Arya

Check out “Big Meets Bigger – Kuwait” on YouTube.
It’s a BBC production.

Two overweight Brits visit Kuwait, where there’s an obesity problem in a community of very wealthy Kuwaitis.

Whether a community is very poor or very rich, a dysfunctional food culture makes people obese.

In reality we all use this sort of humor when we perceive ourselves to be superior in one way or another. We make jokes about political corruption or impropriety, for instance, because it makes us feel morally superior to them. That is the main psychological need here. Where there are hierarchies (and social behaviour prefers a hierarchy) there will be jokes about others. A lack of fat jokes merely means that fat people have more political power. Then we’ll have jokes about “fitness-nuts” instead (we already do).

I am not sure that calling people out for these jokes is always the answer. Fighting jokes with jokes isn’t a bad way to make it. Turning things into a game often helps, like the way we use sports to avoid wars. At the end of the day, the psychological need that we have to perceive ourselves in a positive light will never go away. I tend to think that the jokes will change with shifts of power.

Nathalie