The University of Minnesota’s School of Public Health was a lot less healthy this week.
Now that oppression is rampant on our nation’s campuses, many colleges and universities have established “bias teams” and “diversity officers” whose job it is to root out and eliminate any whiff of patriarchy or disenfranchisement before social justice warriors melt down, safe spaces are invaded and entire campus communities collapse under the weight of their own manufactured outrage.
The University of Minnesota, for example, which just hosted a “fat activist” to help its School of Public Health students learn why diets and exercise are the tools of “thin privilege,” has a VP of diversity who holds “office hours” on three random dates, for two hours at a time.
You have to make your appointments in advance, you forfeit your appointment if you’re five minutes late, and sign up begins 30 minutes in advance of office-hour shifts. So students should prepare for safe space violations as they vie, elbow to elbow, with other social justice warriors for some precious gripe time.
Tovar’s talk, entitled “Dispelling Myths: Fat, Fatphobia, and Challenging Social Stereotypes,” was designed to help students understand that “fat phobia” is rampant in a “white, heteronormative society” that is looking to actively oppress people with larger body types. Society’s bias against fat people is, apparently, a form of bigotry and discrimination, evident in everything from sexual preferences to the size of seats on public transportation.
She even, reportedly, compared society’s anti-fat culture to so-called “rape culture,” and chastised society for its obsession with what she termed “thin privilege.”
According to Tovar, the students, who study public health (at one of the top 10 schools for public health), shouldn’t push people they deem overweight to shed pounds, even if it’s better overall for health. “Weight loss is not a realistic goal for most people,” she said, declaring that exercise and diet are “social constructs.” She implored her audience to “lose hate, not weight” and rebel against “diet culture.” (Diets are, of course, just a tool of the hetero-normative Patriarchy.)
She did not specify how “losing hate” would have the same impact on, say, your chances of dying of heart disease, but we assume she was not referring to any scientific understanding of human anatomy or disease.
No surprise, Tovar, who lists her occupation as “fat activist,” has a Masters in Human Sexuality—with a focus on the “intersection of body size, race and gender”—and taught at the University of California, at Berkeley, where that is considered an actual academic field of study. Her expertise is wide-ranging.
Oh and if that isn’t enough fun and frolick in the diseased minds of ultra leftist Social Justice Warriors did you know Shaggy (yes, from Scooby Doo) is a “trigger” for “Thin Privilege”.
Seriously.
One teen advocacy group has a new plan for protecting children from the perils of body shaming: fatten up our beloved cartoon characters, from Robin to Gohan, to make them look more like their chunky viewers.
The Shaggy Trigger!! Someone’s going to need lots of expensive therapy!! 🙂
The idea that get off their fat, mobile phone, console gaming, asses and exercise and eat healthy meals so they ain’t fat is, of course, what, “fatist”? 🙂
“In many ways, teenage cartoon characters are stuck in the past,” Project Know explains. “Their body shapes have drifted further away from an image that most people can relate to: They idealize a body type that’s increasingly unattainable for many.”
Jinkies!!!
It may have never occurred to them that cartoon’s bodies are unattainable because they are based on whatever proportions the animator felt like drawing. Arnold’s football head is unattainable, but you don’t see me complaining.
Project Know starts with Robin. A character that literally spends his nights running across roof tops, fighting bad guys and training with Batman in the Bat Cave. So how dare he shame us with his slim physique!
“As they approach the teen years, youth are already expressing body insecurities: 18.5 percent of 11- and 12-year-old boys felt dissatisfied with their body,” Project Know said. “For these kids, an ultra-lightweight cartoon character like Robin may be a demoralizing role model.”
I’m a 53 year old man and I still “body insecurities” but you don’t see me blaming it on “thin privilege” and cartoon character “fat shaming” f0r god sake’s this is got to be a mental defect of leftists with too much time on their hands
So Project Know gave him some extra pounds. But how is his grappling hook supposed to pull that huge gut off the ground? Will he even fit in the Batman’s sidecar?
Then we have Alex from Totally Spies! She is an international super spy with a high stress, physically active occupation. But Project Know thinks she should better reflect the current generation of iPad-obsessed couch potatoes. Her next mission will have to be cancelled as she can’t fit into the ventilation system leading to the enemy compound.
“Teens are unlikely to see their physique being reflected in his defined chest and arms that ripple with muscles,” Project Know astutely observed.
Cartoons must reflect reality. Wow! So that why my favorite cartoons as a kid was Droopy, I’m secretly a DOG who has been Human-shamed! and I should demand my rights to be a Dog. Dogs don’t pay taxes, right? 🙂
What happened to cartoons being aspirational. Does everything nowadays have to sink to the level of reality? Maybe instead of fattening up cartoons we should be teaching real children how to slim down. (Heatstreet)
AV Club: ProjectKnow based its cartoon revisions on body mass index (BMI) data from the CDC, an assessment which aims to indicate if someone is overweight (or underweight) by measuring body fat. As a caveat, BMI numbers aren’t necessarily accurate gauges of health: As science has become more sophisticated, experts have pointed out that BMI numbers can’t tell the difference between fat and muscle, or separate out good vs. bad fats. That means someone who’s perfectly healthy could be told to lose weight, for example.
Watch “Chopped Junior” instead of playing “Call of Duty” for 16 straight hours…. 🙂
“ruh oh.” 🙂
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