Language is constantly evolving, but we know when major changes have occurred AP Stylebook It has been officially announced. In light of the recent news attention regarding Ozempic and related drugs, the lead editor of the Usage Guide Announced In April”obesity, obesity, Overweight” has been adjusted. That section now advises “care and precision” in choosing how to describe “people who are obese, people who are overweight, and people who prefer the term ‘obese’.” fatUsage of ” obesity The modifier “where possible” should be avoided.
In other words, the new guidelines endorse what they call “person-centered language,” the practice of replacing adjectives that come before the person being described with prepositional phrases that come after. By putting the word indicating a symptom or disorder first, you’re literally and figuratively leading the way; by reversing the order, you’re focusing on the person’s true identity. This change in syntax, proponents argue, is not merely symbolic. A fact sheet from the Obesity Action Coalition explains that person-centered language “Prevent prejudice and discriminationWhen words change, hearts change too.
People’s mindsets certainly need to change a bit. The world is an incredibly inhospitable place for fat people. I know that firsthand, because I used to be fat. But I also know it secondhand, because the discrimination, prejudice, and sheer cruelty are obvious to anyone paying attention. No one with even a shred of decency wants a society where being fat, obese, having a high BMI, whatever you want to call it, invites humiliation and scorn. So if using human-centered language really can change people’s attitudes, if it really can make the world just a little more accepting, then I’m all for it.
But I have no faith that linguistic imperatives will make a dent in deeply rooted hostility. While promoting a more human-centered language is no doubt well-intentioned, there’s something condescending about the idea that people would be unable to recognize kindness and compassion without the signposts provided by social scientists. obesity or fat or People living with obesityand many other phrases, and it is these phrases, not people-first or people-lasting phrases, that communicate how the writer or speaker feels about obesity.
This puts me at odds with the medical community at large: “Given the importance of reducing the stigma associated with obesity, all members of the Obesity Society and the Obesity Care Continuum have committed to making person-centered language the standard for our publications and programs,” Ted Kyle and Rebecca Poole wrote in a 2014 commentary in the journal. obesityAmerican Medical Association Did the same thing 2017. Human-centered language about obesity is now in favor. National Institutes of Health And that Obesity Prevention CoalitionSo do the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, the Modern Health Society, the Obesity Canada Association and the World Obesity Federation. Release Academic articles in specific journals; the current At a specific meeting, or starting this spring, AP Stylebook.
The problem is, there isn’t much evidence that people-first language can actually reduce prejudice, let alone eliminate it. Position Statement A 2013 report on the topic by the Obesity Society and co-signed by four other organizations cited only two previous studies. The first: study In a study conducted at Ball State University more than a decade ago, psychology researchers asked hundreds of students to describe fictional disabled people, then surveyed those same students about their attitudes about disabilities. The authors found that people who didn’t use person-centered language in their descriptions showed roughly the same attitudes as those who did, but showed signs of greater prejudice on some specific items in the survey (as the paper notes, “results were mixed”). In any case, the study gives no reason to believe that students’ word choices influence their beliefs, rather than the other way around (which would make more sense). Still, advocates in the obesity field point to the study, Also and AlsoAs evidence, as proponents put it, that “human-centered language influences attitudes and behavioral intentions.”
The second citation from the Obesity Society supporting human-centered language is: study The study, published in 2012, was led by Poole, now associate director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Health at the University of Connecticut. Poole and his co-authors surveyed more than 1,000 adults to see how they felt when their doctor used 10 terms to describe them during a physical exam. obesity, Unhealthy weight, High BMI, Chubbyand fatOn average, people Unhealthy weight and High BMI It felt more desirable and less stigmatizing than most other options. obesity and fat It was the exact opposite. But no one obesity versus Obese people.
In a paper published in 2018, a group of researchers from the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Weight and Eating Disorders finally posed that question in a survey of 97 patients seeking bariatric surgery. Respondents were asked how much they liked each of seven “obesity-related terms,” some of which were person-centered (e.g., Obese people and People with excess fat) and those that weren’t (Obese people, A fat man). Overall, the former received higher marks.
