The cure to the obesity epidemic, most doctors say, is a nutritious diet and exercise. But many health-care workers say that solution ignores the role of emotional and mental well-being play in maintaining a healthy weight.
By Chandra Johnson
May 26, 2016
William Anderson was about 7 when he first experienced fat shaming.
It was 1956, and he was in the second grade in Springfield, Massachusetts. It was Valentine’s Day, he recalls, and his teacher brought in a cake for everyone in class — except him.
“I’d really been looking forward to it and of course, I couldn’t have any,” Anderson said.
Anderson doesn’t remember how much he weighed then, but it was enough for his pediatrician to put him on a special diet. All that did was give him a lousy relationship with food.
“That was the beginning of the problem for me because food became a lot more important to me,” said Anderson, now 66. “From then on, my whole sense of self was dominated by being overweight and being an outcast because of it.”
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