed in locking down then opened up everything too quickly. It failed to track and test and allowed care homes for older people to become breeding grounds for the virus. It has not protected workers, particularly frontline care and health workers. In the whole of Europe, England has the worst death rate. And in what looks like an effort to divert blame away from itself, the government is putting the onus and blame on the population.
In the United Kingdom it is obvious that opening up the bars and pubs has played a huge part in increasing infection rates, yet it is not suggested that they close long-term or that people who drink alcohol be kept in lockdown. On the contrary, our prime minister described it as our “patriotic duty” to visit the country’s reopened pubs and bars. It is obvious that the economy, not health, is the actual priority.
Instead of really taking on [assuming responsibility for] the health and well-being of people as a whole and doing whatever is necessary to deal with the pandemic, we have missed another opportunity to improve the situation for everyone. The government could, for example, have focused on inequalities; decent health care; access to cheap, nourishing food; protection of workers; easy and free access to exercise facilities; ending poverty; not allowing fast and sugary food, and alcohol, companies to do what the hell they like or have taken many other measures.
TARGETING FAT/LARGE PEOPLE
When dealing with systematic injustice and discrimination, it has often been easier for governments to focus on and blame individuals or certain groups. Suddenly we, the obese, are a group being singled out with a government campaign to get people to “lose weight to fight COVID-19.”
Targeting people who are considered too large, and stigmatising and shaming them, is not new. The oppression of fat people has always been vicious, mostly unnamed, and considered to be “our fault.” The message is that we need to lose weight, stop being so greedy, get off our arses [butts], develop some self-control, and so on. This approach of shaming individuals has been tried and tested—and has failed. It ignores the poverty, class oppression, racism, and other oppressions that fat/large people are more likely to face, as well as the failures of capitalism that have created the situation.
For a period of time there was a daily headline about fat people. On top of an already harsh oppression, it is difficult not to internalise the sense of blame and shame. It’s a tough time, and discharge and action are needed. Of course, we all have to think about our health. However, as long as we internalise that being large is our individual problem, our failure, it makes it hard to think about health. It is hard to stand up and fight the oppression. We keep quiet, hoping that if we do that, and loudly announce our dieting intentions, the oppression will lessen.
HEALTH AS A SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC ISSUE
Health is a social and economic issue. Capitalism creates poverty; inequalities; addiction; and lonely, stressed, self-hating people—all key ingredients for poor health. The message of capitalism is that if we are not thin, not successful financially, and do not look a certain way, it is our fault, we are the failure. Competition, pain, and loneliness set up people for addictions and actions that harm themselves and others. One of many of these addictions might be eating more than our individual bodies actually need and eating and drinking things which do not nourish our bodies. Some people might get fatter because of this, but it is important to remember that it is not our own individual failure. It is the failure of the profit-based way of organising life, which makes it extremely difficult to think and act well about ourselves and our bodies.
“Science” is not an objective, neutral field of work. It is often financed and reflects the interests of the powerful economic forces that sponsor it. We large women have to keep discharging, thinking, healing, and arming ourselves with knowledge. We have to keep taking ourselves, our lives, and our health seriously. We are fighting for our lives.
We raised-poor and working-class fat women are already treated with harshness, ridicule, blame, disgust, and hatred, as if we are inferior and dispensable. We are already more likely to be doing low-paid, unpaid, and low-status frontline work that puts us at more risk for COVID. On top of all this, we have to protect ourselves and recover from the virus if we get infected. The oppression makes this hard.
In RC we have long been aware of the effects of oppression, including how it becomes internalised. Public health does not go from this starting point. The best of it acknowledges the effects of oppression on people but from the viewpoint that if “educated” enough about the harms and unhealthy behaviours, people will change their habits. The worst are campaigns which result in stigmatising, pressuring, and shaming people. Fat people, working-class and poor people, and People of the Global Majority are often on the receiving end of this.
It makes sense to approach health from what we have learnt in RC. This includes not blaming the individual or the group and recognizing that people have been hurt and need to heal. We also need to focus on the health and well-being of the collective and look for solutions based on this.
