This is such an odd way of phrasing the headline. Like we’ve reached an Altered Carbon style future.
Right? “With” would have been much clearer. Otherwise I am wondering if they’re talking about the student body, as in collective group of kids.
It’s a fucking stupid way of phrasing it. I thought the headline was talking about class size!
IKR? It had me cracking up at the office.
It definitely strikes me as an odd phrasing. If a phrasing is going to make someone uncomfortable, is it such a bad thing to shift the discomfort to people who are offended by phrasing they’re not accustomed to? Not saying you’re offended by it, but it’s definitely a thing that people aren’t shy about expressing. Are there any unintended consequences I’m not thinking of?
No, but with would have made more sense to me. Sometimes person first language sounds clunky to the ear test even though it is grammatically fine. The use of in vs with separates the subject from their body. I guess as a materialist (mostly. probably. Not orthodoxically except for the sake of argument) separating the mind and body in text seems odd, especially when the specific (and terrible, like, telling a kid they are too big to sit anywhere but the back in front of the class is fucked up) lived experience is a focus of the article.
I think creating the distance between the subject and the experience, by using in vs with, weakens the sentiment. It creates for the reader an unnecessary distance by predistancing the kid from the abuse. The idea that this kid suffered abuse vs the idea that the body that this kid is in suffered abuse is, I think, a useful distinction for the victim/subject but less necessary and a distraction for the reader.
To me, I’m not uncomfortable with the phrasing but it diminishes the impact. I think saying fat kids, or obese kids or big bodied kids would also be a problem in this situation, where person first language is indicated. I found the choice distracting, clearly lol.
Overweight. The word you’re looking for is overweight.
Or are you being a jerk about it because you think it’s ok to act like garbage to strangers if you claim it’s about health?
No. Which is why I said overweight and not fat.
Thank you. As someone tall and skinny (with a short and fat partner) people insisting on referring to weight/girth as size with no extra qualifiers trips me up
The issue with overweight is that everyone’s natural weight is different. So it feels like you’re comparing them to some random assigned standard.
If it’s due to a medical condition or genetics then they aren’t above their expected weight. They’re above what you consider a “normal” weight.
It’s entirely too subjective to have any general meaning.
Overweight can mean “over the weight that is healthy for this individual”.
Literally my point. You can’t know what that is from looking at a person. So when you say that about someone who you don’t know you are comparing them to some subjective predefined weight.
We’re also talking about children here. Carrying puppy fat doesn’t mean they’re unhealthy.
My friend at school was always chubby but he was an incredibly fit rugby player.
Overweight literally means over the weight that you should be. If you have a high BMI but are super muscly then you aren’t overweight.
Measurements that only account for BMI might say you are but that’s just a limitation of the measurement method. You can use body fat measurement, hip waist ratios etc. to get a more precise idea of whether you are overweight.
There’s no issue with the word “overweight” anyway.
Exactly my point, thank you. You can’t tell what weight someone should be without knowing all those things.
So calling someone overweight without those is completely subjective. Therefor the OC I was replying to is wrong that the word overweight was appropriate and exactly why they worded it the way they did.
As I replied to the other commenter. I had a friend in school who was chubby in appearance and would have suffered the bias this post is talking about but he was insanely healthy and not overweight if you correctly measured his muscles and build.
