I know the context of your article, and I (almost) completely aggree with your point of view, but as I have quoted the above paragraph I think it is ’stepping off on the wrong foot’ to go on a rampage against skinny people.
Skinny people should be happy for what they have just now because of the way society perceives them – at this moment in time. It won’t stay like this.
It’s like when smoking a cigarrette was seen as normal and now it’s the worst thing in the world to do. Or when global warming wasn’t even an issue on the political agenda – and now people are slowly coming to terms with the situation of the planet.
Social ideals DO change.
But to go on the aggresive against the slim saying they’re not “normal”(what is normal?) will not win you any points when it comes to changing peoples ideals and I am emphatic that perhaps that was not the point of your article but that you might have
phrased it wrong.
But I hope that your views were not entirely prejudiced againt the slim and that we don’t create a social barrier between fat people and slim people…..

……Why can’t we all just get along?

Andrew

It doesn’t matter what we do — if you’re fat, or even larger than what society has deemed normal, you’re told through overt and not so overt messages that you’re worthless.

If there is a high rate of suicide among the people working in a chicken processing plant, does that mean an epidmic of mental illness or a really sh*tty, slavelike job?

Have you ever seen a “person of size” in a Zyprexa or Seroquel commercial?

Like physical size, humans should have the choice to decied when and what they want to try to change about their emotional state. Of course also, people come in different physical and emotional sizes, all of which have value. If you are model slim, you are not normal, in fact so many models have public battles with drugs, eating disorders, and other “mental health” problems, and yet society tells us it is wrong not to strive for this appearance.

That being said, the stridency of PETA folks often comes across as mean spirited and it takes credibility away from their mostly just cause.

I once had a friend who was in PETA who stopped speaking to me when I informed her that I had bought a Siamese kitten from a pet shop. It was a dusty, dark little pet shop and my Sofia was locked in a cage on a shelf crying. There’s no way I was leaving that kitten there. I don’t think the fact that there are other cats in shelters would have justified me leaving her there when I had the money to spring her. Though I still of course support the pet rescue movement.