“Ugh. Look at how fat that kid is.”
Update: *Someone requested that I put an ED trigger warning on this and the comments so far. So here it is. Always happy to add trigger warnings if you drop me a line* S x
Female One: ”Ugh. Look at how fat that kid is.” (Referring to a kid about aged 8 in the pool)
Female Two: “It’s fucking disgusting you know. Look you can see his whole body wobbling in the water” (laugh)
Female One: ”He’s got boobs too. (eye roll) Surprised he doesn’t sink”
Female Two: “I just don’t get how parent’s can let their kids get that fat. Like, if that was my kid I would hire him a personal trainer or something. Or have him on lettuce all day (laugh). It’s not like they don’t know that it’s bad for you.”
Female Two: “I just reckon it’s abusive. If you want to get fat then go ahead. But you should know that that will kill your kid”
Female One: ”My friend (name) is a nurse and she said that she see’s kids every day with diabetes. But she said the parent’s are in denial. Like often they are so fat themselves they don’t care or they think it’s normal or something. It’s disgusting.”
Female Two: “Sometimes I feel like going up to parents and given them a piece of my mind”
Female One: “Really?”
Female Two: “Yeah, because someone needs to like tell them they are killing their kids, you know.”
Female Three: “It’s probably attitudes like those that are killing their kids actually.”
Female Two: “I’m sorry?”
Female Three: “Attitudes like yours. Probably causing more problems for kids like that, than the fat that they are carrying” (Nice friendly smile)
Female One and Two look a bit uncomfortable.
Female One: “We are just having a private conversation here.”
Female Three: “Yes I know, and I’m really sorry to interrupt you both, but I just think what your saying is crap to be honest. Do you know what one of the main health risk factors for kids who are that weight is?”
Female One and Two (silence)
Female Three: (Very reasonable tone) “It’s actually suicide. And do you know why that is? Because people like you, and probably your kids who pick up your attitudes towards kids like that, make fat kids like that feel so shit about themselves that they don’t want to live”.
Female One: “I’m not bullying anyone!”
Female Three: “No. But you just made a bunch of jokes about that kids weight didn’t you?”
Female One: “No I didn’t!”
Female Three: “Look I’m not looking for a fight. I just think sometimes we can get really critical of people who are overweight really for no good reason. That fat kid is probably no more disgusting or unhealthy than that skinny one swimming next to him.”
Female Two: “That is ridiculous. Of course the fat kid is going to be more unhealthy. Everyone knows that if you are too fat you are going to get diseases.”
Female Three: “Okay so what is it that makes you think that about that kid? I’m assuming your kids are in the pool too? So they are doing the same activities right? What’s to say that that kid is less active than yours? Or that his parent’s care less about him?”
Female One: “I never said that!”
Female Two: “Well my kids won’t be getting out of the pool and drinking coke and eating chips. Bet that kid will be.”
Female Three: “What do you base that assumption on?”
Female Two: “Because parent’s of fat kids feed their kids shit, and then complain that it is someone elses problem when their kids get bullied at school or get diabetes or need to go to fat camp or something. I don’t see why taxes should pay for them being irresponsible parents.”
Female One: “Oh and when their teeth rot because they have been fed so much sugary food”
Female Three: “I think you might have been watching a bit much television to be honest. That really isn’t the case at all”
Female One: “Oh so you think you are some kind of expert or something do you?”
Female Three: “No, look, I’m just a mum. But I just think that we can unfairly judge people because of their size. And I think we probably give people who are fat a really hard time. I can’t imagine what it must be like to have a body that is made fun of all the time. And I just don’t know if that is all that helpful really. Maybe it just encourages people into withdrawing from activity? Surely we would want to really encourage and support all kids to be healthy and to be active no matter what their size. I would certainly want my kids to know that there are a range of different bodies with different shapes and sizes and that bodies can do amazing things even if they aren’t pencil thin…..”
