Council Considers Banning Word ‘Obesity’ to Avoid Offending Overweight Children

[Nachtengel]

A council is considering banning the word “obesity” from its health campaigns for fear of offending overweight children.

Liverpool City Council believes the expression could stigmatise youngsters and wants to replace it with the phrase “unhealthy weight”.

http://www.odinistpressservice.com/2...ight-children/

[xamarth]

How did I know this was happening in England? Ha, typical.
That "unhealthy weight" is such a PC phrase and its inaccurate; a very thin person can also be described as having an unhealthy weight but if you just say "He has an unhealthy weight" you've got to first figure out if he is skin and bone or a tub of blubber.

[Thorsteinn]

this is becoming more rediculous every day

[Siebenbürgerin]

Hmm, obesity is used in medicine books, I wouldn't have thought of it ass offensive. Calling an obese child a whale would be offensive for example.

I've to agree about using "unhealthy weight". It's more vague, it can be too fat or too thin.

[arcticdoctor]

Ha, Ha, not to offend you but the medical term is "beached whale".

As in the chief resident warning the interns and medical students of

a new admission to the ward that they will have to work up:

" Get the harpoon, we've got a Beached Whale in 409."


There are hundreds of other medical terms of which the general

public is apparently unaware.

[Deifr]

Didn't they change Sexually Transmitted Disease to Sexually Transmitted Infection for simmilar reasons?

EDIT: No, seems theres a difference in STDs and STIs.

[Diarmuid]

'Obesity', 'unhealthy weight', 'overweight', they mean the exact same thing. What the hell is the difference? I can't stand all this oversensitivity nowadays. I'd like this council to know that I'm 'offended' by these little fatasses' gross weight and habits.

[Sigurd]

In a time where more and more young people (and even not so young people) are having a disorder more commonly known as Anorexia Nervosa, it is very dangerous to make "obesity" and "unhealthy weight" a synonym. In fact, it might lead anorexics to see official use of the term as a confirmation of their own distorted perception. Which is dangerous, considering that unhealthy underweight kills you quicker than unhealthy overweight, as much as both tend to diverge from a healthy norm spectrum.

Other than this, the second problem with the term's lack of accuracy is that someone may technically be medically obese but be perfectly healthy, and it might indeed be a healthy weight for their physique; whilst someone of medically normal weight could find that this is an unhealthy weight for their physique.

That second point is the main problem with these politically-correct neologisms that new volumes of "Newspeak" gurgle forth every odd year: their increasing lack of accuracy. (Much like someone who moves from Vienna to Innsbruck also has a "migrational background")

Thirdly, and most importantly, it is ridiculous to outlaw a word to stop offending overweight children. Whether you call them a "whale" or "libramentally challenged" isn't going to make a difference as to whether they're bullied for their ill shape. Tackle the problem, not the term.

[Ralf]

Maybe life does go around in circles and as soon as the new term, "unhealthyweight" becomes offensive they will have to chose another word and by then it might be safe to once again use the word....."FAT".

[Æğele Wiğercwida]

Um, guys....I think this is actually my fault.

When I am going through Liverpool city centre I tend to point and laugh at the fat people. I occasionaly do a little song like "who ate all the pies?" and immitate their waddle.

So yeah, um....my bad.