Tag: fat shaming

You Called Me Fat? Come Sit, Let’s Have a Chat

A poem on public fat-shaming and the constant trolling of celebrities over their looks.

So you called me fat, come sit
Let’s have a chat,
Now talk to me face to face
If we’re a pack of cards, I’m the ace,
Was being beautiful
Ever about losing weight,
If not then why are you
Spreading so much hate?

Hey, let me get this straight,
Commenting on someone isn’t appropriate
Try stepping into my shoes,
I’m a lioness at it
Will you even be a kangaroo?
Have times changed or is it the same,
Do you comment for attention and fame,
Don’t do it dude it’s seriously lame
This is to all the people who body shame.

Tanvi Ghotage is a 15-year-old who absolutely loves writing. Earlier, she used to write for herself but now wishes to make a change – even if it is the slightest change.

Featured image: Pariplab Chakraborty

Will the New Phrase ‘People With Obesity’ End Fat Shaming? Not Likely

While many people are uncomfortable with the term fat, fat activists prefer the term.

The British Psychological Society is calling for changes for how we talk about fatness, suggesting we should no longer use the phrase “obese people”, but instead, “people with obesity” or “people living with obesity”.

These changes are being proposed to recognise that fatness is not about personal choice and that fat shaming and fat stigma are harmful.

But this suggested language change is based on the idea that obesity is a disease to be cured and fat people are not a natural part of the world. This serves to reinforce stigma, rather than prevent it.

How does stigma and shame affect fat people?

Fat stigma can harm people’s physical health, mental health, and relationships.

Independent of body mass index (BMI), fat stigma increases blood pressure, inflammation, and levels of cortisol in the body, due to the activation of the fight or flight response.

Fat stigma reduces self-esteem and increases depression.

It isolates fat people, making them less likely to engage with the world. It also impacts on fat people’s relationships with family, colleagues, and friends.

People around the world, and of all ages, hold negative attitudes about fatness and fat people. In a study in the US, for example, more than one-third of the participants reported:

one of the worst things that could happen to a person would be for [them] to become obese.

How terminology reinforces stigma

While many people are uncomfortable with the term fat, fat activists prefer the term. They see it as both as an act of rebellion – to adopt a word that has been wielded against them – but also because they argue it’s the most appropriate word to describe their bodies.

To be overweight implies there is a natural weight to be; that within human diversity, we should all be the same proportion of height and weight.

Obesity is a medical term that has pathologised the fat body. The British Psychological Society’s acknowledgement that rather than saying “obese people”, we should call them “people with obesity” reinforces that obesity is a disease; a chronic illness people suffer from.

Also read: Size+: ‘My Body is My Business’

The British Psychological Society’s desire to shift to person-first language is understandable. Person-first, or people-first, language is an attempt to not define people primarily by their disease, or disability, or other deviating factor.

Person-first language recognises people as individuals with rights to dignity and care, and puts the person, rather than their “condition”, first.

But others have argued person-first language attempts to erase, deny, or ignore the aspect of the person that isn’t “normal”, and reinforces that there is something shameful or dehumanising about their disability or disease.

They promote identity-first language, which allows people to take pride in who they are, rather than separating a person from that aspect of themselves.

The problem with person-first language, they argue, is that those identities are stigmatised. But without the stigma, there would be no concern with calling someone a disabled person, for instance, rather than a person with disabilities.

So what should we do?

The best approach, especially for health-care professionals, is to ask people what they prefer their designation to be.

And for the rest of us, to acknowledge that what an individual wants to be called or how they want to talk about their experiences is up to them, not us. If a fat person wants to call themselves fat, it is not up to non-fat people to correct them.

Shifting the language we use to talk about fatness and fat people can reduce fat stigma. But continuing to frame fatness as a disease is not a helpful contribution.

Cat Pausé, Senior Lecturer in Human Development, Massey University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Featured image credit: Pariplab Chakraborty

My Issue with Online Body Positivity: Dismantling ‘Body Awareness’

Everyone’s journey to self-acceptance is different, and reaching it through body love is a very valid route, but it might not work for everyone.

For reasons I remain unaware of, in the ninth grade, discussions about bodies suddenly becoming ubiquitous in my friend group. I’d never been sporty and (as I was thin-framed and fair-skinned) my body had never really been an object of ridicule, or even discussion.

