Every-other week I run a behavioral modification group for girls who are overweight and obese.  It's through a multi-dimensional program (diet, exercise, behavioral modification) and because I am trained in psychology, I work as a behavioral specialist.  These girls are hilariously amazing and make me laugh every time I see them. They are obese or overweight, but they are, obviously, like any other adolescent girl.  Boy crazy, school hating, music loving, makeup wearing.  The only difference is that they also have to deal with some additional self-esteem issues, extra thinking about their every action, judgement from ignorant people who think they know what's best for someone completely foreign to them, and stigma.  They also weigh in every so often and have parental involvement in the program so...no pressure or anything.

I have a friend who has cancer.  He was a friend in college, or more like a friend of a friend.  He was diagnosed fairly recently, and since his diagnosis he and his wife have experienced a well-deserved outpouring of love from their friends and family.  Like I said, well deserved.  Today on Facebook said friend posted something to the effect of "we're not awful, it's cancer that's awful" and it got me thinking.

Why is it that a health condition like cancer is one from which patients separate themselves and others see as distinct from the patient, externalizing the disorder, whereas obesity, another health condition, is internalized by patients, viewed as a part of the patient by outsiders, and stigmatized accordingly?  You don't hear people saying or accepting the words "it's not me who's awful, it's the obesity that's awful."  It's unheard of.  If a person were to say that, the world would turn against them, ignorantly saying "you are the obese person so you are awful!"  No one would tolerate that way of speaking about cancer patients.

Well, hate to be negative here, but cancer is not an outside being.  It is not something that is external.  It is something that is very internal.  It is made of the patient's flesh and blood.  So much so that to get rid of it consumes the patient's entire body and all of their energy. John Green, via  Augustus Waters, said it perfectly.  In the book The Fault in Our Stars, Augustus says, "My cancer is me. The tumors are made of me. They're made of me as surely as my brain and my heart are made of me."

So, I get it if you feel the need to tell one of my teens in group that they are obese and that their obesity is part of them.  It will offend them, I am sure, but it will be true.  But if we're going to do that, we need to do it to everyone with a disease.  We need to face the truth and understand that obesity is no different than any other disease.  There is no less bodily ownership or personal association with obesity than there is with cancer, or high blood pressure, or eczema, or kidney disease, or the flu.

So please, stop cherry picking your stigma.  It's not fair.

Keep on thinking,
Josie