I Can Assure You That Being Fat Is Not Contagious
By: Rachael Hope
Tags: Health, Equality, Covid 19, Body, Medicine

I Can Assure You That Being Fat Is Not Contagious

If it were, maybe fat bodies would be valuable enough to warrant studying how to provide better medical care

Image purchased from Body Liberation Stock

Most days I take a few minutes to peruse the headlines on CNN.com. I don’t read every article, but it’s good to know what’s going on, and I usually find a handful I want to read or skim. Certain words send up a red flag, the kind where I have to take a deep breath and move any breakable objects out of reach. When I came across the following headline, my hackles rose.

US obesity epidemic could undermine effectiveness of a Covid-19 vaccine

I clicked anyway, and by the time I was finished reading, hot rage crawled under my skin. The daily reminder that that fat people are unhealthy and that we are all going to die because we are TOO FAT was routine. Beyond that, though, this article makes it clear that the medical community’s refusal to give fat people equal care is intentional and easily recognizable. Here is what the medical community says:

Obesity is an epidemic!

False. An epidemic is “a widespread occurrence of an infectious disease in a community at a particular time.” Obesity is not a disease. I can assure you that being fat is not contagious.

Let’s start with the word itself. Merriam-Webster defines obesity as “a condition characterized by the excessive accumulation and storage of fat in the body.” Right away we have a problem. It all comes down to the word “excessive” and how that word is defined by the medical community at large.

In their article, Is “Ob*sity” a Risk Factor For Coronavirus (COVID-19)?, Ragen Chastain explains:

“Ob*sity” is the result of a math equation (weight in pounds times 703 divided by height in inches squared is greater than or equal to 30) By the “logic” here I’m at greater risk along with a good portion of the NFL and a whole lot of bodybuilders, so unless all of us have been shown to be at greater risk, this is a very questionable statement of risk. Even if they are trying to talk about actual presence of adipose tissue, there would have to be data that showed that the actual presence of adipose tissue increased risk — and if that were the case “ob*sity” would be the incorrect word to use since BMI does not, in any way, measure body composition. So-called “ob*se” people don’t have anything in common except a height/weight ratio. This group has that as much diversity as any group of people who happen to share a single physical characteristic.

So, obesity is decidedly not an epidemic. In fact, it’s not even an empirical or valuable tool for diagnosing actual epidemics.

People are dying of coronavirus because they’re fat!

Correlation does not equal causation. Yes, having adipose tissue affects some things. It doesn’t affect others. Maybe fatter people are at risk of having some conditions more often, but if those conditions cause issues, it’s not the fat causing the issues, and losing weight may or may not be a helpful course of action.

Earlier this year, someone on my Facebook posted a link to an article from Scientific American. “If you’re not already burned out on COVID-19 info,” they wrote, “this is a thoughtful piece and adds info I wasn’t aware of: obesity is a high risk factor.”

Many, many obese people are perfectly healthy and for them their weight isn’t a risk factor.

I immediately balked. I clicked through and read the article, which stated that “obesity related conditions” were a risk factor. Again, this means that fatness itself is not a risk factor. Correlation does not equal causation. “Obesity related conditions” are not necessarily caused by fatness. In some cases, fatness may even be a symptom of some other thing.

The fact that the author of the article even felt the need to tack “obesity related conditions” onto their list is baffling.

Older populations, and people with preexisting diseases, are at greater risk of dying from COVID-19. Obesity-related conditions, for example, seem to worsen the effect of this disease. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that people with heart disease are at higher risk of COVID-19 complications. In the U.S., the obesity rate is about 42 percent, a status quo informed by a range of factors, including poverty, urban design, larger portion sizes and agricultural subsidies that make unhealthy food the default fare for those who cannot afford to improve their diet. All this we can, and should, address.

They had already stated that people with preexisting diseases were at a greater risk. Why would they use obesity-related conditions as an example and not asthma or lung disease or breathing problems? They go on to talk about heart disease, and then jump to obesity as if it’s the sole cause of heart disease, which is also problematic.

If obesity is a risk factor for bad outcomes, that still doesn’t explain why. Isit because they are fat, or is it because of another condition? Worse, is it because people who are fat are less likely to be taken seriously by doctors or given a prompt and correct diagnosis? We are told that the answer to almost any ailment is to “lose weight.” If causation exists between being fat and becoming more seriously ill or likely to die, isn’t it possible that it’s because of the bias and stigma that prevents fat people from receiving a reasonable level of care?

BMI is a useful medical measurement!

Did you know that Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet, the mathematician who invented the BMI, “said explicitly that it could not and should not be used to indicate the level of fatness in an individual?” It was a formula developed in the absence of computers or calculators to use on a large scale in the allocation of government resources. It was not meant to be a diagnostic tool that people with years of actual medical training used to ignore actual issues in anyone whose number was too high.

Basing healthcare on BMI is irresponsible and it’s not evidence based care. It doesn’t take into account bone mass or muscle mass. It doesn’t take natural body shape or size into account, and assumes everyone’s metabolisms and internal chemistry works the exact same way. It’s inaccurate and lazy and needs to be trashed.

It’s too hard to make vaccines for fatties!

This feels like the day I discovered that Plan B is ineffective in women over 175 lbs all over again. Before yesterday, I had never been given any indication that vaccines are less effective depending on weight. These are things that doctors should be speaking to their patients about, and they’re just… not.

Vaccines are less effective in fat people because we don’t bother to design them to work better for fat people.

Beyond the lack of informed consent this causes is a deeper, more maddening issue: vaccines are less effective in fat people because we don’t bother to design them to work better for fat people. Despite the fact that 40% or more of Americans are considered “obese,” the medical and scientific communities do not design medicine or treatment options for these people. For me.

The CNN article pointed out that fat people have historically “been excluded from drug trials because they frequently have related chronic conditions that might mask the results.” Let me translate for you: doctors are too lazy and unconcerned about fat people’s lives to seek out the ones that DON’T have conflicting conditions and use them for our studies.

Fat people don’t deserve medicine that works!

Okay, I admit it. No one is saying these exact words. But the words they do use make sure that we fatties never forget that we do not deserve the same standard of care. We are the worst case scenario, undeserving of attention or treatment until we lose weight to prove that our problem wasn’t just being too fat.

“Will we have a Covid vaccine next year tailored to the obese? No way,” said Raz Shaikh, an associate professor of nutrition at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. “Will it still work in the obese? Our prediction is no.”

Imagine you are talking to a doctor, professor, or scientist. They look you in the eye and say, we are working hard to develop a vaccine- just not for you. It’s demoralizing, disturbing, and frustrating beyond belief. Sure, we use different, stronger vaccines for older people, but we’re not doing the same thing for fat people. The only reason for that is because, well, we don’t give a shit.

Fat bodies are not valuable enough to warrant studying how to provide better medical care.

We can design medical vaccines that might overcome discrepancies. But we don’t. This quote, pleading for better care is five years old.

“Obesity is a serious global problem, and the suboptimal vaccine-induced immune responses observed in the obese population cannot be ignored,” pleaded researchers from the Mayo Clinic’s Vaccine Research Group in a 2015 study published in the journal Vaccine.

There’s been no progress. The doctors and scientists cited in the article are saying, yes, we know that vaccines don’t always work as well if people have a certain amount of fat. Beyond that, they don’t know the exact reason(s) why. They don’t know because fat bodies are not valuable enough to warrant studying how to provide better medical care.