Up until I was 14, my body simply wasn’t something that existed in my mental landscape. I didn’t have any particular sense of pride and joy in it – I just almost never thought of it. This was indubitably a form of privilege, but it was soon to change.

People around me seemed to think ‘body awareness’ was integral to womanhood, a rite of passage.

When puberty hit, even relatives felt the sudden need to bring up my body randomly and frequently. These comments – “You’re lucky you don’t have to worry about your thighs in that dress” – were mostly well-intentioned and positive, yet they demanded a response from me in a way that felt curiously uncomfortable.

A lot of my conversations with my very social-justice inclined friends revolved around them listing, comparing and obsessively assessing the insecurities they had regarding their bodies. When I didn’t chime in with my own, they weren’t catty or judgmental.

But they did interpret my silence on my stretch marks and awkwardly-placed body hair as a sign of radiant self-esteem (or a kind of dramatic political statement about beauty standards). My so-called ‘stance’ was praised, but the underlying assumption was that I’d invested a certain amount of consciousness into considering my body, again and again.

The truth­ – at 14, my body was just kind of there, it wasn’t something I evaluated that meticulously. My lack of awareness of my body wasn’t insulted or penalised, but it wasn’t believed or understood.

‘Body awareness’ means that bodies are constantly noticed. And body image isn’t the only lens through which people (but especially women) are forced to be intensely aware of our bodies. We feel it when our occupation of public space, the amount of skin we show, the body parts we choose to expose, what we do about our body hair, and how we position our limbs, are all interpreted as highly deliberate. And as the definers of our personhood.

This notice need not be negative.

Some of the judgement, especially in liberal circles, is affirmingly positive– our ‘breaking of restrictive conventions’, through acts such as displaying body hair, may even be celebrated. But this means that bodies are often forcibly pushed to the forefront of our minds. Whether we like it or not. 

Undeniably, online body positivity movements have been instrumental in expanding the definition of beauty– and in helping people feel attractive, confident, and empowered. Activism that centers around showcasing normal body parts and shapes in order to normalize them can be exceptionally powerful. So, what’s the issue? 

The unceasing emphasis on physical appearance doesn’t go away.

Body-positive language’s focus on finding beauty in every aspect of your appearance (“every inch of you is perfect…”) may be amazingly empowering for some young people, but fails to help others divorce their selfhood from features of their physical body. Young people are told that their self-esteem is doomed if they can’t love their bodies, and that the route to self-acceptance must involve body-love (which springs from ‘body awareness’).

Everyone’s journey to self-acceptance is different, and reaching it through body love is a very valid route, but it might not work for everyone.

Bodies are vehicles of experiences, traumas, narratives, and pleasures. More than anything, relationships with one’s body are passionately personal, and unceasingly individual. I strongly believe that you don’t need to love every bit of your physical appearance to be comfortable with yourself, or even to have a very healthy relationship with your body. There are other routes to self-actualization, and online body-positivity movements, especially given Instagram’s focus on the visual, can make us forget these exist.

For a multitude of reasons ranging from health issues to societal discrimination, ignoring our bodies isn’t always possible, and when it is, it’s a mark of privilege. But if we find ourselves able to dismiss our bodies, and empowered by doing so, we shouldn’t let the prevailing rhetoric of body positivity make us feel like our self-acceptance is fundamentally incomplete.

Inika Murkumbi studies in class 12 at Dhirubhai Ambani International School, Mumbai

Featured image credit: Pariplab Chakraborty

How One Early 20th-Century Performer Defanged Her Fat-Shamers

One overweight woman who rose to fame in the 1920s – singer and comedienne Sophie Tucker – was at the forefront of pushing back against her critics and championing her fuller figure.

It’s all-too-common for women – especially those in the public spotlight – to be criticized for their weight. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Lena Dunham and Rihanna have borne the brunt of fat-shamers.

Amy Schumer’s recent film “I Feel Pretty” takes on the outsize role body weight and physical attractiveness play in self-esteem. The only way for a woman to feel comfortable above a size zero, the film seems to be saying, is to be knocked unconscious and magically wake up with a newfound sense of confidence.

This dynamic, unfortunately, has been playing out for decades. But as I explain in my new biography, “Red Hot Mama,” one overweight woman who rose to fame in the 1920s – singer and comedienne Sophie Tucker – was at the forefront of pushing back against her critics and championing her fuller figure.

