This past weekend, I had the great pleasure of sitting on a panel about body image, specifically about how women see themselves and how men and women contribute to our toxic beauty culture.
On the panel, I addressed an issue that has always bothered me: the way we say or use the word "fat" around others.
As a society, the word "fat" is one of the last few acceptable slurs we can use in public. Rarely do we flinch or say anything when we hear somebody comment, with intentional negativity, on another person as "fat." And we don't think twice about making a comment about our own bodies in front of others. I often hear people making statements with an angry inflection like, "My ass is fat," or "I feel fat."
My friend Lisa (all names and identifying details have been changed) is the mother of two teenage daughters, both of whom have been grappling with body image issues for some time. She has been an incredibly supportive mother, doing her best to love her children and to help them see their bodies in a healthier way. But the other day, as she was making dinner in the kitchen, she told me -- in front of her kids -- how her "ass is fat" and how she can no longer fit into her jeans.
Later on, I asked her why she would speak negatively about herself in front of anyone, especially her kids, who she knows are grappling with major body image issues and as a result, have developed unhealthy and extreme eating and exercise habits. She looked at my confused face and said "I wasn't saying their asses are fat, I was saying my ass is fat."
Lisa didn't notice how making comments about her own body in front of daughters who are currently dealing with body image issues could exacerbate their struggle.
But our tendency to throw the word "fat" around is not just about the potential of affecting people we know who have been dealing with a body image issue. As I pointed out in my post last week, "Think Twice Before Praising Someone For Losing Weight," we will never (and I mean never) truly know how someone is dealing with body image on a mental and emotional level. It doesn't matter if someone has the "perfect" body or whether they're skinny or plus-sized; most of the authentic feelings we have about our bodies are trapped inside our head and not shared with others.
So even if we are talking about someone being "fat" in front of someone who has a "perfect" body, we won't fully understand how our "fat" comments can secretly impact their body image. When someone who is plus-sized hears you say the word "fat," what else are they expected to think except that you are including them in the insult? When it comes to someone who is not plus-sized but grappling with poor body image or an eating disorder, when you, someone this person probably respects and trust, hurls the word "fat" in front of them -- this move could very well make them feel terrible about themselves... even if it's not about or directed at them.
When I asked my friend Melanie about this issue related to the word "fat," she brought up something I have repeatedly heard: people who are skinny or "fit" using the "fat" word as a slur in front of friends, family members and colleagues who are not as skinny or "fit." Melanie, who is plus-sized, deals with this scenario all the time.
One of her girlfriends will often use the word as an insult weapon against men and women: "He's so fat, gross," or "Wow, did you see how fat she's getting," or "Ugh, I didn't work out this week, I feel fat."
Melanie wondered, "Does she not see that I'm sitting there? That I am clearly a plus-sized woman, usually bigger than the people she's talking about. Doesn't she think it hurts my feelings? How could I not think that she feels the same way about me? Hello?!"
When Melanie confronted this friend about her tendency to use "fat" as an insult, her friend responded, "Oh I don't think of you that way, you know I love you."
Yeah, but that doesn't make things better... not at all.
These issues over the word "fat" that both Melanie and Lisa deal with come down to one dysfunctional perception: When we use this word with a negative connotation, we think it's compartmentalized, that the negativity only applies to the person we are insulting, rather than the person we are making the comment in front of -- that Melanie won't be affected when her friend is insulting another "fat" person. That's foolish.
I am going to be extremely careful in how I make this point because I don't want to compare body to race. However, would most of us never even think to comment about our skin tone or the skin tone of someone else in a negative way.
Imagine saying to someone else (specifically a person of color), "He's so black, gross," or "I got too tan this weekend at the beach, my skin is too dark... nasty."
Again, I want to avoid the direct comparison between body and race, but I think that is an interesting comparison to think about and consider.
This isn't just about the use of the word fat, but it's also about our tone when we do use it. As a society, when we say the word "fat," we tend to say it with a forceful, angry inflection -- whether we're saying it about ourselves or someone else.
I am not suggesting that we should avoid talking about how we feel about our bodies with our loved ones -- not at all. In fact, we should always encourage thoughtful conversation about body image as well as physical and mental health.
This exploration into the word "fat" is not just about being thoughtful and considerate in terms of how others may take our use of the word, but it's also about thinking carefully about how the word "fat" is wrapped up in all these problematic and negative connotations and who ultimately gets affected when we use it as an insult or even as a descriptor.
Because the word "fat" doesn't just impact the person we are trying insult or the person standing within earshot, the word "fat" also affects the person saying it.
And that doesn't feel so good... does it?
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This column originally appeared on The Current Conscience.
Follow Yashar Ali on Twitter: www.twitter.com/yashar
Brendan Pittaway: Weighty Matters: Sportswomen, Wimbledon and the Perils of Body Image
Troy Roness: Not a Universal Image: Conceptualize Your Healthy Reflection
But, it's also infantile to dance around the truth.
