Another op-ed about fat shaming graces the pages of the paper of record, because . . . we’re a nation of overweight people and we want to stop feeling badly about it. It’s now a thing, called “fat shaming,” and it’s wrong because any word that diminishes a person’s self-esteem plus “shaming” is wrong.
Most people are startled by my unapologetic use of “fat” to describe not only the heroine of my novel, but my own body. To a majority of people, fat can never be anything but an insult. So I’ve explained again and again that fat activists use the word proudly in an effort to destigmatize not only the word, but by extension, the fat body.
By “most people,” fat activist Sarai Walker probably means most people she comes across, who give enough of a shit about the issue to spend their time paying attention to the self-absorption of fat activists. I say that only because “most people” couldn’t care less.
But having shed over 30 pounds in the past few months (Atkins, if you must know, and I don’t care what you think, as it works for me), I have some authority to speak to the issue. It’s not that I was never thin, but over the past decade, my careful eating habits served only to delay the inevitable accumulation of fat around my middle. It caught up with me. With a vengeance.
Truth be told, I never reached the point of morbid obesity, but I did reach the point where my clothing didn’t fit and it was uncomfortable. It wasn’t a matter of appearance, as I’m well past the point of being concerned about my attractiveness to others. Dr. SJ, on the other hand, had a few unkind words to say about my slovenliness. And it couldn’t have been very healthy, though it’s not as if that was foremost on my mind.
The fact is, I was fat and knew it. And when Dr. S.J. asked me to deal with it, I did. She was right, and I knew that too. At 30 pounds lighter, I’m back into my old clothing and feel a lot better.
A few years ago, I posted a link on Twitter to a 1969 interview with Jim Morrison, in which he said, “Fat is beautiful.” Minutes after posting the link, a friend responded angrily that being fat is unhealthy because it causes high blood pressure and other health problems. This response, I told the audience, is an example of what I call “Fat Derangement Syndrome,” where even people who consider themselves to be open-minded, critical thinkers become outraged if fat is spoken about in any positive way.
So Jim Morrison was a chubby chaser? Who knew? But calling “critical thinkers” “outraged” for responding to a pretty stupid argument doesn’t give rise to “Fat Derangement Syndrome,” any more than you suffer from “Fat Validation Syndrome.” You raise a false argument and they call bullshit. If you don’t want someone to disagree with you, don’t justify your fat.
The usual litany of reasons why it’s bad to be fat, that it’s unhealthy and unsightly, are both true and false. There are fat people who are healthy, and thin people who are not. There are fat people who are attractive, at least to people like Jim Morrison, who find fat people attractive, and thin people who are butt ugly. That said, the notion that fat is beautiful isn’t going to fool anyone, except a fat person in desperate need of validation without having to put in the effort to do anything about it.
Talking with people about my book taught me that we might think we live in an age when we can’t be shocked, but a novel about a 300-pound woman who learns to love her body as it is — without losing weight — is a major taboo. Since I dared not only to write this story, but also to appear in public as a fat woman myself, refusing to apologize for my existence or to hide my body in a burlap sack, I became an unwitting ambassador for the revolutionary idea that there’s nothing wrong with being fat and female.
Not to be disagreeable, but it’s not a revolutionary idea because nobody cares that much about you except you. Do it for yourself or don’t do it for yourself. And what it has to do with your being female is one of those female things. You want to obsess over weight? Whatever. It’s like caring about shoes.
But none of this justifies the notion that fat is somehow a disability immune from criticism, recognizing that the only time another person’s girth is of any meaning to you is when it affects you. A fat person can’t get a date? Not your problem. Mind your own business. If you don’t want to date him, don’t date him. Who cares?
Sit in an airplane seat, however, and your weight matters. I’ve had the experience of a guy sitting in the seat next to me, where his size demanded a seat and a half, minimum. No, when your fat spills over the arm rest onto my seat, it’s no longer just your problem. It’s mine, and I don’t give a damn about your explanations or excuses. Your fat belongs in your seat. If the laws of physics make that impossible, it doesn’t become my problem. I will not endure a flight with your fat atop me.