Dreams of the big stage

Tucker was born Sonya Kalish in 1886 to Jewish parents in what is present-day Ukraine. Persecution of Jews in the late 19th Century led her family to flee for the U.S., where they settled in Hartford, Connecticut, and operated a kosher restaurant.

As a child, Tucker would entertain patrons by singing. Popular vaudevillians and Yiddish performers, from Bertha Kalich to Jacob Adler, dined at the restaurant and would critique Tucker’s performances and dispense advice.

While honing her craft, Tucker decided she wanted to be a star and was determined to move to New York. But Tucker wasn’t like most young starlets of the time. By the time she was 13, she weighed 145 pounds. And conforming to the pressures most Jewish daughters faced at the turn of the century, she ended up getting married and having a baby boy in her late teens.

Still, she craved a career as a headliner.

When she was around the age of 20, Tucker left her husband and child, moved to New York and slowly worked her way up. Told by one manager that she was too “fat and ugly” to perform as herself, she, like many of the era’s Jewish entertainers, began her career in blackface.

But audiences loved her, and over time impresarios such as Florenz Ziegfeld noticed her. She shed her blackface and started performing the latest hits of famous songwriter Irving Berlin, getting gigs at vaudeville’s leading theaters under the guidance of her agent, William Morris.

Also read: How My Family Changed the Way I Saw Myself and My Body

‘I don’t want to lose weight’

Tucker was initially insecure about her looks. Noticing audiences lavishing praise on slender starlets like Lillian Lorraine, Tucker wondered if she was simply “a big gal with a big voice … miles away from making any impression.”

Yet she realized that because she was not traditionally beautiful, she could get away with a candor that other women could not. While her routines contained bawdy tales of sex and romance, she also incorporated material about her weight. As she proclaimed in her 1929 recording, “I Don’t Want to Get Thin,”

“I don’t want to lose weight / The boys tell me I’m great / And my sweetheart loves me just the way I am.”

Sophie Tucker’s 1929 song ‘I Don’t Want to Get Thin.’

As her weight became a part of her signature brand, famous figures such as Eddie Cantor, George Jessel and Ed Sullivan would poke fun at both her stubbornness and her girth. Jessel, for example, once told an audience that “covering Sophie takes a lot of covering.”

Tucker did more than just deflect the ridicule: She pushed women to defend their size.

In 1923, she wrote in the Los Angeles Times that she was hoping to organize a fat women’s club, explaining that she wanted to help women “laugh and eat without feeling conscience stricken.” For Tucker, members of her club simply had to swear to see the “beauty of a double chin.”

She was keen to note that men loved her girth.

“All the married men who run after me have skinny wives at home,” she assured listeners.

An unusual combination of maternal and sexy, Tucker was able to stay in the limelight for over five decades, moving through vaudeville, radio, movies, cabarets, Broadway and television. In 1952, she jokingly ran for president, doling out flyers and buttons to audiences. In her campaign song, “Sophie Tucker for President,” she promised to be a champion for women:

“You men have been running the U.S.A. / For years you’ve had full sway / I think it’s a crime and just about time / That we women had our way.”

Tucker’s satirical campaign song.

Also read: How Social Media Responded to a Woman Shaming Another For Wearing a Short Dress

Tucker was no expert on relationships. Married and divorced three times, her romantic troubles were most likely connected to her fame, not her weight. Men found it difficult to cope with Tucker’s success and ambition.

While Tucker used her divorces as part of her comedy routine, the “fat lady” jokes never disappeared. Famously, Paul McCartney declared in 1963 that the Beatles favorite group was “Sophie Tucker.” Big enough to be deemed “a group,” Tucker’s figure was still a subject of derision – even when she was almost 80 years old.

Though Tucker’s weight fluctuated throughout her life, she had the courage to defend her choice to defy an unattainable body type – a stance, it seems, that more and more women today are taking.

When a misguided fan recently assumed actress Drew Barrymore was expecting – and Barrymore pointedly responded, “I’m not pregnant, I’m fat” – we can hear the defiant ghost of Sophie Tucker.The Conversation

Lauren Rebecca Sklaroff, Associate Professor of History, University of South Carolina

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Featured image credit: Twitter/@SophieTucker

How My Family Changed the Way I Saw Myself and My Body

I deem myself to be a failure because my body doesn’t adhere to conventional beauty standards. I’ve internalised the same stereotypes I criticise.

