Jonathan Zimmerman: Prejudice Fuels Our War on Excess Weight

Jonathan Zimmerman teaches history at New York University and lives in Narberth. He is the author of "Small Wonder: The Little Red Schoolhouse in History and Memory" (Yale University Press). He can be reached at jlzimm@aol.com.

Run, Chris, run!

For more than a year, GOP insiders have been urging New Jersey Gov. Christie to run for president. I'm not a Republican, and I disagree with most of Christie's political positions. But I still hope he throws his hat into the ring for one simple reason: Chris Christie is fat. And his nomination could strike a huge blow against one of our society's most vicious and enduring prejudices.

Numerous studies have demonstrated that fat people have a harder time finding work than others. They get smaller salaries and are less likely to be promoted than their thinner colleagues. They also have more trouble getting into college.

More women than men face this prejudice. In experiments with computer-generated images, viewers called women "overweight" after a 20 percent increase in size; men didn't get that label until their images grew by 35 percent.

It wasn't always this way. For most of human history, fat signified power and privilege. It was also considered sexy, as the nudes of Peter Paul Rubens and other Renaissance masters show....