Coming home from Paris a little over a month ago, the fellow in the row in front of me was huge. As he struggled to get out of the row to head for the lav, he lost balance and went hard into the seat in front of me. The seat back flexed about a foot beyond its fully reclined position, and I thought I was history. That the seat didn’t collapse was a testament to airline seat construction, though the spillage on my lap of the red stuff proffered as food was unpleasant for the rest of the flight.
As the fellow from the row in front of me made his way back from the lavatory, I watched as he waddled down the aisle, jostling every person, on both sides, out of necessity. No, he couldn’t help it. No, he wasn’t being intentionally rude. It was just physics.
Are we to be sympathetic? Was huge his choice? Was huge not his choice, but not something he cared enough about to change? Was there some other reason that couldn’t be helped? Beats me. I didn’t ask, and I know better than to assume. Some people will be sympathetic, realizing that a fat person can’t become unfat just because his fat happened to impact you at any given moment.
However, you’re not responsible for his being fat either, so how does it become your burden to suffer because of someone else’s fat? Before I lost the 30 pounds, I didn’t lose sleep over my fat, but I didn’t blame anyone else for not being sufficiently accepting of me. It was my fat. If I had a problem with it, it was my problem to fix. And if my fat caused someone else a problem, it was my fault. Sorry, but I get the blame for what I do. No one else. And that includes being fat.
Of course, now that I’ve lost 30 pounds, and I’m not nearly as fat as I was a few months ago, it’s easy for me to say. But then, I did the work to lose it, and I didn’t lie to myself that I should somehow be fat and proud. I was fat and complacent. Now I’m not. And I’m good with that.
So why care? After all, not even Dr. SJ calls me fatso anymore. Because fat is nothing like skin color nor blindness, religion nor genitalia. While it’s needlessly rude to gratuitously make mention of a person’s weight, as who gives a damn what you think and you’re just being an asshole, fat is not off the table. When your fat spills over my arm rest, then it becomes my business. If it hurts your feelings because it’s fat shaming, that’s too bad.
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I googled the author. She looks like she would be hot if she lost weight.
Don’t be weightist like that!
Q: How are fat chicks like mopeds?
A: They’re both fun to ride until one of your friends sees you on one.
Why are you doing this to me?
Large frames were also a problem in the 17th century. Jonathan Swift does not have your courtesy, but does include several of your post’s themes in only four sentences. Tale of a Tub: “A plague confound you (said he,) for an overgrown sloven; and who, in the devil’s name, I wonder, helps to make up the crowd half so much as yourself? Don’t you consider, with a pox, that you take up more room with that carcass than any five here? Is not the place as free for us as for you? Bring your own guts to a reasonable compass, and be d—n’d, and then I’ll engage we shall have room enough for us all.”
Having experienced the same with the Atkins diet, I wish you the joy of your lost fat.
scott, SCOTT!! Listen now and act! Only fly business or first class and you wouldn’t be writing this post.
You have to have a lotta miles. I spend 20% of my day reading your blog, 30% losing money, and 50% reading mileage blogs. Somewhere in there I managed to go from 160 to 250 in 6 years.
I’ll get you up front, and you are going to need to be there after eating so much cheese with your pears.
\Oh, and I just have a quick question………..
I didn’t book the Paris trip. I had no say in the cabin. It was a nightmare.
Broad clearly hasn’t read Candide
Kvetch Kvetch Kvetch
https://youtu.be/JYiu3GqUfjc
I’m ridiculously fat.
I’ve tried and failed numerous times to lose significant amounts of weight, only to eventually hit a wall and start creeping back up on the scale, usually ending up at a higher place than where I started. It’s terribly frustrating and, while I know it is in my power to fix, I can’t seem to do it. If my vice was drinking, or smoking, I could just stop doing those things. It’s a little different when your vice is food.