The idea of beauty is not open to interpretation.

Rather, it is enclosed within the curves of a particular body type and is one that has been reinforced in my family for as long as I can remember. And unfortunately, even after spending years trying to rid myself of this dysfunctional value system, I still can’t face the mirror before leaving home.

Sometimes, I wonder what it’s like growing up in a house where you aren’t fat shamed constantly.

And mind you, comments that usually entail the message that you’re overweight aren’t as aggressive. It’s those petty, diminutive jabs that are supposed to be jokes. The entire worth of my existence, reduced to the expansive scale of my waistline.

This stems from pop culture as well.

In fact, even reading books, at a certain level, has become a harrowing experience – all my favourite female protagonists are pretty and petite. Movies and TV shows deal another massive blow at my dwindling self-confidence. I wanted to be Hermione Granger when I was ten-years-old, but I knew back then just as I do today, that I could never look anything like her.

Also read: Size+: ‘My Body is My Business’

I guess it hasn’t been all that bad.

After all, we’re witnessing a rising awareness about body positivity as I write this.

Movies like The Sisterhood of Travelling Pants and Hairspray were a blessing in my early teens – a time I’d really put on weight due to my deteriorating mental health. Imagine being emotionally vulnerable and, on top of that, having to worry about how your thighs look. It makes you feel absolutely worthless. I don’t even want to recall the kind of comments I had received from my own parents, let alone my extended family.

Even though I had supportive friends, access to the right information and the knowledge that I’ve come a long way since, I still can’t seem to face myself in that suffocating trial room – and I don’t understand why.

I deem myself to be a failure because my body doesn’t adhere to conventional standards of ‘beauty’, and this isn’t something I’ve heard recently. No, it’s something I’ve been telling myself. I’ve internalised the same stereotypes I criticise.

Also read: YRF’s ‘Mahi Way’ and the Case for Progressive Indian TV

Believing in what you preach seems like a long journey to embark upon. Every time I go shopping, I can’t muster the courage to buy a pair of blue jeans. Beauty standards have reduced us to inanimate objects, and it’s not just those tabloids or fairness cream ads that render our self-worth irrelevant. I feel like it stems from out of our own homes and festers in our minds.

However, we can try to educate our parents about how their nitpicking is absolutely pointless. I can’t promise that it will get better because I, myself, don’t know. All I know is I tried – I really tried to change this mentality at home and in theory, the response has been positive.

Yet, all I remember of my farewell is getting ready in that wine-coloured saree.

I was standing in front of the mirror and feeling pretty for just one moment as my mom whipped out her phone to take a picture.

The first thing she said: “Beta you look nice, but you’d look better if you lost a little more weight.”

Vani Sharma is a college student trying to navigate about this world
Featured image credit: Pariplab Chakraborty

Size+: ‘My Body is My Business’

Body shaming is rampant, and love is no longer on the menu.

Being a specific body type (read: slim, toned, without bulges) is always desirable. If you don’t fit here, you are usually desirable only as a part of some fetish, like ‘BBW’ or Big Beautiful/Bold Woman or not even that because a which bro would sleep with a ‘fatty’ right?

I am broad. I have stretch marks crawling on my skin, and flesh is bulging out from my body. I do not fit into the ‘image’ the world considers beautiful, sometimes I am not even acceptable.

My body is everybody’s business but mine. But, I didn’t sign up for it!

I have been bullied and ridiculed my entire life. Everyone from friends to cousins to anyone at all feel comfortable saying the most degrading, demeaning things, often disguised as jokes. The name-calling never really stops. And I am supposed to be okay with it. Why you ask? I wish I knew.

Supposedly, if you don’t conform to societal norms, this society will choke you till the time you literally want to stop breathing. Maybe that will drown out the comments, the names and the sniggers? Maybe, not. They can even laugh at lifeless people and things. Yes, the world is that heartless and I learned this way too early in life. A bit too early for a 6-year-old who was ridiculed even before she could spell.

When you are young, you don’t even get it for a while. Sometimes you laugh along, because, hey, they are adults and they must have picked up some joke that your innocent, stupid mind did not. But the fact that you are the joke struck a lot later in life.

