Through the Looking Glass

As with many things that I encounter on a daily basis this post is about the topic of a conversation. This time it was with my mother. On one of the tangent thoughts that we both tend to have our topic drifted away briefly from the then hour long discussion on nutrition, exercise, education, and other things we landed upon introspection and in turn the 'looking glass self' concept that we discussed earlier this quarter. As we were talking about the ever growing problem of obesity, it came up that there is a bad stigma attached to being severely over weight. I am not trying to argue whether that is well placed or not, I am simply stating that such a stigma does in fact exist. Both me and my mother realized that we had similar findings of our own personal thoughts about the appearances of this people. I then asked the question, "Do they even know what people think about them?" They must know. They must. I find it highly improbable that a sentient being can go day after day and not catch a glimpse of what most of society is thinking about them. Or can they really not see themselves through the looking glass. Can they not see that people treat them differently and relate that to the way that they appear?

Which led me to another thought on a similar line. Suppose that obese people can see what people think of them. Suppose they don't like what people think of them. The question then is, "why aren't they changing?" What is our society doing or not doing to promote change versus an inactive lifestyle that is clearly far from healthy. Are there no sanctions tat are effective? Or is our society just too scared to be offensive to impose sanctions that are effective? All of these question I have no answer for. I am just wondering what will it take? How much will society take? How long can this go on? I just hope that for their health and safety not too much longer.