Fighting 'fat-phobia' in Brazil

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 29 December 2022

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

As in many countries, obesity in Brazil is a major issue with one in four Brazilians now classified as obese and more than half the population overweight. But rather than focusing just on trying to lower this rate by promoting exercise and healthier ways of eating, campaigners and some city councils are successfully implementing changes, which accept that high rates of obesity are probably here to stay and society should adapt to this. These changes include schools buying bigger chairs and desks, hospitals buying bigger beds and MRI machines and theatres offering wider seats. Brazilian lawyers are starting to make legal challenges, particularly against discrimination in the workplace. Women are holding plus sized beauty contests to celebrate their larger bodies. Schools are hosting discussion clubs where they talk about how body shapes are perceived by their peers and wider society. Even so, campaigners say there is a long way to go for bigger bodies to be culturally accepted in Brazil and overcoming what is known as “gordofobia” – belittling or discriminating against people who are larger than average. Camilla Mota travels to the south-eastern coastal city of Vitoria to meet a plus size influencer and a lawyer campaigning to stop discrimination and trying to make the city more tolerant. She then flies 1500km north to another port city, Recife, where some changes have now taken place. Is this transformation away from the stereo-typical “body beautiful” only skin deep or the shape of things to come across the western world? Presenter: Camilla Mota Producer: Bob Howard

Transcript

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0:00.0	We Brazilians love the beach as everybody knows and we have plenty to choose from.
0:12.0	Our coastline is 8,000 kilometers long.
0:15.0	I'm by the beach in the city of Victoria, the capital of the state of Espíritu Santo in the
0:23.4	southeast of Brazil. It's not quite eponym and it's a weekday but there are still people
0:30.6	enjoying the sunshine and hanging out. I'm here with Hione Sosa who's a plus-size influencer.
0:38.4	That means as a larger woman she tries to persuade larger women to buy clothes and beauty
0:43.6	products. She's also a campaigner. Now if I lived next to the beach like Hione does, her
0:49.4	house is just a couple of minutes away from here. I'd be making pretty good use of it.
0:54.4	I wonder whether Hione does.
1:02.4	It's strange. Even though it's so close to my house, it wasn't until five years ago that I started
1:08.7	coming back here to go to the beach. I didn't come here for 11 years because I was very
1:14.6	self-conscious about my body and I didn't want to put on a bikini because I didn't have
1:19.7	the stereotypical Brazilian body that people expect you to have on the beach. When I was
1:25.4	in school I would make up all these crazy excuses to not go on field trips to the beach or
1:31.1	with my friends. I would say that I got my period, that I got a skin disease.
1:36.6	Hione is 30-years-old and about average height. She's wearing big earrings, white shorts
1:42.6	and a dark pink and black spotted bikini top.
1:49.6	I don't remember living in a body that wasn't a fat body. I was a fat kid, a fat teenager.
1:57.1	In the street people would say, why don't you lose weight? You won't find a boyfriend.
2:02.5	My family always supported me but I experienced fat phobia at school.
2:08.5	Being overweight is becoming the norm in Brazil as it is in many developed countries. More
2:13.7	than half of Brazilians fall into that category today. Our warm climate encourages outdoor
	...

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