Female Two: “Like be a sumo wrestler” (Laughs)
Female Three: “Well, I would hate them to think that society values one body type more than another, or that it is okay to pick on someone because he or she happens to be a bit heavier than everyone else.”
Female Two: “Oh don’t get me wrong, I think they should be exercising all the time.”
Female Three: “They…..?”
Female Two: “Like the fat kids.”
Female Three: “Riiiight…”
Female One: “Yeah, or like they could have Biggest Loser type things for them.”
Female Three. “Don’t you think that would be a bit dangerous for kids? And all the people on the Biggest Loser tend to put the weight back on. I’m not sure that would be good in the long term for them.”
Female One. “Yeah that’s true”
Female Two: “It’s coz they can’t be bothered.”
Akward silence….
Female Three: “Anyway, look thanks for listening to my point of view. I know it isn’t all that fashionable to stick up for fat people, but they are people at the end of the day too. And I just reckon if we were a bit less judging and a bit more inclusive and supportive there might be a few more kids out there that felt a bit happier about themselves”.
Female Two: “Yeah I see what you are saying.You are probably right. But as long as they don’t think that it’s okay to be that weight though.”
END
Themocracy
GAH… that’s just awful. Female one and two were so tightly wrapped up in their hatred/disgust/discomfort of fat people that they couldn’t see what they were doing or saying. Bleah
The only thing I can say to Female Two is “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!”
But sometimes it doesn’t click until it’s stewed in your brain for a few days, so there is a glimmer of hope even in these sorts of situations.
Yes, these are the women (and unfortunately my mother was one of them) who created that feeling in me of being lesser. As a child and teenager, every time I looked at myself in the mirror, or saw the look ‘those’ women gave me, I would feel ill and nauseous. Thank goodness for being an adult and having a chance to feel differently now.
My husband and many of my friends NEVER played sport as children and look/looked ‘normal’, yet I played basketball, tennis, badminton, indoor cricket and swam and have been overweight by whole life. Thank goodness for the innocent eyes of my brother, who would play cricket or tennis in the street with me every night until dark, or else I would have missed those joyous experiences and learning all those physical skills
Thanks for the wonderful blog Samantha, and the tweets!
Thanks Elizabeth. I don’t know if I’m right or not, but sometimes I think it is easier to stand up to this sort of stuff when you are not fat. I don’t know why I think that (would be happy to be proven wrong!). But I think I have extraordinary thin privilege especially in these situations.
I must admit I never would have said anything in a situation like this had I not heard Nick Perkins (over at Nicholosophy and Axis of Fat) tell a story at a conference of how he was teased when he exercised when he was younger. I’m hoping he might share that story here one day! That story has absolutely stuck with me (I still tear up whenever I think about it). And I thought to myself that day that I would rather always try and give an alternative side of the story than not.
I should also say that I haven’t always had the views I have now about fat. I probably had the same old prejudices as Female One and Two before I started researching this issue. But my research participants and the FA community have 100% changed my attitudes towards fatness. And I hope even in just a little way I can change other peoples attitudes too.
Sam xx
It takes real guts to confront what “everybody knows to be true”, but thanks for having them and sewing the seeds of doubt about their received wisdom. Maybe next time they see you on TV there’ll be a glimmer of recognition and perhaps even a shift in opinion.
“Everybody knows” – it’s a dangerous phrase. I know I’m guilty of using it too, sometimes. It’s really starting to raise a red flag in my mind. After all, everybody knows that girls can’t do science and everybody knows that non-white people aren’t as evolved and everybody knows that the earth is flat and everybody knows that meat turns into maggots…. Everybody has never been a very reliable source of information.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by kathleen dillon rdms and Nicholas Perkins, doc samantha. doc samantha said: "Look at how fat that kid is" http://t.co/AtD3NxN New blog at Discourse. [...]
Goodness gracious. You? Are my shero.
My kids are thin and I am a US size 14 (which many USians think of as “not fat”, at least un-fat enough that I am listened to with what seems openness) and I also think thin privilege helps in convos like this. Problem is, many skinny people don’t self-educate and don’t stand up. Thank you for being someone who does.
