Not too long ago, I used to dread going to the supermarket or any place where the chance of running into young children was pretty high. Almost inevitably, one of them would point at me and say something like: “Mommy, why is that man so fat?” It didn’t help that mommy would immediately apologize, and tell the child that it’s not nice to say things like that. The damage was done. The word was already out there, hovering like a heat-seeking missile: Fat! And I was the target. There was just something about that word. I knew I was fat. Everyone who looked at me knew I was fat. I even told myself I was fat, usually several times per day. But hearing someone else aim that word at me, even a child, made me feel like I wanted to disappear off the face of the earth. Even my doctor avoided that word, telling me I was “morbidly obese” instead, as if that was somehow better than being fat. Well, I’m happy to report that the F-Word doesn’t bother me nearly as much now. But I wonder if this is just me, or whether fat has a different meaning these days... I don’t think the word bothers me less just because I’m not nearly as fat as I used to be. That’s true, but I’m still not thin. If you didn’t know how big I was before, you could look at me now and think that I look like a formerly fit guy who’s let himself go a bit too much recently. I know that the jiggly, wrinkled stuff around my waist is what’s left over after losing 150 pounds at the ripe old age of 57–but you probably wouldn’t know unless I told you. I also know I’m less offended by the F-word because I’ve done enough work on my own self-esteem and self-respect that hearing someone else say I’m fat doesn’t send me into a negative spiral of shame and self-loathing any more. I feel pretty good about myself the way I am, and that’s a pretty good antidote for those shame attacks. But I also suspect the F-Word doesn’t have quite the same negative sting in it that it used to have. In fact, as this article suggests, fat may be the new normal. If this is true, it raises all kinds of interesting and important questions. On the one hand, it seems very good that we're moving away from our cultural obsession with thinness and the “body beautiful” that has made so many people feel inadequate and unacceptable just because their own bodies don’t match the airbrushed, super-thin cover models displayed and worshipped in the popular media. If fat-acceptance can help us do that, more power to it. There’s a lot more to people than their bodyfat percentage and BMI, and anything that reminds us of that is a good thing. And, of course, there’s also a difference between being fat and being unhealthy—it is possible to be fit and fat. So, shifting our collective preoccupation away from external appearance and size to things that actually ought to matter, like health, ability to function, and personal satisfaction and enjoyment of our bodies and our lives, certainly makes more sense than continuing to focus on how we compare to some objectified image of an “attractive” body, or even to statistical associations between size and health status. But it’s also possible to go too far in this direction, to the point that we start deluding ourselves into thinking that being overweight doesn’t matter at all. Obviously, there are connections between obesity and many health problems, and being fat can make it harder to be fit or happy. So, what’s your take on all this? Has it become more socially acceptable to say that someone is fat, and if so, is this a good thing or a bad thing? Does it bother you if someone uses that word in reference to you? Is fat becoming the new normal? |
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