Fat Stigma Stokes Paralyzing Fear
Anyone who does work in the body positive and fat acceptance space will eventually have the same epithet hurled at their feet: You’re glorifying obesity!
What people really mean is they can’t understand how anyone would want to live in a fat body. It sounds like a nightmare to them. A guarantee for a loveless, sexless life full of disease and a premature death.
THAT is the stigma that a person in a fat body has to fight against Every. Single. Day. And over the last several months, I have read more than one article that says it’s not the fat that’s killing us… it’s the stigma. The stigma against our bodies, the hatred—internal and external—of our bodies is harming us more than our fat ever will.
“Even perceiving yourself as overweight when you aren’t is linked to poorer health down the line.” The PERCEPTION of being fat is harmful to your health. Because “beauty standards” are impossible to meet and yet we as a group hold people to them until they are literally dying because of it. The rest of the article veers off into a ham-fisted discussion of weight loss and personal responsibility and how science is JUST NOW figuring out that weight is not as simple as calories in and calories out (though everyone in HAES could have told you that a long time ago), but the main topic remains: “If the public health goal is to curb obesity and improve health, stigma just makes everything worse.”
A recent entry in the Scientific American blog takes it a step further:
This gets directly to the core of the issue. Fat hatred has it’s roots deep in discriminatory and bigoted behavior and it does nothing but harm people.
I really want to quote the ENTIRE blog post because so, so much of it is on point. But this is really the crux of the issue:
Linda Bacon and Amee Severson correctly place the blame at the feet of systemic injustice. Because hatred is intersectional. These issues are not just about fat people, but queer people, people of color, and every other marginalized group. An inclusive society helps EVERYONE be healthier.
Fear is a paralytic. It keeps people where they are and doing the things they have always done. I am part of a community of fat people who encourage healthy and joyful movement and day after day I read their stories about going to the gym to celebrate what their bodies can do only to be used as some thin-person’s “inspiration” or to be “congratulated” for doing something to be healthier. Or, worst, to be made fun of for being fat while at the simple act of exercising.
No one can be healthier until this kind of shit doesn’t happen. Until we can all get clothes we are comfortable in and can move in without a major sports brand being taken to task for “glorifying obesity.”
Every day that I step out of my door challenges the agenda of fat hatred. Every day that I put on clothes that I like, that complement my body, is a radical act of fat acceptance. And I long for the day that it isn’t.