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Is the surgeon general nominee too fat to be surgeon general?
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It's no secret that overweight people are among those in our society that have to overcome bias. We've all heard stories of overweight people being passed over for the slender person. Should there be a bias in the hiring of an overweight person, even if they're well qualified for the job?
What if it's the Surgeon General of the United States? If the surgeon general is supposed to be the most important face of public health in the United States, how can we have a surgeon general is at an unhealthy weight?
Simply put, Is Regina Benjamin too fat to be surgeon general? That's a pretty indelicate question.
Recently nominated by Barack Obama, Regina Benjamin has impeccable credentials:.jpg)
--She's spent most of her professional life serving residents in a poor, rural Alabama coastal community. She makes house calls, pays for patients' medicines, works for free when there is no money. Simply put, she's a family doctor.
--She's rebuilt a clinic destroyed by Katrina, and again when it was destroyed by fire. She's part of the community.
--She's received praised form her peers and received countless honors including a MacArthur genius award. She's respected within her professional community.
And she's overweight. Surf the online community and you find bloggers debating about her BMI. They argue that the person to be the face of medicine in America shouldn't be fat. (Benjamin reportedly wears a size 18.) Anti-fat folks question whether an overweight person should be speaking about the nation's public health in a nation plagued by obesity.
But even some medical professionals have raised the issue saying it sends the wrong message.
We have a government telling us that if you're 40 pounds overweight (like Ms. Benjamin, we're told), you're at risk to all sorts of health problems: Coronary disease, diabetes, respiratory or circulatory issues. If the government is now saying it's not that big a deal since we've appointed a person who is obese, that would be a change, right?
It's a "pot calling the kettle black" argument. How can a person whose weight presents clear health risks speak on matters of public health? The anti-fat brigade says such a person should be fit, lean and in the kind of shape we all ought to be --a public face of what healthy should look like.
I'm more interested in her professional acumen than her personal appearance, but the argument here is that this has nothing to do with her ability; it has to do with how seriously people take the message and the person in this job should be setting an example.
There are probably other parts of the debate. We live in a superficial nation when it comes to looks, and we might not be having this discussion if the appointee was a man instead of a woman. And we may have a general ambivalence about the matter based on our own vague notions of what a surgeon general does: "What does a surgeon general do?" "I don't know, so who cares if she's fat?"
She could, perhaps, say publicly that she's comfortable with her weight, addressing a psychological issue about people's attitude with weight thereby. "Yeah, I'm overweight; so what? That's me. I'm a good doctor. That's what you want."
Or she could go the Oprah route and go on a very public diet
It doesn't bother me but you might disagree.
Should a country plagued by obesity have an above average-weight woman speaking on matters of public health? Or does it matter?
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