15: ‘It’s all right for you thinnies’
‘Obesity’, eating disorders, and COVID-19
Our title quotes what British Prime Minister Boris Johnson reportedly said when comparing his COVID-19 experience (which required intensive care) with cabinet members who had mild symptoms. It is suggested that Johnson’s brush with mortality profoundly impacted him – it was followed by public declarations to lose weight and policy shifts he previously would have likely dismissed as nanny statism. While it is politically convenient for Johnson to link the severity of his illness (and by inference the impact of the virus more generally) with factors popularly promoted as within individual control (for example, bodyweight), he is not alone in exploiting this pandemic to promote simplistic and stigmatising ideas about bodyweight and health.
Although not popularly known or accepted, in recent decades research, advocacy, and activism has made significant progress in demonstrating the complexity of relationships between bodyweight and health, the multifaceted and interrelated biological, psychological, and social causes of ‘obesity’, and how common (mis)conceptions and prejudice ultimately promote discrimination of people who variously identify as (among others) Fat, higher weight, and living with obesity. Responses to the COVID-19 and Body Mass Index (BMI) link have largely ignored this. The urgency of a pandemic, and opportunism of those with vested interests in over-emphasising personal control and responsibility, create a perfect storm for harming people across the weight spectrum – particularly those above and below what is considered ‘healthy’. We consider evidence that has been ignored and ways this pandemic is disproportionately harming those who transgress medically and/or popularly ‘acceptable’ bodyweight and eating norms – drawing on personal experiences of transgressing these norms, providing healthcare to those with eating disorders, and academic expertise (including that imbued with related ‘lived experience’).
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