I was talking with my friend Victory today online about various social things, and as is apparently legally required during interactions between females, the subject of exercising came up. Victory told me that she was going to go to the local Wellness Center, which she hates, because she’s getting “a little bit pudgy”.
My friend Victory is well within the normal social conventions of attractive- blonde-haired, blue-eyed, lovely symmetry and most importantly, skinny. I am more in-line with the social conventions for “ugly”. I dye my unruly mop of ash-blonde hair red, I have freckles (STILL) despite my best efforts of avoiding the sun like a vampire, and, most importantly, I am fat.* And when I hear my extremely skinny friends say she’s worried about getting fat (when the odds are that she could gorge like a glutton and still be as skinny as she is) it feels odd to be sure. It sounds like “I am terrified of becoming like you”.
I know, intellectually, that she’s not meaning it as a slur against me and my body. She doesn’t think of me as “fat” she thinks of me as “heavy-set”. When she thinks of the word “fat” she thinks: lazy, slovenly, stupid, slow, unattractive, unhealthy. The fact that “fat” does not in any way mean these things is not the point. She does not want the social pressure that goes along with being a persecuted group in society and she has an absolute right to be comfortable in her own body. I wish that her ability to be comfortable in her body came without the social pressures.
I’m picking on my friend Victory here because we had the conversation the most recent, but she isn’t by any stretch the only friend who says stuff like this. From my friend who works out because “It’s not fair for me to say “No fat chicks” if I’m not in top condition too”** to my other friend who used to be fat who is now skinny through a self-induced regiment that makes boot camp look like a day walk or my other friend who went and got a belly-band surgery. It is a weird cognitive dissonance for me- I know they think I’m either normal looking or downright attractive, but yet, one of my major physical features they find completely disgusting. Though rare in my social circle, when we have discussions of who is sexy in Hollywood, women who are much skinnier than I are castigated for being “sloppy” and “fat”.
Some days I wonder if I should bring it up, because discussions about one’s bodies are very personal. I meant what I said- people have a right to feel comfortable in their own skin and if that means that you absolutely cannot live with being a fat person to do what you can to get yourself down to whatever you possible can get yourself down to- either through learning to accept yourself or remake yourself*** But, I feel like all of this talk about how disgusting fat is kind of violates my right to feel comfortable in my own skin. I am not immune to culture- there are days that I absolutely hate what I look like and feel like I’m trapped in a tube of unbaked bread. But, I find when I haven’t been around a lot of visual media; days that I spend in-doors or out in the middle of nowhere with just books and radio and my husband for company, I find I actually enjoy my body quite a lot. It’s soft, it’s supple, it’s warm and perfect for snuggling. It’s sexy as hell with curves all over the place. It’s strong and it’s substantial. Some days I feel downright like a fertility goddess.****
Any other subject, I have no problem telling people off for. You think gay people are icky? That’s your problem, and something you should probably work on. You think rape jokes are funny? I have about 30 stock responses, all buzz-killing. You complain to me that women just don’t make sense, and why can’t they be more like you? I will not play the role of your token female- they make as much sense as a group as any other group of humans.
But I don’t know how to address discussions of fat that both go “You know, fat really isn’t that disgusting, and I wish you would quit acting like a major component of my body was something terrible (even though I know you’ve already done the requisite mental gymnastics to not include me in the group “fat”)” without also saying “You don’t have the right to feel towards your body however you want and do whatever you feel is necessary to be comfortable in your own skin”.
Final Note: I will delete any concern trolling that goes “But being fat is UNHEALTHY”. Bull-fucking-shit. You don’t like fat because of aesthetics, not because you give a shit if they’re healthy or not. You know what’s unhealthy? Not getting enough sleep. But, we still expect people to not get enough because of our work culture and no one wants to address that at all. But, enough makeup and you never notice the dark circles. If “health” was the issue at stake, me going “But my doctor says I’m perfectly healthy” would shut down any discussion of me needing to exercise or alter my diet. Others have already talked about this, I’ll leave it with them.
*My friends and family all hide that word in terms like “pudgy” “squishy” and “heavy-set” but I’m trying to de-stigmatize that word. “Fat” is a description, not an insult. The social norms say I’m not attractive. My social life says differently.
**Which is, I suppose, a baby step up from other acquaintances who look like slobs and still expect super models.
*** I’d go with the learning to accept yourself, though that’s harder. Remaking yourself hits a brick wall pretty quickly unless you have a LOT of time and money to burn.
****Minus the fertility. So, I guess “sex goddess”.
Be defiant. Between 70% and 80% of excess weight is genetic in origin. Taking it off is a literally Sisyphean task. Here’s a good article that contains some of the basics:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/08/health/08fat.html?_r=2
People can lose about 10% of their bodyweight and reliably keep it off – that is, if they are willing to continue the diet that allowed them to lose weight in the first place, and exercise every single day. If you aren’t willing to do those things, then you’ll regain it and likely you’re gain even more. There isn’t any real difference between how fat people and skinny people eat. Across the weight spectrum, we all eat crap in this country – even those of us who think we eat well. There’s as much junk at Whole Foods as there is at Kroger’s. In the end, skinny people, on whole, eat like fat people but their genes are different so it doesn’t affect them the same way.
Virtually everything western culture thinks about obesity is at odds with what science knows.
