Weightism

The other day, my friend told me that her psychology class was talking about one of the only still acceptable prejudices, "weightism". I had never heard of this before, but it made me so sad when she was telling me all about it. Weightism is a prejudice against people of a certain weight, usually aimed at obese or morbidly obese people (although skinny people can be targets too!). My friend told me that a surprisingly high percentage of employers surveyed (somewhere around 30% i think) wouldn't hire an obese person for any reason. How crazy is that?!? It's the only prejudice that doesn't have laws to protect the victims. Employers can refuse to hire people because of their weight and get away with it.

This made me think about myself and how often I judge people based on weight or other characteristics. The way people talk, the food they eat and the way they look are just a few ways I judge people. Judging takes place constantly, too - just passing a person on the sidewalk invites a million thoughts and prejudices to my mind in a matter of seconds. What can we do about this? As Christians, what's the answer?

Obviously, we're called not to judge anyone, no matter what the circumstances! Matthew 7:1-2 says "Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you." Whoa... that's pretty scary. At this rate, God is going to judge me pretty harshly. Romans 2:1 says "You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things".


We have no excuse.


So how are we supposed to stop judging people? By becoming a more devoted servant of God, we will naturally stop judging people as often and start loving them more and more. I feel that to stop judging, we also must purposefully push those evil thoughts out of our heads. By focusing on who people really are, how God see's them, we can come closer to loving them the way God does. Maybe every time you see someone, it would be helpful to remind yourself that they are a beloved child of God. Sometimes I've found myself saying something like this over and over in my head, and it really does help.

Judgement is a hard thing, and it's something that's very prevalent in our society. When our old selves died to the law, we became new beings - beings with Christ inside of us, who live by and for God (Galatians 2:20). This means that every part of us, our whole self, should be glorifying God, including our eyes and our thoughts. The temptation to judge is strong, but with enough prayer and perseverance, I believe it's something we can all overcome with God's help.