Being fat is not something from which one should derive pride or satisfaction. Nor should others be forced to ignore and accept others who interfere with them. Some people, however, can certainly be needlessly cruel. For reasons unknown, there are people who take time out of their day to insult someone just for the hell of it.
I don’t ask for others to accommodate my weight and will, when possible, go out of my way to try and minimize my impact on others. For example, on a crowded subway train, I’m going to end up standing because I dno’t want to take up two spaces on the bench. In situations where there are crowds, I’ll stay at the back of the line. I pick the super-undesirable seats at the far corner in a theater.
Air travel is one of those situations that I often can’t avoid, so I’ve invested a non-trivial amount of time and effort into making certain I can get upgraded to first, where I’m less likely to bother others, or to buy an extra seat. While I can fit into an economy seat, I know it’s a squeeze; nobody wants to sit next to me. Hell, I wouldn’t want to sit next to me. Sometimes, this means I end up buying an extra seat or buying up from the lowest fares out of pocket. Being fat isn’t cheap.
To add a bit of levity, though, I’ll share the time that my weight was able to become a weapon, wielded by an angry airport desk clerk. The flight was from CLT back to NYC – just a short hop in a small plane. There was nowhere to be upgraded, so I bought an extra seat and had an entire two-seat row at the back of the plane to myself. As sometimes happens, the weather was terrible and several other flights had been cancelled. This flight was a go, but it was the last one of the night. It was booked full.
Some super-entitled, angry woman had berated every staffmember at the airport all day, demanding that she must get back to NYC for some urgent activity. Lives would be lost. Empires would fall. Angry letters would be written naming and shaming those who refused her requests. She was, after all, very, very important.
At the gate, the agent paged me by name. She asked why I had two seats and I explained (as if that was necessary). She said that she would have to refund one of the tickets as their policy required the first seats bumped to be any empty seats, even if they were paid. She apologized profusely but made it clear nothing could be done. if I wanted, she could bump me completely and accommodate me the next day, but I didn’t want to delay my own return. She gave me the pick of the aisle or the window. I went with the aisle.
They didn’t give the entitled woman her ticket until the last minute, just before the boarding door was going to close, and when she got on the plane and went all the way back, only to see the last empty seat next to me, she started to huff and puff, working herself up into ever-increasing levels of anger while I stood to let her take her seat. As soon as I sat down, she started poking at the call button, telling the attendant that I was bothering her and that it was unacceptable that i was on the plane. While she was speaking across me, she never spoke a word to me. She got loud, screamed about “this fat bastard’ and other stuff. I was mortified and angry – I’d done so much planning to avoid this exact thing. The gate agent, who had followed the woman on the plane, asked us both to step off.
I grabbed my bag and went to the jet bridge. It took the woman considerably longer to be extricated. When she finally was out of the plane, she wouldn’t calm down to talk with the captain or the agent. Police were called. She ended up getting removed from the flight, which caused the sort of reaction you’d expect from such a person. The agent was grinning from ear to ear the entire time.
The agent apologized, offered me a voucher that more than covered the cost of the flight, then allowed me to re-board, where I had a private row waiting for me. I’m uncertain if the agent knew what would happen and planned it that way (or what might have occurred if more than some angry words had been exchanged), but I did get to fly for the low, low price of $0 and a small bit of dignity.
First, I’ve met you, so let’s get real: your “ridiculously fat” description is a bit over the top. You’re fat, but you’re no Jabba the Hut. Second, you’re also active, so it’s not like you can’t get around and do whatever you need to do. Third, you know what you are and do what you have to do so that your problem doesn’t become anyone else’s problem. That’s really all there is to it. Beyond that, ain’t nobody’s business but yours, for better or worse.
Of course, you also have one advantage over most people, that you’re also very smart. At least you can lose weight. They can’t lose stupid. And great karma story.