It’s a very arbitrary system. Back in Venus of Willendorf times, the Rubenesque figure was considered gorgeous. I’m sure if one of our contemporary super models were beamed back in time, they’d think that her emaciated death-like figure was a sign of illness, and probably gross. Maybe it’s all part of a system of showing off – if you live in a time/culture where there isn’t enough food, weight is a sign of success – i.e., cute. If you live in a time when food is everywhere, emaciation is a sign of success – since only the indolent or successful could afford to starve.
But didn’t you hear? BMI doesn’t go far enough! A 5′ 7″ woman who weighs 150 lbs. is clearly overweight. This asshole says so.
Oh, fuck that asshole.
“You too can be skinny provided you’re just perfect like me and give up ever getting any joy from eating”.
C’mon, doesn’t ANYONE want to talk to me about the Venus of Willendorf? Little chubby proto-Barbie? No one? Really?
@Joshua Yes, beauty standards—and even health standards—are largely cultural. I agree. I’m just not sure what to add.
@Antigone But he swears his sugar-free chocolate black bean brownies are awesome. I’m vegan, and I’m all over trying new things, and I know that some things sound weird but are actually awesome… but seriously? Black beans?
(The reason I brought up Dr. Fuhrman, incidentally, is that he’s one of Whole Foods’ gurus in their new
fat shaminghealthy eating initiative. They brought him in to talk to employees, which is where the priceless BMI comment came from. He also said that his nutritarian diet reliably prevents all cancer, which really makes me want to go up and thank him—because now, apparently, I have a way to smoke with utter impunity.)I dunno if I think that a symbol that is probably a fertility marker can be called a “chubby proto-Barbie”. Wow, super reductive.
I used to be thin, but now I am fat; not 20 pounds overweight, but A HUNDRED pounds overweight. FAT.
Years ago, when I was thin, however, and I found myself (rudely) talking to my fat friend(s) about how FAT I thought I was, or what I was going to do about my (nonexistent) FATNESS, I was never EVER thinking about them or their bodies or how they looked.
I was just externalizing my internalized, culturally brainwashed and culturally EXPECTED fat-shame. The fat-shame that is beaten into every little girl’s head, that explodes at puberty as we are suddenly confronted with brand new jiggling fat all over, fat the proclaims our inferior-making femaleness.
Exposing my fat-shame myself because I thought EVERYONE else was thinking it, so I was beating them to the making of hurtful statements about myself, or something!
I guess my point here is, your friends really, truly, probably aren’t thinking about YOU, and they probably think you are lovely, because they love you. It is themselves they find ugly.
It’s weird, and it is cognitive dissonance of a sort; but I remember being cluelessly rude like that myself, before I actually got fat.
“Wow, super reductive.”
Well, I try. (I’ve never understood what’s wrong with reduction.) Also, neener. But yeah, it might not be the best example.
I admit, I’m less interested in people’s personal feelings about whether or not they’re fat or how they define fat, as I am by why and how different cultures and time periods define attractiveness differently. Fat shaming is mean, but so are people. I’m sure there has been skinny shaming and your-neck-isn’t-extruded enough shaming and foot-binding shaming and whatever, as well. It’s offensive, but I think it’s pointless to separate individuals from their cultural context.
When I gained 20 lbs in Army basic training, I was thrilled. When I gained 20 lbs last fall, I was dismayed. It would be very nice if everyone could get through their heads that “weight gain” is a neutral descriptor, completely meaningless in terms of both overall health and aesthetics in of itself.
“Fat shaming is mean, but so are people”.
Honey, it goes beyond “mean”. People are “mean” to me because I’m a liberal. People harass and discriminate against me because I’m fat.
Reduction is bad because it paints an inaccurate picture as to the subject. If someone who had never heard of Hamlet had the story described as “Danish prince dies” than they would not understand why the story is so compelling. In the same way, calling the Venus de Willendorf a “chubby-proto Barbie” inaccurately describes what a Barbie and the statuette were.
I would stretch it out to “Danish prince dies, takes continent with him,” but that might be too verbose.
Actually, it’s kind of interesting to think of Barbie and the Venus as permutations of the same ritual. But okay, I’ll drop it.
I’m really not defending rudeness and discrimination, I just think it’s part of a larger pattern and the solution isn’t individual. Telling rude people not to be rude doesn’t work. I’m interested in why we as a culture make a social judgment, and what causes us to change it over time. I think if we could analyze that force, we could have more control over the outcome.
I actually agree with all of the broad points already made and discussed. But I want to add a factor in regards to the individual conversations.
To my aesthetic sense (shaped as it is by culture) there is a huge difference between ten pounds gained in my stomach (which as it happens is where I gain weight first) and ten pounds spread all over my body. In fact I think (again personal aesthetics) that a substantial belly looks a lot less attractive on a skinny person than a fat person. I do think proportion of a sort matters. Not that my aesthetics should matter to anyone. But my comfort with a certain swell of my belly (just what my shape is naturally – not flat unless I’m sick) is directly related to my bust. And I could be wrong but I feel like my ‘fear’ of a much larger belly is directly related to the fact that my bust while substantial is not ample (or whatever terms make the point). So to me it is logically consistent that I find fat more upsetting in one body area than another and on one person than another. Shape matters to my aesthetics and shape is more than just a matter of fat or not.
None of the above contradicts the point you make in your post but I felt compelled to add it. I do think that when your friends make such comments you should mention the fact that fat is what you are and that it really isn’t evil or that scary. People need to hear that. Even though they won’t believe you.