They will say it’s because you are lazy or you eat too much. No one can make them understand that there are several medical conditions, which are not yet curable and come with this body type as a side effect. Or sometimes it’s just a dead metabolism that will make you fat. The need of the hour is some sensitivity, which is really not asking for much.

The constant body shaming, be it through pop culture, the media or in your own household and social circle, pushes you to the edge. People don’t always talk about it, and it’s crueller if you are a woman because the first thing you are told is “Who will marry you if you look like this?” Because as a woman, the only fulfilment that you really need is when a man makes you his wife. Kudos society, kudos!

You play the charade and keep plastering your face with a smile, till it hardens and you can’t feel it anymore. The thought of death is often a looming reality in my imagination.A few things give do give me some hope, chief among them is poetry.

Text and pictures by Priyanka Bansal. Some pictures were created and some captured for their symbolic merit and content. They aim to depict a state of mind.

YRF’s ‘Mahi Way’ and the Case for Progressive Indian TV

In a pop-culture landscape that still remains ruthlessly unforgiving to any woman who doesn’t have a runway model body, ‘Mahi Way’ allowed its protagonist to be a well-rounded, complex character.

After everyone’s favourite wallflower Jassi from Jassi Jaisi Koi Nahin underwent a dramatic physical makeover, the show became insufferably unwatchable. With her entry into the realm of what the show-runners deemed conventional beauty, it seemed like Jassi had been gradually drained of the attributes that made her so relatable and endearing to so many in the first place. On reflection though, it’s clear that it wasn’t just the sartorial transition that had rankled so much. The problem was that the show constantly pitied its own protagonist’s ordinariness and refused to let her move beyond being more than a passive doormat.

In contrast, when YRF’S Mahi Way aired a few years later, promising to right many of the Jassi wrongs, it seemed almost too good to be true. Following a 25-year-old bright-eyed fashion magazine’s agony-aunt columnist and her quest to find love, the show offered a staple girl-next-door protagonist – one who also happened to be overweight. It seemed like wishful thinking to hope that this too would not devolve into crude fat-shaming punchlines.

Mahi Way, however, proved to be a study in subverting expectations. In a pop-culture landscape that still remains ruthlessly unforgiving to any woman who doesn’t approximate the runway body ideal, and where the ‘fat girl’ has been reduced to a stock one-dimensional character to be ridiculed or pitied, Mahi Way was and remains a representational landmark on multiple levels.

Mahi Way’s primary triumph was that it allowed its protagonist to be a well-rounded, complex character. She brimmed with idiosyncrasies and contradictions, which weren’t simply cosmetic additions but themes that were addressed in the show. She was feisty, opinionated, capable and competent, but was also someone who could be chronically unassertive, particularly when it counted most. Like anyone else, Mahi could often be petulant, unreasonable and self-involved, but the show didn’t use these traits to punish her. The moments spent with her friends and family reflected disarmingly honest dynamics and carried a genuine tenderness that made it easy to root for her.

It was a relief beyond measure when, unlike Jassi’s downward spiral into conformity, Mahi Way did not take the route of a narrative cop-out and compel its protagonist to shed the kilos to comply with a rigid idea of beauty. Though it lay at the core of her insecurity, the show ensured that Mahi’s weight didn’t define her, even as the world (family, friends and co-workers) around her indicated otherwise – deliberately or not. In perhaps its most progressive move, the overweight girl was allowed the audacity of sexual prerogative and validated her sexual desire. Through the course of her romantic misadventures, Mahi gradually learnt to rid herself of her own internalized toxic self-loathing. Though her path to intimacy was often riddled with awkwardness and uncertainty, at no point did it warrant shame.

via GIPHY

The show’s other strength was the arcs it plotted for its seemingly archetypal characters, etching out their inner lives beyond the obvious. Whether it was the vain sister who relentlessly mocked Mahi, the best friends she sometimes took for granted or the dapper object of affection Mahi thought would reject her, the supporting characters were put in situations where they could learn from each other and eventually grow.

Even as it subverted expectations, Mahi Way did so without tipping over into heavy-handed and self-conscious social messaging. Its essential levity never undercut its more emotionally charged moments as well.