“Madam, I may be fat, but you are an intolerable harridan. And I can go on a diet.”
TL; dr. Who cares about you and your fat? This is a law bog.
You know, Bill, sometimes there’s a shred of insight in your comment. Most times, it’s gibberish. And sometimes, it’s just pointlessly wrong, rude and mean-spirited. If you’re going to be an asshole, no more comments. Got it?
*facepalms*
Basic rule of blogs: the moderator enforces the rules. Not drive-by commenters. Some places I post, you can actually get banned if you “play moderator” when you’re just another commenter.
Yes, I understand the irony of me lecturing someone else on not playing moderator. Consider this an informational post, as I am not the owner nor a moderator of this blog.
“I’ve tried and failed numerous times to lose significant amounts of weight, only to eventually hit a wall and start creeping back up on the scale, usually ending up at a higher place than where I started. It’s terribly frustrating and, while I know it is in my power to fix, I can’t seem to do it.”
I’ve tried and failed numerous times to quit drinking, only to eventually start back, usually ending up drinking more than when I started. It’s terribly frustrating and, while I know it is in my power to fix, I can’t seem to do it.
I’ve tried and failed numerous times to quit drugging, only to eventually start back, usually ending up doing more than when I started. It’s terribly frustrating and, while I know it is in my power to fix, I can’t seem to do it.
Is it “a little different” because you need food to live? Don’t we need to hydrate as well?
SHG says you’re a smart guy, Mark. Then you should know it’s all the same. Good luck.
Sometimes there are metabolic or hormonal issues that keep people from losing weight. It’s unwise to judge other people when you don’t know all the facts.
The original comment does not make it seem such, as demonstrated in my other examples, but thanks for your judgmental response.
“It’s terribly frustrating and, while I know it is in my power to fix, I can’t seem to do it.”
Food addiction is just as real as drug and alcohol addiction. If that’s the issue, the same part of the brain is affected. Should someone decide it’s possible to fix, but he or she just can’t do it no matter how hard they try, there is good help available. Only the person can make that call.
But for judgmental responses, there would be no point in responding at all.
One of my kids was returning from overseas and fell asleep between flights at O’Hare. She woke up disoriented, but, upon looking around, realized that she was back in the USA, seeing so many large folks.
I’m an RN. We’re seeing the “thin edge” of an obesity trend that will have more profound consequences in overall health care costs as we see more and more very large people getting frailer, opiod and alcohol addicted, demented, etc., There is an entire Bariatric dimension in medical care that didn’t exist when I started out. Real consequences for everyone, particularly front-line care givers.
I never thought that I’d agree with Dean Wormer, but “fat, drunk and stupid” is no way to got through life.
Congrats on the weight loss.
But I’m informed that every inch of us is perfect from the bottom to the top.
Unless you’re thin, in which case you’re a stick figure silicon Barbie doll.
4 quick things:
1. This is an important issue that weighs heavily on us as a nation. No pun. Seriously.
2. Especially for in-shape, healthy, good-looking half-bright shallow white people. There are lots of us. Trust me.
3. And especially for the airline industry.
4. The New Stews? They be puttin’ the hurt on my vision, Man.
JDH
” Because fat is nothing like skin color nor blindness, religion nor genitalia. While it’s needlessly rude to gratuitously make mention of a person’s weight, as who gives a damn what you think and you’re just being an asshole, fat is not off the table.”
What’s wrong with insulting someone’s religion? When someone insists that God doesn’t want us around those gays (despite his love for them) or that God gave Israel to the Jews or that God doesn’t want us mixing with the opposite sex or that we have to teach fairy tales in school, we can’t call bullshit?
Those are suspect classifications for discrimination per Title VII, which prohibits job discrimination on the basis of, inter alia, religion.
Yes, but even though I cannot discriminate or harass people on the basis of religion, I can still take issue with their religion’s manifestations. Action does not get a free pass because it is religiously based.
Of course.