But even the Penn study had its complications. First, not all human-centered representations were preferred. heavy is more than People with excess fatfor example, Obese people and Obese peoplethe men in the group didn’t like people-first, preferring a more old-fashioned term. reviewPoole found that preferences for weight-related terms vary not only by gender, but also by race/ethnicity, age, and body size: “People generally tend to prefer neutral terms such as: gain weight” she told me recently, although some African-Americans may prefer this term. thickOn the other hand, young people who participated in the weight loss camp Chubby and Plus Size (However CurvyThose who want to become medical professionals Unhealthy weightIt makes sense. Putting it all together, she explained: Overweight It worked pretty well, but fat and obesity I didn’t.
But then again, you can’t really say much about someone’s preferences (or dislikes). Obese peopleOf the 33 studies Poole used in his analysis, only the University of Pennsylvania study included person-first language. obesity Poo acknowledged that evidence is thin on whether using it as an adjective can actually cause harm, and whether putting people first in the construction can mitigate that harm. Preference surveys and the occasional study (e.g. Drug abuse) shows that people respond slightly differently to texts written in different languages. That’s all.
[Read: The medical establishment embraces leftist language]
It’s hard to imagine any compelling evidence of harm from its use. obesity What does it mean as an adjective? How can we untangle the causal effects that language has on social situations? And to make things even more confusing, many obesity activists believe that all forms of the word are obesity It’s discriminatory. If you define people over a certain BMI as sick, then the writing style doesn’t matter, Tiger Osborne. Managing Director “The very pathology of obesity is dehumanizing,” the president of the National Association to Advance Obesity Acceptance (NAAFA) told me. Whether used as an adjective or a noun, the word that begins with O pathologizes obesity.
Some doctors agree. In 2017, the American College of Clinical Endocrinologists and the American Endocrine Society issued a statement citing “the stigma and confusion associated with the differing uses and multiple meanings of the term ‘obesity,'” and proposing a new alternative:Chronic diseases caused by obesityBut activists like Osborne are old-fashioned. fatDuring her time at university, she attended a diversity symposium where she met members of NAAFA who didn’t hesitate to use the word discrimination: “She was the first person in my life to use the word discrimination. fat “It should be used as an adjective, not as an insult,” Osborne said. “That’s how you destigmatize the word,” she added. “Just use it normally to describe the normal human condition. You can’t destigmatize a word that you can’t even say.”
When I asked Poole and Osborne for their practical advice on all of this, they both gave me advice that hinges on common sense and common courtesy. They talked about context. The language a doctor uses with a patient is different from the language a journalist uses in an article about obesity statistics, which is different from the language they use when talking to friends and family. If the person in front of you has clear language preferences, respect them. If you’re speaking to a group, mix up your language. If you come across as respectful and considerate, it will come across.
As a journalist who covers obesity issues and writes about obese people frequently, I recently heard from a well-known obesity researcher: obesity As an ordinary adjective. “Join those who care,” he wrote. But the idea that word order indicates moral priority simply doesn’t line up with the way people actually speak and write. And to claim that it does is to plague us with, at best, linguistic awkwardness, and, at worst, the following abomination: Overweight peopleCertainly, cancer patients Cancerous Or a person with dementia DementiaThese words have their own colloquial meanings, but there are other perfectly respectable adjectives related to health that are used in everyday life. Diabetics, Asthma patients, anemia, Immunodeficiency, MyopicSo I think, obesity.
Language, by its very nature, is majority rule. When enough people use a word in a new, changed way, the meaning of the word changes. And while I understand the hope and compassion behind top-down efforts to change the way we talk about obesity, I do not and cannot see the value in replacing common adjectives with phrases that do nothing but draw attention to themselves.
Such ideas gain support because, in the absence of many effective strategies for fighting prejudice, well-meaning people jump on anything that looks even slightly promising. But our public debate must not fall victim to attempts to muster consensus around positions that are barely supported by evidence. Obese people In the end, it probably won’t make much difference, but policing language, and therefore the ideas that language expresses, certainly might.
