Happy Belated Birthday to Me

I started this little experiment a year ago yesterday, and even though in the time of pandemic it has been hard to find the extra brain power to write something, I still wanted to take a moment to recognize the anniversary. I have learned so much about myself through writing this blog, and I am so grateful and flattered that others are getting something out of it, too.

At first, I really wanted to tackle the issues of fat people in fandom, our lack of representation, our difficulties in finding characters to identify with, and even how hard it is to cosplay our favorite character both in finding or making costumes that will work and in the inevitable backlash and commentary that fat people can’t cosplay as {insert name of thin character here}. And it is about that, but it’s also become about discovering my place as a fat liberationist and finding my voice in the larger fat acceptance and advocacy world. I’m looking forward to that transformation continuing.

I hope to find ways of making myself write more as this pandemic stretches on and on (and on…). Because I think things will be very bad for people living in a fat body when this quarantine is over. The continued perpetration of quarantine fat memes and those worried about putting on the “COVID 15” tells me that once we can all get together again, it will be next to impossible to dodge the internalized fat phobia, body shaming, and diet talk. It was always there, but now it will be amplified and pervasive, as if it will be perpetual New Year’s and everyone will be making resolutions. More people will be harmed by this than helped, and it’s important for those of us who have been fighting this fight to gear up now and protect ourselves.

So, I’m here for you and to do exactly that. I’m not going anywhere and this blog is going to keep going. One day, I might even get that podcast started.

In the meantime, here’s a cute picture of my big cat because big cats are awesome. (Also, not body shaming my cat is totally going to be a blog post one day.)

Yes, Plato does know how handsome he is, but he is happy to be told again.

Thanksgiving Food Minefield

A tip of the hat to good friend and loyal blog follower Emily Joy for reposting this graphic from more-love.org:

Much of what we consider to be polite conversation during this food-based holiday actually highlights disordered eating. For people struggling with body neutrality or an eating disorder (or both), the Thanksgiving holiday can be a nightmare to negotiate. The chart above gives some helpful scripts for remembering to focus on the person and the people and not the food. And also, take your food police badge off. It has no place at the table.

Kudos to More Love for being a resource committed to helping parents “to raise kids free from body hate, disordered eating, and eating disorders.” Check out some of their other Thanksgiving tips!

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.

Source: https://humanparts.medium.com/what-i-appreciate-most-from-thinner-friends-2c1524ae09c9

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.