January 18th, 2005
It’s Not the Fat, It’s the Stupidity
Silly me, I’ve made the classic activist mistake. I thought that this culture was down on fat people because of a lack of information. I thought once I cast my pearls of wisdom, my beautifully crafted, well-researched, elegantly phrased arguments before the world at large, folks would be blinded by the light of logic and realize the error of their ways.
Not so.
Some of my recent writing has attracted a barrage of mindless fat-hating squawking from a bunch of quarters–at least all four. Since we wouldn’t want to name names, or hurt anyone’s feelings (though no one seems to care much about mine), I can’t give you any direct quotes, but this stuff is so predictable I could draft it in my sleep: “I’m appalled by your writing on obesity [sic]. Don’t you know there are serious health consequences to being overweight? It’s just irresponsible of you. Go on a diet and exercise and you’ll be thin and happy.”
Well, jumped-up Jesus H. Christ on a cracker!!!!!!!! Why didn’t somebody TELL me the solution was that simple? — Oh, wait a minute, they did. I’ve been on diets–forced and voluntary–since I was in the fifth grade. I’ve been barraged with nutrition information, diet books and articles, down-home remedies, and exercise classes since I could talk. I’ve been obsessed with my weight–thanks to everyone else’s obsession with my weight–ever since I can remember. And I have abused myself with just about every “solution” to my “weight problem” short of surgery. And I consistently got bigger–until I stopped dieting. ‘Cause you know what? For the one millionth time, dieting makes you fat(ter). I don’t know how else I can say it so that y’all can understand. So from now on, if you want to debate “the health consequences of obesity” with me, you must meet the following prerequisites:
Requirement #1. You must have read the following:
–Fat?So!: Because You Don’t Have to Apologize For Your Size by Marilyn Wann
–Losing It: False Hopes and Fat Profits in the Diet Industry by Laura Fraser
–The Obesity Myth: Why America’s Obsession with Weight Is Hazardous to Your Health by Paul Campos
–Shadow on a Tightrope: Writings by Women on Fat Liberation, edited by Lisa Schoenfelder and Barb Weiser
–Big Fat Lies: The Truth About Your Weight and Your Health by Glenn Gaesser
–The Forbidden Body: Why Being Fat Is Not a Sin by Shelley Bovey
–The Invisible Woman: Confronting Weight Prejudice in America by Charisse Goodman
I’ve read way more books about fat and health than this, but this is enough of a start to ensure that I’m not entering into a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent. And don’t start whining about how books cost money and not everyone has access to libraries, so I’m discriminating, etc. etc. Arguing with me is not a civil right; if you don’t care enough to educate yourself on the subject, or you don’t have the resources to do so, then just go spew your hate somewhere else, and I’ll try not to care. (You’ll certainly have plenty of company for your bigotry in the mainstream media.) But if you want to talk or write to me about it, then buckle down. Course, by the time you read those books, we probably won’t need to have that conversation after all. But it’ll be good to have a new ally.
Requirement #2. You must have known and loved an actual fat person. Because contrary to what the writers of these kinds of letters seem to believe, fat people are ACTUAL PEOPLE; we do exist, and we do have ordinary lives, jobs, feelings and relationships. We are not all gasping our last on our deathbeds; we are not some statistical abstraction existing only in medical textbooks, and we do not spend all our time going from doctor’s office to doctor’s office seeking solace for our myriad ailments. In fact, if these fat-hating letter writers pulled their heads out of their asses or tore their gazes away from Dr. Phil and looked around, they would see TONS of fat people walking around everywhere every day. Hmmm, the waitress at the diner, on her feet all day for less than minimum wage, is fat! The bank teller is fat! That guy, loading that truck, and that one there, processing your mortgage application–fat! And surprise surprise, a lot of these fat people are black and brown. In rural areas, most everybody you meet is some degree of fat. Who knew? (Hmmm, do you think there are any class and race implications of fat hatred? See my entry of Jan 11 should you doubt my wisdom.)
Listen up–both my parents are fat. My stepmother is fat. My mother’s father and my father’s brother and sister are fat. A number of my closest friends are fat. My lover is fat. Most of the people who sustain me with their affection and support are fat, and when you dis fat people, folks, you’re not just dissing me–you’re dissing the people I depend on to keep me sane in a world that hates me. You’re dissing hardworking honest goodhearted people, and I’m just not going to put up with that. Because if you can write smug simplistic little letters reducing the complexities of our lives to one sentence–if you think it’s your prerogative, because your body type is socially acceptable, to dispense inane nonsensical redundant advice about how we should live and what we should do based on our appearance–you’re just proving you don’t know us. If you’re thin and white and heterosexual and able-bodied, you don’t understand what it’s like to live with other people’s hatred. You don’t know what it’s like to have strangers assume they know things about you based on how you look. You don’t know what it’s like to open a magazine or turn on the TV and see some IDIOT spouting CRAP about how everyone that looks like you does X, Y, or Z bad thing. You don’t know what it’s like to deal with the smug self-satisfaction of people who have done nothing to deserve the privilege they enjoy but who are assured at every turn that they’re thin, or rich, or healthy, because they’re BETTER. Because they worked hard, and they earned it, and if the rest of us poor slobs would just straighten up and fly right, we could be just like them. C’mon, now, anyone with any claim to being the least bit progressive or even (gasp!) liberal oughta know enough to suspect an argument like that when they hear it. And when you blather on like this, you hurt real people–people who are already struggling day in and day out to maintain self-esteem and good health in the face of endlessly repeated messages that they are worthless, they are ugly, they are ridiculous, no one will ever love them, and they are going to die miserable and alone, and probably soon. Even when the truth of our own lives contradicts these messages, they are so omnipresent that it’s a constant effort just to hold our heads up, just to get about the business of living our ordinary everyday lives. You smug thin body bigots and food fascists need to stop treating us this way–and you’re hereby on notice that I intend to stop letting you.
So while you work on items #1 and #2, I’ll just sit here with my (fat) cats and sip my tea and wonder how I’m gonna find a warm coat in my size–the size I am today, when it’s cold outside, not the size you think I ought to be after the diet you think I should perpetually be on based on your snap judgment about how I look. Then I’ll go out and buy my groceries at the health food store or walk to my volunteer job, since I’ve chosen not to have a car and I get around perfectly well on my own fat feet and by public transportation. Maybe I’ll talk to my (fat) girlfriend who couldn’t possibly love me any more or treat me any better even if I were size two and subsisted entirely on carrot sticks (and right back atcha, K). Maybe I’ll call my (fat) mother and let her play me that song she’s learning on the piano, or hear about the local TV interviews she’s doing for the social service work she’s recently taken on–or I’ll call my (fat) dad and find out how many 100-plus-pound logs he moved with the peavey today down at the sawmill. Maybe I’ll read that lesbian novel my (thin) friend loaned me the other night, just before we went out dancing.
You see, if you don’t know me, you don’t know a thing about my life. You don’t know what I eat or how often I exercise or what I do with my time. You don’t understand the impact that dieting and fat hatred has had and continues to have on my entire life, and the lives of the people I love. You don’t know how years of dieting have impacted our food choices. You don’t know what years of living in this anorexic culture have done to our bodies, our health, and our self-esteem. You don’t know what struggles we have because of the way that fat people are consistently mistreated (including by doctors) in this culture. And until you know one or more of us, and love us, and make it your business to find out how our lives bear out the scientific and medical reality that fat people are just people–not better, not worse, not sicker, not healthier, not bound to die any sooner or live any longer than anyone else–you can take your stupid smug assumptions and your boring preachy alarmist attitudes and shove them.
