According to this article, people with high IQ enjoy both greater wealth and greater longevity than the general population. Challenging the notion that high status provides a buffer from health-threatening stress and depression, the author asserts that “it’s dumb…to become obese.”

This IQ-rankism and weight-rankism all rolled into one. There are many causes of obesity, and it’s ridiculous to reduce it to a “choice” that stupid people make. Poverty reduces access to healthy foods, which are more expensive and often complicated to prepare. The depression that’s often associated with low status not only increases the temptation to reach for “comfort food” and lowers metabolism through decreased impulse for activity: the very medications that are supposed to help treat the depression contribute to longterm weight gain.

Besides the factors of food choice, social status, and depression, people sometimes suffer from invisible health problems that promote weight gain. Some disorders involve metabolic or hormonal factors that don’t respond to a “smart” diet. Other people may suffer from hidden disabilities that limit their mobility. For instance, I have a genetic disorder that causes claudication and susceptibility to both blocked and bursting arteries. Often people who are in better shape than me hint the world would hold me in higher regard if I would follow their superior regime of exercise. In these situations, I don’t always want to share the private details of my medical condition. This sort of weight rankism is especially difficult to deal with in the workplace because disclosures of disability raise legal issues and the easiest solution is often to fire the disabled person under some pretext. My IQ is more than passable despite the extra pounds, and while my low social status may have compounded my health problems, I certainly didn’t make any “dumb” decision to gain weight.

No matter how high their IQ is, fat women get paid less. Obesity is an ongoing social stigma and one of the most persistant categories of discrimination. Shame on the IQ-elitists for reinforcing this discrimination by reducing obesity to the slavish fate of the “dumb”.