Fat Cats Escape Responsibility While Fat Americans Face Shame

Mike & Friends Blog

Donna Smith

Donna Smith, American SiCKO, is executive director of the Health Care for All Colorado Foundation

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January 9th, 2013 4:17 PM

Fat Cats Escape Responsibility While Fat Americans Face Shame

The headline of the story, “Obesity, lack of insurance cited in U.S. health gap,” and its first paragraph state the facts as outlined in a study showing that American life expectancy is lagging behind other nations and that the gap is widening. From the article: “Overeating, lack of health insurance access and comparatively high poverty are among the many reasons why Americans are less healthy and die younger than people in other wealthy countries, a report requested by the U.S. government showed on Wednesday.”

But then Reuters illustrated the story with a photo of two obese, black women, and forgot that being fat wasn’t the only reason the article gave for gap in health hurting so many people in the U.S. Why not show some of the fat cats raking in huge profits even as they knowingly addict our children to high fat, high sugar, low nutritional value foods? I don’t see much difference between the tobacco companies’ legal liabilities for promotion of smoking when they clearly knew the health damages and the obvious connections between the explosion of fast and processed foods and profits by the food giants and the growing damage to our nation’s health and well being. Why not a picture of the McDonald’s CEO as the corporation celebrates its success?

Wouldn’t it just be refreshing to see those profiting off the various poor health measures stand accountable?

Or, why not a photo of a for-profit, insurance company CEO or for-profit healthcare provider elebrating profits even as a pregnant woman is unable to access pre-natal care since the article also mentions higher rates of infant mortality as one of a number of causes of the less favorable health outcomes for Americans? Why not a photo of an assault weapon manufacturing CEO or Wal-Mart’s executives who continue to promote assault weapon sales in their stores even as the U.S. sees the increasing number of victims of gun violence and other acts resulting in rising homicide rates, as mentioned in the article?

Here’s the list of things Reuters had to choose from when deciding on a photo or photos to use: “Americans overall fared the worst among the countries in the report when it came to nine areas: infant mortality; injury and homicide rates; teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases; HIV infection and AIDS; drug abuse; obesity and diabetes; heart disease; lung disease; and disabilities.”

As for me, I’d argue we need to make sure we provide access to healthcare to all without financial barrier through a Medicare for all for life model. At least with a more sane, economical and just healthcare system we could begin to bend the curve for the poor, the babies, their mothers and the victims of crime, not to mention starting to cut the ever-increasing cost of healthcare provided in the least effective, most expensive ways.

Still, the photo selected to frame the story shows the fat people. The fat women. The fat black women. Let’s bundle up all of our nasty, angry, bigoted biases in one choice of photos and spread the venom rather than use the study information to hold accountable those who get rich from the suffering – and yes, the deaths – of so many others. And Reuters won’t be alone, I am betting. Every media outlet that shares this story will choose to show the fatties and not the fat cats. Until we upend that sort of repugnant propaganda, we will continue to poison our bodies and our minds with half-truths and few solutions to help the overall crisis.