It is no secret that the romantic comedy genre’s propensity to mix escapist fantasy, heightened drama and archetypal characters has often led it to be written off as vapid. Conversations about representation, however, have begun to engage with the power the genre wields. For instance, as the gay coming of age film Love, Simon released across the US last month, some early reviews of the film lamented its lack of edginess, suggesting that its unabashed genre fidelity made it too sanitized and thus unnecessary for today’s ‘evolved’ young adult audiences. This dismissal by some critics was decried by fans of the film on social media, which was soon abuzz with LGBTQ teens speaking for themselves and rejecting these claims. They asserted that this combination of schmaltz and quality representation was exactly what they needed but had never thought they’d ever get to witness on the silver screen.

Just as Love, Simon seems to have reinvented the mainstream teen-romance wheel for many LGBTQ teens, Mahi Way has re-imagined the potential of romantic comedies for any girl struggling with body issues and insecurities. Even in today’s mediascape, it proves that the romantic comedy genre’s mass appeal can be used towards normalizing the perspectives of people that are rarely seen or heard.

With its upbeat optimism, emotional sincerity, and just the right amount of cheekiness, Mahi Way accomplished what is arguably the most important task of positive media representation – inspiring boundless empathy and encouraging acceptance.

Aamaal Akhtar is a research scholar in Modern History at Centre for Historical Studies, JNU.

Name-Place-Animal-Thing: Women’s Accounts of Fat Shaming

This week: A rebuttal to fat-shamers, how weight shapes the way we’re treated by others and the frustration of being over-stuffed by doting parents.

This week: A rebuttal to fat-shamers, how weight shapes the way we’re treated by others and the frustration of being over-stuffed by doting parents.

Name-Place-Animal-Thing is The Wire’s culture newsletter. If you’re interested in seeing more material like this, subscribe here! 

Name-Place-Animal-Thing. Credit: Vishnupriya Rajgarhia

What’s so funny about being ‘fat’?

Why do we make fun of fat people? According to Supriya Joshi, a creative writer for AIB and a stand-up comedian, “Because that’s what you do with things you don’t understand – you either respond with hate, or you respond by making fun of them.”

Joshi’s tweet was part of a larger thread about how she’s constantly shamed for her weight. People create vile memes making fun of her body, leave hurtful comments on her Instagram posts. Basically, every time Joshi makes her presence felt in a public way, several people turn up to shoo her away. Here is a part of the thread:

Joshi touches on a number of issues here that have clearly struck a chord with her followers. Fat shaming is ubiquitous in our culture, we endearingly call our friends ‘moti’, family members regularly start conversations by commenting on our weight and employ euphemisms like ‘healthy’ to tell us we’re past the acceptable level of chub. But as Joshi flatly points out, the conversation she’s trying to have isn’t about the medical problems associated with obesity, it’s about the societal standards that tell us fat people are inferior.

What starts out as a lack of media representation is actually far more insidious – clothing stores don’t carry products beyond a certain size, chairs are often built for slight people and cannot withstand the weight of someone who might qualify as medically obese; medical terms themselves are horribly mean with weight categories like ‘morbidly obese’ and ‘super morbidly obese’.

Supriya Joshi (in the middle) is one of a small group of women speaking out against blatant fat shaming . Credit: Supriya Joshi’s Twitter handle

And this is all in addition to the fact that societal standards dictate that fat people cannot be attractive, they can never be seen as romantic and sexual interests, as if their weight makes them somehow less human. In public spaces like malls or markets, people make no effort to disguise their stares, as if they’re staring at an object.

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‘Being both invisible and too visible’

Author Lindy West. Credit: Facebook

Joshi’s is the latest in a growing list of books and commentary about how people feel in the face of such dehumanising treatment.

In an episode of ‘This American Life’, author Lindy West spoke to host Ira Glass at length about learning to accept her weight and body as it is.

The very first thing West spelled out was the unsaid expectation that plagues all overweight people – that they should be ashamed of themselves for being the weight and size they are. In her words, “People assume you’re supposed to be thin, so every day that you’re fat feels like a failure.” ‘Fat people’ are supposed to be sad and apologetic, and if they’re not, if they somehow muster up the courage to exist bravely and boldly in this world, people react almost immediately.

West recounted not wanting to acknowledge that she was fat even though it was apparent to everyone, especially herself. She said she had this notion that somehow people wouldn’t notice if she didn’t say anything. Her life was a constant mediation between being too visible and being invisible.

