Banning the Word "Obese" Planned

(Liverpool, England) After consulting with children aged 9 through 11 in the "Schools Parliament," the Liverpool City Council is proposing to ban the word "obese" to avoid stigmatizing the youngsters. According to the council, at least 40 percent of all 11-year-olds are overweight and referring to them as obese apparently discourages them from eating healthy.

The Liverpool wordsmiths plan an official strategy to educate the excessively overweight kids while using the term "unhealthy weight" instead of "obese."

Frankly, banning the word is not only a poor idea, it's wrong. It's simply inaccurate to replace "obese" with "unhealthy weight." Sure "obese" means excessively fat and meets the definition of unhealthy weight. However, neither anorexics nor bulimics are excessively fat but both are potentially unhealthy in weight. Unhealthy weight is not synonymous with obese.

Remember, if something looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, no amount of official name changes will make it not a duck. Also, the city council shouldn't go around and kiss every boo-boo kids get. Let them grow up realizing that people will call them names, whether they are obese or not. It's part of life.

Lastly, the fat kids know they're fat and I contend that the word "obese" troubles them considerably less than being called "Fatso" or "Lardass" or "Pigbutt" while on the playground.