Great blog… If they want to say something think first and be
sensitive to others feelings..
There’s a reason for this:
Fat people aren’t protected from hate crimes or hate speech, nor, for that matter, are smokers. You can thus use them to make yourself feel better, no matter how pathetic your own life is.
You can do the following, with impunity, esp. to fat people:
1. Throw them out of gyms.
2. Let them stay, but humiliate them loudly & publicly, as noted above, until they leave on their own.
3. Humiliate them for perceived deficiencies in exercise classes, while encouraging thin people who are often doing far worse.
4. Yell epithets at them if they’re walking, jogging, or biking beside the road or even on trails specifically made for that purpose; threaten to harm them if they return, & carry out the threat if they do. Cops, when dealing with complaints like this from fat people, simply tell them not to walk/jog/bike in those locations, & the bullies know this.
5. Jump in on top of them in swimming pools, holding them underwater until they’re close to death, bring them back up for air, & tell them if they don’t leave, they won’t be brought up for air next time, as the lifeguard enforces the bully’s demands. If the fat person happens to be a good enough swimmer to turn the tables long enough to escape, ban them from all public facilities for trying to harm another “innocent” patron.
6. Watch every bite you eat, & criticize it publicly, while eating food clearly far less healthy than what you’re eating.
7. At the doctor’s office, far too often, if you are dieting & reach a plateau, accuse you of “cheating,” & tell you when you’re tempted to cheat, to look at yourself naked in a full length mirror so you can see how ugly you are, & you won’t cheat.
8. For kids, humiliate them for failures while encouraging normal size kids; target them in games like dodgeball; accuse them of cheating if they succeed (if the PE teacher’s in a good mood, which IMO isn’t possible, attribute it to a “fluke” even if the feat is repeated), broadcast their weight whenever possible, making sure to emphasize what they SHOULD weigh.
ALL of this has happened to me. I even talked to one of those “take any case on contingency” shysters once & was told they wouldn’t take the case against the pool, because juries are unsympathetic to fat people, & so the case was lost up front.
The medical “profession” takes a “blame the victim” approach, refusing to see that most people who win eating competitions are normal size to thin; that obesity is occurring in 3rd world countries in people who scavenge in dumps for small amounts of food, that not everyone who consumes 4-10 thousand calories a day will gain weight, nor will everyone who eats as low as 500 cal/day & exercises 1-4 hours/day plus leads an active lifestyle will lose weight. Yes, some are obese from overeating, but some are not, & yet the only research is into surgical & dietary starvation diets, not metabolic processes or even invasion by bacteria, viruses, prions (like what causes “mad cow”), or even a man-made combination (H1N1′s original description, which was quickly hushed up, met the criteria as man-made). Just as with sickle cell anemia & its cousin thalassemia, multiple sclerosis, & more recently, fibromyalgia & CFS, medicine chooses to discard a medical explanation until someone’s brave enough to force it on them, & when that happens, to discredit any scientist/physician & associated staff as crackpots & quacks. Yes, bad health habits need to be corrected, but there are plenty of those in the thin population, including the promiscuous sexual behavior that’s responsible for skyrocketing cases of genital herpes, HIV/AIDS, & multidrug resistant sexually transmitted diseases; an explosion in abortions & use of “morning after” pills rather than use of contraceptives (or better yet, some of the self-control in sexual matters that they expect fat people to employ with food intake). No, spreading disease sexually is fine; aborting the consequences (human life) of their promiscuity is their “right;” those addicted to drugs & alcohol are “sick” & “need help & understanding,” but the possibility of addiction to food is “laughable,” yet I have never seen a fat person perform a mugging or an armed robbery for food. In fact, unlike addicts, fat people WORK & PAY TAXES on which these leeches live, getting disabilility for addiction while fat people whose chronic illnesses progress by being “treated” solely with 1000 calorie diets are denied help because “they caused their own problem”! The same could be said of many HIV/AIDS patients, but they’re not “fatandugly” (one word in the eyes of most), so they get help.
