Weight Stigma Affects Everyone
Diversity and inclusion work is becoming more and more of a priority in corporations as our culture continues to shift (ever so slowly) toward being more welcoming of all kinds of people. But often, as this article on CNN points out, body size is not included in this kind of work. As the continued pervasiveness of fat-shaming shows, body size is still largely considered modifiable and something they can control if they just have enough willpower. Staying fat is seen as a reflection of character. As the article says, “Research shows that in the workplace, obese employees are stereotyped as ‘lazy, unmotivated, unintelligent, sloppy and lacking willpower.’” These stereotypes are what leads to employers being less likely to promote us or less likely to hire us at all.
Food is a very large part of the culture at my workplace. We have a snack closet that is free for employees as well as multiple specialized food events throughout the year. It’s a wonderful perk to have and encourages socialization and bonding between the employees. But even though no one has ever made a disparaging comment about it, I have often felt the weight of the eyes on me as a fat person going for my second helping, or that second cookie, or whatever. Because even though we love food, we also have an annual “Chubber Club” in which employees can choose to compete to lose weight.
The article quotes Rebecca Pearl, a psychologist and assistant professor in the department of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania:
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/03/success/weight-bias-work/index.html
We don’t often talk about the microaggressions fat people face in the workplace. One of the biggest is having to listen to the constant diet talk of others as they discuss all of the things they are doing to not look like me. Shutting down diet talk is hard and exhausting and it takes a level of comfort and confidence in the situation that can be impossible to find. This is when we need thin allies to step in and help us.
Your Fat Friend posted a story on Medium where she detailed an interaction she had during a staff meeting where a formerly fat employee imposed his diet talk on a roomful of people. He was lamenting, loudly and during the meeting, about whether he should have a birthday cookie. Despite being disruptive, he continued until ultimately deciding to pass. The next person the box of cookies passed to, a thin and muscular friend, provided an astute and wonderful send-up of the behavior before taking two cookies himself.
When thin and thin-passing people talk endlessly about their diets, all they do is “other” the fat people near them. They are tacitly saying, “Praise me for all of the work I am doing to not look like you.” And we’re expected to just take it. When diet talk and weight loss is part of the cultural norm of a company, then that company becomes hostile to the fat people who work there AND it does harm to the thin people who work there, too as they obsess about their weight to fit in.
Unprompted and unsolicited diet talk contributes to weight stigma, which hurts everyone. Just cut it out.