OPPRESSION, COVID, AND ME
As a large, working-class woman from a poor, Jewish background, I know how much the oppression affects my health. I keep discharging, healing, and making decisions against the oppression and about my own health. We need to think about what makes sense for us, based on noticing that we matter and that, as much as everyone else, we are valuable and precious. In doing so we will also be fighting sexism, class oppression, racism, ageism, and all the other forms of oppression we face. For some this might mean deciding to lose weight; for others, not. A decision to lose weight, or that it is not a priority at the moment, is not to be made alone. But it is our decision.
I have felt overwhelmed about my health and body during COVID. The oppression I already face makes it often feel impossible to think about my health. The challenge of COVID makes it even harder—but it’s now more of a priority to keep discharging, thinking, and making decisions.
I think I actually had COVID, as did other members of my family (none of whom are fat). There has been no access to a test to prove or disprove this. And my health has deteriorated in the last period of time.
When I was a child, all the women in my family were cleaners for institutions and in homes of owning- and upper-middle-class people. They did hard manual work. From a young age all of them had chronic illnesses and worn-out bodies, and they lived relatively shorter lives. Some of them were fat. Right up to their deaths, they were treated as if they were only good for servicing the lives of other people who evidently mattered more. It’s hard to separate out the various oppressions (fat, working-class, raised-poor, anti-Jewish) probably because they can’t be separated. Everything about the oppression of us fat working-class poor women treats us like we are less valuable, important, intelligent, and attractive. The message is that we do not matter and neither do our bodies, that we are failures. We have to fight the oppression as the huge lie that it is, and we need allies who will do the same.
About twenty years ago, I had a bad accident. The battle I had at the time was to fight for myself, to know that my body mattered and was precious, and to fight against the feeling that “this is it; I’m finished.” I was told I might never walk again, but I fought back and relearnt how. Now the longer-term effects of the accident have crept up on me and I’m again having to fight for myself. To do this, I need people who care, people who can see the oppression and cheer me on, as counsellors and as friends. It can seem like a lonely battle to remember both that I matter and that it matters that I walk, stretch, and so on.
When I prioritise sessions, I can think better about myself and make better decisions. For example, I have decided that I will go for a walk every day, a big challenge at the moment. I have a female raised-poor Jewish Co-Counsellor who has the same goal. We regularly stay in touch about our successes or not and have mini-sessions. I also use sessions to make decisions about what I eat and drink in order to have a good life. In our amazing raised-poor women’s group, it is obvious that I am not alone in struggling to care about myself on a basic level. We set goals—to learn an instrument, do some exercise, write, and so on. Putting attention on our own lives is a struggle. It makes a big difference to have other working-class and large sisters with whom to discharge and give and receive help in making decisions and loving ourselves and each other.
I set out to find [embarked on finding] a partner. I did a lot of counselling about this. Five years ago, I married my lovely husband, Shorsh. He was raised poor and is working class, Kurdish, and a Muslim. Genocide, Indigenous oppression, racism, and poverty make it extremely hard for him to think about himself. We keep forgetting, remembering, deciding, and doing it together.
TAKING LEADERSHIP
In the RC Communities we need more raised-poor working-class women—because we are the majority in the world. In Western countries, we are likely to also be fat. And in many non-Western countries, people’s physical size is increasing. We need to get much better at thinking about and understanding fat oppression and the internalised oppression. We need to get better at counselling large and poor people and working on the oppressor role.
We need us poor and working-class fat women leading everywhere. We cannot wait until we have lost weight or look “acceptable” or “more like a leader,” and we certainly will not lose weight in time for a second COVID spike.
There is nothing wrong with us as we are, whatever our struggles. We need to know, and need reminding, that this is true. We do not need to apologise for who we are or stay small or invisible. We know a lot already. We are well connected in our communities. Much of what we do, including our leadership, is taken for granted and unseen, but we cannot wait for oppressive ideas to change. As I discharge the effects of oppression, I take on bigger leadership. We cannot hide away any longer. We need to be who we are, and the world needs us to be who we are.
I would love to know others’ thoughts and experiences as fat, raised-poor, and working-class women, or as allies.
Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, England
(Present Time 202, January 2021)