Which brings me to this: Our society WANTS FAT PEOPLE TO STAY FAT, They ENJOY being legally able to hurt someone w/ complete impunity from criminal or civil consequences. They LIKE hearing about fat people who commit suicide. They ENJOY watching fat people struggle with their weight, & those who can stay slim while pigging out all the time, enjoy rubbing that in while making fun of how we look when we try to exercise, play games, or be active. It’s all LEGAL; I’d bet vehicular homicide charges would be dropped, if they were ever preferred in the first place, if the victim was fat & exercising. The victim’s family would probably be told to fix the perp’s car or face jail time, & the perp would probably be given some sort of award for “beautifying” the roadside.
Right now, though, THIN PEOPLE ARE A MINORITY since 65% of the population is overweight or obese. In democracies, MAJORITY RULES. It’s time for fat people to DEMAND hate crime protection & make sure it happens-there are enough fat legislators to throw their weight around (I know, bad pun) & get that inclusion passed. FAT PEOPLE, WE’RE A MAJORITY, LET’S ACT LIKE ONE!
Hi!
Thanks so much for the comment! I think you win the prize for longest comment ever here on Discourse! I think you are right about collective action. And I think we are starting to see that happen. The blogosphere and Twitter have been amazing places for people to come together and challenge the inherent biases that people have about obesity and fatness. If you aren’t on Twitter, you might like to join. There is a fantastic community there!
Hope to see you back here again!
S xx
Massive kudos for speaking out, its not an easy thing to do. The fat kid at the pool is mine when we’re at the pool and it makes my blood boil thinking of the people out there who would destroy his enjoyment of swimming, something he loves and will do for hours on end if allowed. Thank you.
I just had a little cry while reading this. I was that fat kid. And I HEARD when people spoke like that. So I stopped swimming. And I started sticking my fingers down my throat. I started taking extra Sudafed (stolen from my mother) to make myself “hyper” so that I could exercise more. I started abusing laxatives. I started starving myself, and “chewing and spitting”.
Samantha, thank you. Thank you for speaking up. Thank you for not just sitting back and letting them think that the whole world agrees with their ignorance. Thank you for treating fat people like human beings who deserve respect and to be able to live their lives with dignity and fairness.
I hope that they weren’t the only ears that heard your words.
It’s so awful, but of course we’ve all seen it, heard it, been the subject of it, or our kids or friends have.
The thing I just can’t get a grip on is how “health” campaigns are a) Doing more harm than good and b) Are a vehicle for such fat hate. “Of course if you eat bad food you’ll get fat” then = “Of course you’ll be thinner if you eat good food/exercise”.
I can vouch just like City Dweller does that this is SIMPLY NOT TRUE. Inside I’ve been a “fat girl” my whole life, but in truth I’ve only been overweight the last few years – coincidentally, when I’ve made a concerted effort to be extremely healthy… whoops by that I mean THIN – the funny thing is, when I was thin, I was physically a wreck – never ate properly, alcohol, drugs, eating disorder, hated exercise – AND I always felt fat anyway, so I never enjoyed my life!
This is what these women and everyone like them do. They use the distortion of “health” to suck the enjoyment out of their targets’ lives. Guess what, you can get targeted as fat even when you’re not. I was. When I was 62kg (on my 173cm frame) I felt WORSE about myself than I do now.
So what does that tell you? These attitudes are what is unhealthy! You cannot and should not judge a person’s entire life and wellbeing based on your perceptions. Do you see every tipsy peson who walks into a bar as an alcoholic? No, of course not, but you’ll judge any overweight person going into Maccas, like I do maybe every two months when the PMT rages so hard I can hate myself enough to put up with people thinking things like “no wonder she’s fat, look what she eats”. Ugh.
