Ughhhh. The last time I talked about this, I got so many hate comments. But I’m ready. Let’s do this. Today, we’re gonna talk about why fat-shaming is awful – and what it means to call someone fat.
Look, let’s be honest, you’ve probably called someone fat before. Maybe you did it in a descriptive way, but more likely than not, there was some hatred behind it.
A lot of times when I hear “fat” used today, it’s used to put someone down – and more often than not, that somebody is a woman. “Fat” is thrown around like an insult, and people are made to feel bad about their bodies.
But what does it really mean to call someone fat?
When used as an insult, you’re telling someone that they’re somehow worth less just because of their weight. Think about that for a second. Do you really truly believe that our worth as humans is determined by our weight? Do you think that we should judge people based solely on their weight?
Being fat says absolutely nothing about your worth as a person. I think it’s ridiculous that we use “fat” as an insult. “Fat” is just a descriptor, like “tall” or “short.” We shouldn’t make it out to be some terrible thing that no one should ever be.
Because the reality is that fat people exist, they aren’t going anywhere, and hating on them isn’t going to make them lose weight. In fact, multiple studies have found that fat-shaming can even lead to further weight gain. If you really wanted to help people lose weight, you would stop hating on them.
The most common defense of this blatant, outright hatred is “health.” It’s like being fat seems to be one of the few socially acceptable things you can so openly make fun of someone for because you can hide behind the “I just care about their health” argument.
Now, like I said, it’s already been proven that fat-shaming doesn’t help with weight loss, but it’s worth examining this health claim for a minute. Is it inherently unhealthy to be fat? No. Some people are just bigger than others, even when eating healthily and exercising regularly, much in the same way that I’m “underweight” by default.
And how fat do you have to be to reach unhealthy levels? If I gained ten pounds, would I be fat? 20? 30? 50? At what point do I transition from the pinnacle of health to the scum of the earth?
And in our judgments of health and weight, are we using the BMI scale? Because that’s been shown time and time again to be an utterly terrible way to determine someone’s health.
There’s a lot more to take into consideration, too: Where does a person’s fat have to be located for it to be the most unhealthy? Is it visceral or subcutaneous fat? Do they have a genetic condition or an eating disorder that they struggle with?
The fact of the matter is: You have absolutely no idea about someone’s health just by looking at them. Maybe you’re right. Maybe they’re not healthy – but maybe they are. The point is that you don’t know, and really, it’s none of your business. I’m pretty sure “health” is not a thing that we go around policing evenly on everyone.
If you see a skinny person, do you ask them if they’re getting at least 30 minutes of exercise a day? Do you ask them if they get up a stretch every few minutes during their desk job? Do you rifle through people’s grocery carts and demand they get more vegetables? On sunny days, do you go around demanding that everyone put on sunscreen?
Of course not.
It’s not your job to force everyone in the world to be healthy. We’re all unhealthy in one way or another – nobody’s perfect – and our conceptions of what is healthy or unhealthy is constantly changing.
It would be absurd to demand that everyone suddenly becomes 100% “healthy” or else you’re going to insult them and hate on them.
Unfortunately, the mentality that fat is the root of all things unhealthy is extremely pervasive to the point where it can cause legitimate healthcare concerns for fat people because even doctors aren’t immune to weight bias.
Fat-shaming kills people every year when fat patients come to a doctor with legitimate problems and are simply told they need to lose weight.
And if you want even more proof, you should know that a study in the New England Journal of Medicine found that “false and scientifically unsupported beliefs about obesity are pervasive in both scientific literature and the popular press.”
But when all’s said and done about health, I still hear people complain that fat people are unattractive.
Magazines tell fat women that they can’t wear crop tops, and fat women are constantly told that they can’t wear bikinis. I hate to break it to you, but attractiveness is an extremely subjective thing, and there are tons of beautiful fat people out there. Fat people can wear crop tops and bikinis and whatever else they want – because it doesn’t affect you.
Obviously, this is a hard pill to swallow for some people. We’re raised to believe that we have to be skinny to be beautiful. The main characters in all our movies and TV shows and books are skinny. Fat-shaming diet commercials bombard us all day, and advertisements tell us we don’t have a “beach body” yet.
But that’s all a load of shit. You can be healthy and fat. You can be happy and fat. You can be beautiful and fat.
I want you to know that no matter what size you are, you deserve love and happiness and respect. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. If you’ve ever been called “fat” or put down because of your weight, just know that whoever said that doesn’t know what they’re talking about. You’re lovely just the way you are.
Well, that’s all I had to cover today. If you’re extremely mad at me right now and want to rush down to the comments section with some fatphobic remarks, I just really hope you can take a minute to reflect on what you’re doing and decide if you want to live your life with that much hate inside of you for people who have never done anything to hurt you.
On the other hand, if you agree with some of the stuff I said, I’d love it if you could give this video a thumbs up, share it, and subscribe to my channel. It really helps me out a lot.
Also, if you want, drop down in the comments and let me know what experiences you’ve had with fat-shaming. As a skinny person myself, it’s hard to speak from experience here, so I would love to hear from you all.
And this video is a part of a series I’m doing for Everyday Feminism, a website dedicated to helping you stand up to and break down everyday oppression, so I’ll put some links down below so you can check their website as well as my previous videos in the series.
Thanks so much for watching. I love you all, and I’ll see you next week. Bye.
