I’ve been sitting on this post for awhile and before I begin to get to the heart of it I need to explain a few things. First, I want to acknowledge that this particular post was brought about after noticing a few trends in the hundreds of clients I have seen over the last 5 years. Secondly, I am really just analyzing these thoughts I have and how I do that is by writing, so my “theory” could change after some further “research”.
I believe that thinner women and straight sized women have more stress around fat than actual fat people.
Now, I know you are thinking “WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK, TERI?” and I want to clarify that this stress is SELF-INFLICTED stress and NOT stress placed on a person due to systemic opression, but rather as a RESPONSE to fearing system opression.
You see, when a person, such as myself has grown up in a fat body, the story has never changed. Even if people have teased you and made fun of you your whole life, it becomes the constant and while you don’t like the abuse, slurs, and bullshit by society, you learn to adapt, deal, and heal yourself - either learning to accept your body at whatever stage it’s at or becoming funny as a defense mechanism to it all. We learn pretty early on that we are outside the societal norm circle and therefore either have to learn to live life on the outer rim OR fight our way to be encompassed by society’s affirmation.
Where it gets scary, however, is when you have lived your whole life WITHIN that perfect center. Once you are at the top, where do you go? There is this ever looming stress and fear that one must place on themself to avoid being shunned to the outer circle. Do whatever it takes to stay within the center, because everything is wonderful here: you can go about your day with very few comments from others about your health, you can fly on airplanes without the anxiety of a mean seat partner or small seat & belt, you can have your actual ailments considered with concern, you can get doors held open for you, you can get dates that won’t just sleep with you in secret because they don’t want their friends to know they find a fat body attractive, you can post a picture of you wearing sweatpants covered in grease stains while shoveling pizza in your mouth without receiving death threats or being “harpooned”, and I could go on and on and on about the benefits.
So, imagine, if the thing standing between these amazing benefits and being shunned to the outer circle (essentially the opposite of all of those things mentioned above) was gaining weight. How hard would you try every fucking day to make sure that never happened??? How hard would you make sure to count your calories or watch your pant size? How hard would you push yourself at the gym to maintain the physique that gives you the compliments you receive daily about #bodygoals ? It has to be extremely stressful to grow up being told how perfect your body is, how beautiful you are, etc. knowing that at any time, that could change. Waiting for that shoe to drop. Then where would the compliments come from? Would people still love you the same?
I remember in my geography class, my teacher told us that we would all be starting the course with 100% and it would be up to us to work hard to keep it there. I remember putting pressure on myself with every test, assignment, quiz, attendance record, I had to be perfect to avoid getting anything less. I sacrificed my sleep, my social life, and even the activities I loved because I didn’t want to be labelled “average”. I can imagine this is kind of what starting life in a societally acceptable body might be like. You have to do whatever it takes to keep that body societally acceptable or fear the backlash of being moved closer to the outer fringe. I can’t help by think about the scene in Mean Girls where Regina George has gained weight and the only thing that fits her are her sweatpants. As a result, she is ousted from the group for not adhering to the “rules” of their little society.
I can see how that would be fucking stressful. I can see how frustrating it must be for thinner women to feel like they can’t talk about their body image issues because fat women will respond with “HOW DO YOU THINK I FEEEEEL?” and roll their eyes. I can also understand the fear of gaining weight that will push you outside of the inner circle.
When I was in Korea I had unintentionally (turned intentionally) lost over 100lbs….SUDDENLY, I WAS IN THE INNER CIRCLE. I was able to walk in to almost any store and find something that fit my body, I was getting compliments on compliments about how good I looked and how I was an inspiration. At my check up at the doctor, I was the one that brought up the BMI and my doctor was like, “you don’t need to worry about that” etc. I finally had a taste of what was so magical about “BELONGING”. But ironically, I was doing the same stuff I had when I had to keep that 100%: All I focused on was maintaining or even continuing to lose weight, I was the worst person to eat dinner with because I would be critical and snotty about other people’s food choices, I stopped hanging out with people only because “people who hang around fat people, get fat” (a common study athletic trainers and diet companies LOVE to throw around), I was working out 6 hours a day, I even steeped to taking diet pills. WHATEVER IT TOOK TO STAY IN THE CIRCLE.