Mental health is the key to physical health, if people were truly concerned about “health” not just “thinness” they’d not attack people’s very quality of life and self worth. I’m sure there are plenty of thin people out there who eat crap and don’t exercise wondering why they’re lauded for absolutely nothing, especially if they’re self worth is low too. Maybe they should put their thin privilege to as good a use as Sam does.
Great post! May I gently request an ED trigger warning for it?
Yes of course!
The attitudes of those two women make me feel sick. In fact, I am tearing up writing this. I had to listen to the mothers of my class mates making comments along these lines. I had to listen to grown women laughing at me because I was the fat kid. I was exluded by those women, ostracised by them and made to feel worthless and useless. These sorts of attitudes make me so angry I don’t even know what to say.
Me too, Bri….but, God help the person that I hear speaking that way about my kid. I don’t think I would react very well. Bitches!!!
I’m glad you spoke up. This is so disturbing.
GRR. STUFF LIKE THIS MAKES ME SO ANGRY.
i totally have been female number 3 in that situation, and really, it just gets my blood boiling.
women and men alike need to stop hating people because of their size, just as it is not acceptable to hate people because of their religion or the color of their skin.
then maybe, just maybe, we can talk about obesity prevention and solutions.
thank you for sharing this!
UGHHHH I recently had a conversation like this with my BF’s sister who is very very thin and unhealthy as a result I assume she has eating and weight issues and her daugthers are now both rail thin. She says her 15 year old daughter is a “picky eater”, no honey, your daughter picked up an eating disorder from YOU.
Anyway we were on a cruise and she made some comments about a large man at another table and I tried to reeducate her like woman number 3 their in your post. She only listened about of politness which really pissed me off. How is this any different than racism, mysogeny, or bigotry of any form?
Thank you Samantha.
I don’t think I would ever interrupt strangers talking like that about fatness simply because I wouldn’t expect to get anywhere. As a fat woman (and a fat mother), I’m sure they would just dismiss me as ‘making excuses’ or, as someone called me on Twitter last night, ‘delusional’. It would be painful to stick my neck out for no gain. And it is painful. I feel sad just reading this; had I heard the conversation myself I would probably have wanted to leave then and there. So thank you for stepping in. I wish more people with socially-acceptable body sizes would do that rather than making fat-hatred into someone else’s problem just because they have the luxury of avoiding it.
Incidentally, I wasn’t a particularly fat kid so it wouldn’t have been me that attracted that kind of commentary at the pool – but I still felt fat (and was called it too) so still suffered from a fat-phobic culture. And that’s the crux of it – we all potentially suffer when these attitudes exist. And that means we are all responsible for pushing back.
Interesting insight into how some people think
I work in aged care, and one of my very difficult residents told me last week that I should work harder during my shift as it wouldn’t hurt me to lose all my extra kilo’s. I bit my tongue and went into the office in tears (which is not ideal when you are the Team Leader on that shift!). I was a very active child/teen and into my 20′s. I now still swim twice a week and walk 2-3 times a week, but was diagnosed with a hormonal condition in my mid 20′s, that is now getting harder and harder to control as I get older. I don’t tell anyone there is a reason for my struggle, I should not have to justify it to anyone, but just because I carry the weight and don’t talk about it, doesn’t mean that looks and comments don’t hurt like hell. I am overweight, not obese, and I struggle enough with my appearance. Some of my loveliest, most caring friends are obese.
It’s about the person and what they contribute, and clearly a lot more education for the general public.
This makes me so sad…I’m 27 and still get to listen to that sort of prejudice and ignorance virtually every day. And what’s even better – I get to hear the worst insults while I’m out exercising.
“Keep running, fattie”
“Earthquake”
“Taking up enough room there you fat…(don’t wish to write the word I was called at the end of this insult)”
I constantly have feel guilt…yes constantly. I feel guilt over my weight, how I look in my clothes, about the food I put in my body, about the exercise I do.