The word "fat" in and of itself is not all that inflammatory to me. Sometimes it's just a statement of fa(c)t, sometimes it's an insult, sometimes a valid criticism of ourselves or others. There's nothing wrong with being thoughtful and considerate to people, but I also see nothing wrong with sometimes just being honest, even if it's politically incorrect or affects someone's sensibilities (there are so many these days!).
Does that feel better?
I wish you the very best in your journey!
First of all, stop pretending like words are the problem. Words are not the problem. Society is the problem. Society will take any innocuous word and transform it into a negative. For instance, the word "gay", in grade schools, is a slur. Yes, they've effectively turned the word "happy" into a negative. If you bow every single time people do this and continue banning words, we're not going to have any words left. Words are not the problem, the fact that you're buckling every single time and letting society dictate the meanings of words is the problem.
Second of all, "fat" is not a slur. It's a clinical description, sometimes used in a negative connotation to point out an inherently unhealthy and unappealing quality in a person. There is nothing positive about being fat. To discourage the use of the word serves only to delude ourselves into believing we're not unhealthy. It enables and encourages unhealthy, undisciplined behavior. There is no reason for society to treat you with kid gloves. Stop eating.
If YOU have never had a problem with weight or eating disorders then you can not claim to know the struggles of those who do. Do you honestly believe that the majority of people who are significantly overweight in our society don't already feel shame, guilt, and self-hatred? And do you really think more condescension and teasing is the way to motivate anyone to be better to themselves?
Finally, the author of this article is not trying to ban the word "fat" - he is encouraging us all to be mindful of the effect our words have on ourselves, our family and friends, and our society. He is suggesting that we be kinder to others. For those of you who think that so-called "honesty" is more valuable than kindness and compassion, I feel truly sorry for you.
THere is a blanket indifference to a lifetime of poor choices and a willingness to continue making these poor choices. THe word in short is denial. I have a rather obese friend who thinks nothing of making fun of other obese people as if she was not one of them....can't puzzle that out. Or another friend with high blood pressure and other health problems who gives me crap for being a vegetarian yet her pig feet eating habits have garnered her an extra 100lbs of body fat.
Yet another who is on dyalisis for life at age 42. Eats all the wrong foods.
Denial.
Read up on it a little bit, I'm sure you'll find for yourself that obesity is a disease with a specific pathology that is unfortunately not being adequately addressed by conventional medical wisdom, or let alone the nutritional guidelines being foisted on the public.
I have been fat, thin, and am in great shape right now, size- and health-wise. It did take an effort to get here, but let me tell you, that effort was helped immensely by accurate information and just a little bit of support from my friends, and even some from total strangers!
When I had that wake-up call (my doctor's visit on December 28, 2011 when I found out I was THAT close to being 300 pounds), I got very lucky: somehow, a switch came on and I was able to relatively easily change my eating habits. I also slowly started exercising every day and the pounds started to shed. I got stronger, my blood work was better (cholesterol, glucose), and I was able to start wearing clothes that didn't have a "W" at the end of a size.
Not everyone is as lucky as I was to be able to change my habits on a dime...so a little compassion is definitely in order here. It's just a shame that somehow, you lack that quality.
There is a market for men who say bad things about men and/or what women want to hear (often, the same).
Capitalism demands that someone will fill that market.
Unfortunately, the reverse happens as well. We are all normal -sized, as in, correct weight for our heights. Yet many people continually and repeatedly refer to us as "skinny" or "tiny" or "a stick" or some other negative term denoting that we "don't eat enough." This is a difficult thing to approach, because we do not wish to hurt the person saying it, yet at the same time, they are wrong to term us in such a way.
We have decided that simply saying, "No, I'm a healthy weight for my height" is about as non-offensive and appropriate as possible. And the person who said we are "skinny" asks, "Are you saying I'm not healty (or that I'm fat)?" then our response is to simply say, "I didn't say anything about you - but you were the one who did call ME skinny."
The point is that we all need to take responsibility for how we view ourselves and others - no matter whether we are overweight or appropriate height/weight, and not take it out on others because we feel badly about ourselves. Shoot, it's hard enough when we are a normal weight for our height.
Thank you for bringing this up, because it really is a troubling issue that our society has.
In fact, both of my parents used the word fat A LOT, especially when they spoke of healthy eating habits. I believe I currently have healthy eating habits - lots of whole grains, veggies, fruits, etc. - and the reason I have these habits is because my parents showed me how to eat and told me how NOT to eat. The word fat had nothing to do with anything.
Lastly, you can't say that you don't want to mention race in contrast to the word fat as though you're not doing that. Once you mention it, you've contrasted the two. The sentences claiming that you don't want to do that don't exonerate you from what you've done. My guess is that you don't want to compare two things to one another: one of which cannot be helped because you are born that way and the other of which can largely by helped by changing your eating and exercise habits in the overwhelming majority of cases.
Yeah, to me that's just like somebody who starts a sentence with "No offense, but..." Inevitably, what follows is an offensive tirade of epic proportions. The pre-warning excuses nothing.