But then I gained weight. Slowly at first, but then quicker (probably because of the shit I put my body through to get as low as I did) and now here I am. Suddenly, people went from complimenting my diligence and ability to be aspirational to complimenting my “pretty face” again. Suddenly, my body was under scrutiny from my doctor. I started getting glares on the airplane again. Thankfully it was within this time that I also found the body positivity movement and began my education.
But I can understand how fearful it would be to have literally everything at your fingertips and the world tells you that you can keep it, but only as long as you continue to be small, remain small, and fit into the box of what society needs - because I did and then I lost it. It makes sense why the shame around BECOMING fat is like a loud shriek to the world, while the shame of always existing as fat is old news and therefore, like a dull hum that permeates the existence of a fat person’s life. I don’t know what was worse, to be honest: the constant mean comments made before I lost weight or the lack of compliments I receive after gaining the weight back. One is embarassing, one is consistent. And embarassment/shame is one of the things our caveman brains detest the most!
“She let herself go” “What happened to her?” “Gotta get back to the old body” When you are always fat, your body is just always your body, it’s not NEW or OLD, it just IS.
I believe that the fear of BECOMING fat, is more stressful than it is to EXIST as fat.
[again, self-inflicted, NOT systemic]
So what do we do about it? How do we help each other and bridge the gap? Well, I think for all of us, we need to listen more to all the people around us. We need to get our fucking egos out of the way. NOT EVERYTHING IS ABOUT US. If my size 8 friend has a grievance about her body, I am STILL going to be empathetic towards her instead of jumping in with “WELL AT LEAST YOU CAN FIT IN AN AIRPLANE SEAT”. Sometimes, it’s not about me. And another person’s fear of fat, IS. NOT. ABOUT. ME. We definitely need to acknowledge where we stand in terms of our privilege (and I know people hate that fucking word), but this will allow us to educate each other and learn more from each other.
While I am a fat woman, I am a mid-fat, cis, white, able bodied woman so I have more privilege than a lot of my sisters, so when they need to talk I. NEED. TO. LISTEN. People that are further out on the outer fringe of societal standards for whatever reason can see the gaps in the system that oppress women more than those that BENEFIT from that system. We all need to work to break down fatphobia and the fear of fat. It causes undo stress and we already have enough shit to worry about. Here are a few ways that we can ALL (regardless of our size) help dismantle the fear of fat:
Educate yourself on the HAES (Health At Every Size Movement) - learn about the new studies and science that is coming out in regards to health and how body size factors (or doesn’t!) into it
Read books about marginalized life experiences that are different than yours - find authors that are women of color, have disabilities, are fat, are trans, queer, etc. Learn about experiences that don’t benefit from your level of privilege.
Share articles that work to dismantle fatphobia & stereotypes of large bodies - if you are a thin person you have a larger platform (whether or not you know it) where you have more respect, so people will take the articles more seriously.
When someone verbalizes and shares their experiences about their body or perpetuating diet culture, instead of getting angry or rolling your eyes or joining - get curious. Ask questions like “Oh, when do you think you started thinking that thought?” “Where do you think that comes from?” “Is there a way that this body helps you right now?” etc.
Educate yourself. Stop expecting other people to educate you and take initiative. Learn everything you can about the people that are different from you.
Follow more diverse bodies on social media. You will see that bodies don’t get in the way of people achieving awesome shit and this will start to break down the stereotypes we have. Fat people aren’t lazy (I am a fat person and I work hard than most people I know!), fatness doesn’t prohibit you from being athletic or doing movement. Fat bodies are just as musically talented than thin bodies, they just don’t get the representation because of their size. etc.
I said that this was my way of analyzing my thoughts, and I just had one. Maybe it’s not that fat women or thin women experience the stress of fatphobia more or less than the other, but rather, DIFFERENTLY. The thing is, we all currently live our lives in the shadow of fatphobia, some more than others and at the end of the day the stress women place on themselves when it comes to their bodies takes up so much mental and emotional energy that we need to be liberated from it. Regardless of size, we are taught that we should fear becoming, existing, and staying fat and I believe the reason for this is that it is the ultimate distraction. If we can spend most of our days questionning our bodies, then we spend less time questionning the systems around us. So, let’s get to work on dismantling fatphobia, so we can get to work dismantling the rest of the bullshit that keeps us down.