I’m 27, work out 6 days a week. I’m over 6 foot tall, am size 14. I constantly monitor my portion sizes and I’m a vegetarian so eat a lot of pulses, grains, fruit, veggies etc. I have almost zero sugar, limited dairy, 99% of the time I only drink water.
This is my life every DAY. Every day I battle the guilt of what I look like in the mirror.
So frankly women like Female One and Two have helped me have a life time of hating my body.
Thanks Female One, Two and every other woman and man just like you.
*BIG HUGS* I’m so sorry – that’s utterly awful that you have learned to feel that way – I can sympathise a little as I’m shaped with a size 10/12 top half and a size 16 bottom half. I get utterly depressed at the concept of clothes shopping.
If you look after yourself as well as that, you are keeping yourself healthy inside, and that is fantastic! Keep it up and smile that you are treating your body well!
GO TEAM SAMANTHA. I’m so impressed; I’d never be able to remain that cool and calm when talking to people like that. I’d probably swear a lot and then cry. You’re a star.
I’m very impressed that you both spoke up and were polite about it.
There’s a reasonable chance that I’d be silenced by fear of dumping rage on the first two women.
Oh goodness. This made me really, really depressed.
We are in the thick of the panic, aren’t we?
This whole thing (the panic, that is) is going to run its course because of intractable attitudes like illustrated in your post. And I can’t see how it’ll come to a good end. Those of us who speak up are such a tiny fraction compared to fat haters (including fat people who have internalized their oppression).
Frankly, sometimes I really just want to climb into a hole and hide from the entire world. It’s such an effort just to go outside, knowing nearly everyone who looks at me is thinking, “Ew, fat person!” Including friends and family.
Yeah, that hole is sounding pretty nice, right now.
And right, fitting that my Captcha code for this reply is “PLEA”! Please, please fat haters, stop hating me. I tried it your way and almost laid waste to my body and mind. If that’s how I have to live to be accepted by you, then I don’t want to live. Frankly.
“Frankly, sometimes I really just want to climb into a hole and hide from the entire world. It’s such an effort just to go outside, knowing nearly everyone who looks at me is thinking, “Ew, fat person!” Including friends and family.”
I so relate to this. Today it was ridiculously hot weather and I was contemplating staying home because if I went out I’d need to wear something sleeveless (for comfort) and that seemed like too much. I am so thankful for the fat activist community and places like this blog. In the end I did go, and I wore a sleeveless dress, and I rocked it!
Hey that is good to hear, I celebrate your courage and I bet you did rock too.
I help run a three-week school for academics and professionals during the hottest part of the summer here, and for three solid months leading up to it I’m nervous about how I’m going to be treated in my sleeveless shirts and shorter-than-anklelength skirts and dresses.
I’ve had mixed results. I do get a general sense of being treated differently than my thin female BFF who goes to the school with me. I do feel left out of things sometimes. I do feel like I’m getting looks of disgust or that I’m being treated like I’m invisible by my boss (who, to contrast, ‘lights up’ when he sees my thin female colleague).
However, I’ve had some of the best experiences in recent history at this school. It helped give me the confidence to get back into research after a terrible experience in grad school. I met my current BF there, and an budding SO.
So…going out in public brandishing my fat, namely my fat, cellulitic arms, is a challenge. Yes, I will get discriminated against, passed off, and so on. But to think, what I would have missed out on if I’d never gone out in the first place!
I am so pleased that you had the courage to speak up Samantha.
I agree with your comment that it is easier to speak up about this matter when you are not fat. If I or one of my fat comrades were to speak up we would not be taken as serious. I often think this when commenting on some fat bashing comments. The forum I belong too are very good at fat bashing and so I rarely comment as the old soldiers come out with all the tired old propaganda, and they are truly not open minded or intelligent enough to listen to another opinion other than their own.
It also makes me feel a little sad that bigger kids are targeted like this. How bloody dare they! Piss off and get a life I would like to tell them.
I am sending hugs to all those people who were the big kids in this story.
Thanks for another thought provoking post, keep ém coming.
