Erin Farmer never considered herself obese. The 25-year-old threw in the 2016 U.S. Olympics and was a Division 1 athlete for the state of Arkansas – but the Texas Department of State Health Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said she is.
Farmer, as 42.5% of Americans, has a body mass index over 30, making her eligible for coronavirus vaccine in her home state. At least 29 states have extended their vaccine eligibility to people who qualify as obese.
When he learned that the metric qualified her for the vaccine, Farmer felt a mixture of emotions. First, she was prepared to make the obesity label that followed her throughout her life, usually with negative connotations, work for her. He also felt that although he met the criteria for an obese person, it was an unfair classification.
“I’ve been a sportswoman all my life,” she said. “So my weight doesn’t really reflect on the way I live my life and lifestyle. I understand that people feel embarrassed about it, because obviously your weight doesn’t determine who you are as a person or how healthy you are. “
And data on public emotions related to obesity confirms this. Nirit Pisano, a clinical psychologist and chief psychologist for Cognovi Labs, a group that uses artificial intelligence to look at public emotion and behavior around certain subjects, decided to use the company’s AI to study the issue after talking to a struggling client. to find out he has qualified for the vaccine as an obese person.
“I’ve seen this huge wave of people really responding emotionally to this, so a lot of disgust and anger,” Pisano said.
That’s because the obesity label is a difficult one, she said.
“It simply came to our notice then. And even for those who have, whether you struggled with weight or reconciled with your weight or at any stage you are in, seeing in writing that way or just having a word there. “
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lists people who are overweight among those who faces an increased risk when it comes to COVID-19. As many states have expanded their eligibility, they have followed the CDC’s guidance on BMI as a broad way to classify people whether or not they are at risk because of their size.
Sabrina Strings, an associate professor of sociology at the University of California Irvine and author of Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia, called BMI an inefficient and offensive way to expand vaccine eligibility and said there is a relationship much higher between negative results and race. “
Strings thinks that vaccines should have been a priority for race-based groups because the coronavirus disproportionately affects people of color. This is supported by data compiled by the Covid Tracking Project, which shows that blacks died of coronavirus at a rate 1.4 times higher than that of white people.
But the use of obesity to expand vaccine eligibility results from reports that obesity is a major factor in COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths.
For example, the World Obesity Federation found that 88% of COVID-19 deaths were in countries with the majority of the population considered overweight or obese. And a study conducted last month at Tufts University found that 30.2% of US COVID-19 hospitalizations were estimated to be due to obesity as a primary cardio-metabolic risk factor. Other factors considered in the study included diabetes, hypertension and heart failure. When combined, the four factors were estimated to be related to more than two-thirds of US COVID-19 hospitalizations.
However, the lines say that there is no evidence of obesity as a direct cause of the increase in the number of deaths or hospitalizations.
“When we look at these studies, what they show are correlations,” she said. “They always try to make it appear that BMI is causing these negative health outcomes. But this is not the information that statistics can provide, especially not cross-sectional data. Cross-sectional data can only show relationships.”
Emma Specter, who qualified for the vaccine based on her BMI, wrote about fatphobia and the wrapping of fat around the use of metrics to expand vaccine eligibility.
She said she initially spent time debating whether or not to give the vaccine because she thought she could get one from someone who needed it more or from a front-line worker.
“Once I’ve been told that it doesn’t work that way, I can’t, you know, direct a vaccine to someone else, that it’s based on the zip code and comorbidities. Well, once I found out, I kind of didn’t have much hesitation, “she said.
Farmer and Specter have called for others to be vaccinated, no matter how they qualify.
“I think that if you have the chance to get it, you should get it absolutely not only to protect yourself, but also to protect others around you. And if that means you have to look obese or fat by society, then OK, well, now you get the vaccine, “Farmer said.” If you’re discouraged by the label as obese, I’d just say you obviously don’t connect that to the value. your self ”.
Specter said that in choosing to receive the vaccine, he had to understand and identify as someone with obesity. She explained that many who qualified by the metric struggled with shame and embarrassment because of the way society characterized people with obesity.
“I think, to be honest, I cited this as a bad thing. And I cited fat people as lazy, unworthy, and unhealthy, and so many other things that it’s very difficult,” Specter said. “As someone much smarter than me said, which I don’t remember at the moment, ‘you don’t have to prove a certain level of work. You do not have to prove the sterling character. You don’t have to prove that you only eat salads. ‘”