This is the dynamic at play when Joshi makes her presence known through Instagram lives and pictures on social media, people react meanly in an effort to push her back into non-existence. Why? Because they’re fundamentally uncomfortable with the idea that a woman who looks like Joshi is expressing confidence in herself, especially her appearance.

West also recounted to Glass how strangers on the street would feel comfortable giving her advice about nutrition or judge openly if they saw items like ice-cream in her grocery cart. Some went as far as taking food out of her shopping cart without her permission, as if they were doing her a favour.

After years of struggling with all this, West simply decided to accept that she was likely to be fat forever and relieved herself of the expectation of becoming thin. “It just had never occurred to me that you could just decide that you were allowed to be happy and live,” she told Glass.

But some others, like Elna Baker, a produce on ‘This American Life’ who also spoke to Glass, recounted the struggles that come with drastic weight changes. While West chose to accept her body and found fulfilment, Baker went on an extreme weight loss plan to essentially become a whole new person. Only trouble is, she doesn’t really like who she is now.

Baker experienced the world very differently before she lost weight. Romantic interests, job prospects, people walking down the street, grocery store cashiers – they all seemed to drastically change their behaviour once Baker became thin. This essentially confirmed her worst fear, that the world really is that superficial and that a lack of intimate relationships in her life had stemmed from her appearance, despite everything we spout about personality and inner beauty.

The thing that seems to bother her most is how little it takes for men to be attracted to her now. In her words, right after she lost weight and discovered men’s newfound interest in her, Baker thought, “When guys came onto me it didn’t feel like it was about me, I could be anyone. It made it hard to trust people.”

Later Baker said, “it took so much more kindness and ingenuity to be a person in the world when I was fat, all this took was not eating.”

It’s sobering to realise just how inherent our biases can be. Imagine Baker growing up with family members and friends reassuring her that she was wonderful as she was, contrasted with guys who would flirt with her, even kiss her but follow that up with, “Don’t tell anyone this happened.” Who do you listen to and what do you believe? Clearly, for Baker, the answers she’s found after losing weight are disheartening.

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‘Woman with a Bird’ by Fernando Botero. Credit: Irina/Flickr, CC BY 2.0

‘I feel like I was set up for fitness failure’

In this piece, Ruku Taneja looks at some of the double standards that emerge at home with our families when it comes to food and weight. She recounts the food of her childhood that has shaped her eating habits as an adult and the fact that nutritional value or ‘eating healthy’ were almost entirely absent from her family’s dietary rhetoric.

“My definition of “good food” was butter chicken, and sometimes still is. Is this the case with you too, dear? Do you reach for the menu at a bar and automatically choose chilli paneer with your Blenders Pride? If yes, then welcome to the desi fat club. Yes, mum and dad, I wish you hadn’t encouraged our “who can eat the most food” battle royales at home. Maybe, just maybe, you should have focused on the nutritional value of what I was eating when I was 6, 8 and 13. Aunty Saroj, you are not innocent either. You knew that I didn’t look “weak” but you still made me eat all those aloo parathas.”

Taneja’s anger is focused on her Punjabi parents but it’s easy to imagine similar scenes playing out in several homes across the country. Culturally, we’re taught to express our love for children through delicious food or their favourite dishes. The richness of the butter chicken or the makkhan on a paratha almost directly correlates to the amount of love the provider has for the eater. And it’s difficult if not impossible to change a lifetime of dietary preferences. How good can you be on a diet? How long can you diet? How much deprivation can you subject yourself to?

As Taneja points out, that’s exactly what is expected of her as an adult. Now that she is the ‘fat’ one in the family, they all want her to lose weight. But the real reason Taneja is bothered is because of the blame that seems to sit squarely on her shoulders even though she knows it’s a much larger problem, created by several people, including the parents she presumably loves.

She asks, “So what now? I don’t think there is a magic potion to go back in time and set up healthy eating habits but it’s never too late to stop being a d*ckhead.”

All the women who step up and talk about their struggles with their weight all stress the same fundamental point – we need to stop thinking of weight as a reversible ‘situation’ and putting the burden of that reversal solely on the ‘fat’ person’s shoulders. A better way to go about it is to exercise empathy and respect, which should be obvious enough to not need to be spelled out but here we are.

Want to suggest a piece that should be included in this column? Write to me at nehmat@cms.thewire.in
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