Yes, well done for speaking up solidarity is cool!
I also wish that fat haters would become aware that it is simply not acceptable to look at children in this way and it is really creepy.
I wonder how they would have felt if they thought other people were appraising their children’s bodies in a similar way.
I hate to say it, but if they’re anything like my father they’d probably use their kids relatively un-fat bodies as symbols of good parenthood, some kind of badges of pride.
My little sister (who’s turning 7 soon) was born very premature. Also, we’re pretty sure she inherited a thinner genotype (she’s adopted and we don’t know anything about the father). She was always very underweight, and tall. My Dad routinely mentioned how “skinny” she was, as a point of pride. Not a curiosity. As how he should be PROUD that his little daughter who almost didn’t LIVE because of how premature she was was underweight (lots of low-birthweight babies stay underweight through childhood).
So yes; since body size is connected to parental capability is in this effed up age in which we live, I have little doubt women like #1 and #2 from this post would take ogling of their children’s relative thinness as a compliment. Not all parents would. But there are certainly social ‘cookies’ for having thinner children.
Yeah, it’s like the way weight is used as a class marker.
People can see their children’s weight as an indication of their parental skills, quite scary when you think of the implications with the modelling of childhood fatness as parental abuse.
What I was refering to is the example of fatphobic paedo gaze, where people feel entitled to lasciviously pour over the bodies of fat children using the kind of language and tone that would not dream of otherwise.
I’m reminded of the survey which found fat girls are more likely to have had sex underage. I want to be careful about ascribing that to abuse, but still in the context of such lack of boundaries, one has to wonder;
e.g.
Female One: ”He’s got boobs too. (eye roll) Surprised he doesn’t sink”
I notice women seem to be more prone to voicing this kind of thing and I really think even haters should agree this is not necessary.
Minor point, but fat is low density. It makes floating easier. I think this is an example of fat being equated with badness.
And I’m reminded of the time I had to tell someone that breasts are mostly fat. I don’t know what they thought breasts were made of. Magic sex tissue?
[...] in disordered eating and looking for fodder to increase their fears of becoming fat. People in public places like swimming pools snark and gossip about fat bodies around them and barely feel the need to disguise their disgust. A [...]
[...] dust-up re: fat acceptance and health. Try: “Ugh. Look at how fat that kid is.” by Dr. Samantha Thomas at The Discourse (the comments are good, but Kath’s kills me a little [...]
What an appalling conversation to hear, and what a wonderful thing that you said what you did.
I agree completely that having relative thin privilege makes it both easier to speak in this situation and more likely that you’ll be heard (however unwillingly), which sucks in itself. I am an in-betweenie, really (sitting at about an Australian size 16 most of the time) which does not appear to be “fat enough” to trigger the most bald fat hate. I also have three slender children, so I also tend to speak up when I hear these kinds of sentiments, because, wrong as it is, people don’t automatically shut down when I start talking or get to dismiss what I’m saying as “You’re just being defensive because your kid is fat”.
I haven’t heard anything quite as blatantly nasty as this voiced near me, but I had a conversation with a neighbour last week where she stated quite matter-of-factly that another neighbourhood kid “is waaaaay too fat, she eats nothing but junk, it’s really bad for her.”
I said, “How do you know what she eats, and is it our business anyway, really?”
She: “Well, I’ve seen her eating icypoles and chips when they’re out playing in the court.”
Me: “So do our kids.”
She: “YEAH, but our kids aren’t fat!”
Me: “And our kids have different genetics, AND they haven’t had the stress of being removed from their home (the kid lives with grandparents now), AND they aren’t epileptic and on meds that cause weight gain.”
She, thinking, “I guess that’s true.”
Me: “I don’t really think it’s anyone’s concern what weight someone else is. I mean, the kid is pretty active, right? Pretty healthy? She was sick a lot less than my kids last winter!”
She: “I suppose … yeah, that’s true.”
The convo ended there and I doubt she was fully convinced but I think you just have to take it on when you can.