What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat

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Because of fatphobia’s history as a structural means of body policing, Gordon says, “all of the ways that we level our bad behaviors at fat people are absolutely entrenched in oppressive systems, in violent forms of communication. There’s no consent built into any of it. All of that is a direct outgrowth of what we’ve all learned from White supremacy. Well, certainly what White folks have learned from White supremacy.” She recommends some easy policy changes, like including body size as a protected class in schools where states have banned bullying. “The number one reason that kids are bullied in school is because of their weight. It’s above and beyond anything else. … We could make some serious strides to reduce the harm that is facing fat kids in schools.” All of the policy changes she proposes are pretty light lifts, but they would be strides toward dignity for fat people. What we have long considered the health conditions associated with being fat in actuality may be the effects of long-term dieting, which very fat people are pressured heavily to do.” Fat folks know concern trolls all too well. Gordon describes them as people who “position themselves as sympathetic supporters,” when they’re really just well-intentioned bullies. A concern troll might ask a fat person what diets they’ve tried before asking them if they even want to lose weight, or even ask for their consent to engage in what might be a sensitive topic. “The simple fact … is that concern harms fat people. It wrests our bodies from our control, insisting that thin people know our bodies best and that, like a car accident or child abuse, fatness requires a mandatory report,” Gordon writes. The dark underbelly of concern-trolling is our cultural obsession with thinness. Author Gordon, who describes herself as very fat, explores all the ways in which society fails fat people, offering suggestions for body justice.

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Like men hearing about the pervasiveness of catcalling for the first time, thin people cannot quite reconcile the differences in our daily lives.” A peek behind the curtain might just turn into a trip down the rabbit hole: Research indicates that weight stigma and fat bias are actually more damaging to one’s health than being overweight or “obese.” All the fuss and concern-trolling over fat people’s health? It’s actually incredibly harmful.

The marginalization and public abuse of very fat people is so commonplace that it has become accepted, but that doesn’t make it acceptable.” Gordon shares many stories like the one about the airplane incident throughout her book, ranging from strangers in grocery stores telling her what food she should or should not buy, to being enrolled in fat camp at age 9. Reading about this, my heart broke for fat kids everywhere who bear the burden of our obsession with thinness. I had to know: How does one heal from this kind of trauma? The research on diet talk alone is real wild. People who even overhear a stranger talking about their diet will take a hit to their self-esteem. We have managed to normalize something that is by almost every measure harmful to pretty much every person. Fat people bear the brunt of it because we’re forced to be aware of our bodies in a different way and where we sit in the hierarchy of body shapes and sizes. But the effects are no less dire on thinner people as well. Everybody pays a price,” Gordon tells me. Photo by Tara Moore/Getty Images. Author Gordon explores all of this and much more in her book. She is what she describes as ‘very fat’, and she has experienced a life of doctors, friends, and strangers making all sorts of assumptions about her, and judgments about her life and frankly about her worth. In the book she shares her own experiences, but this isn’t a memoir. It’s a well-researched, evidence-based look at many of the different ways fat people experience discrimination at the hands of thin people, corporations, the diet industry, and society as a whole.

What We Dont Talk about When We Talk about Fat | TikTok What We Dont Talk about When We Talk about Fat | TikTok

I am not fat. I mean, according to the BMI (which, as Gordon clearly lays out in her book, is utter bullshit) I am a bit ‘overweight,’ but even at my heaviest I have always been able to shop in pretty much any store and know that something will fit me (except trousers, but that’s about my height). But I’ve dieted, and still find my mood impacted by the number I see on the scale. Gordon opens her book with a story about being put in a middle seat on a plane as a size 28, and the anger she received from the man sitting next to her. “Wherever I go, the message is clear: my body is too much for this world to bear. And it’s reinforced by the people around me. Like the man on the plane, strangers take it upon themselves to tell me what I already know: that I won’t fit and I’m not welcome,” she writes. I find an immense sense of freedom and power in learning the histories behind this stuff and doing deep dives into the research. Because the further you get into it, the more I found that this stuff is not based on science. The ways that we treat fat people are not based on science. They are not based on outcome-driven ideas. The ways that we treat fat people are kind of terrible, and they don’t actually make fat people thinner, or healthier, or happier. None of the above. There’s something about peeking behind the curtain of all of this that feels immensely empowering,” Gordon says. In a world where thinness reigns supreme and diet talk is as normal as talking about the weather, fat folks rarely have the opportunity to share their stories without fear of being bullied or berated. Gordon, also known as “Your Fat Friend,” (previously anonymously), has claimed her own space online where fat stories are welcome. She’s written essays about living as a fat person, as well as informative pieces about the harms of diet talk, how to examine your anti-fat bias, and the public health risks of fat-shaming. In her new book, What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat, Gordon seamlessly threads a personal narrative with data and history. It’s a much-needed and accessible addition to fat discourse. Photo by Tara Moore/Getty Images. Aside from structural changes, I wondered what thin people specifically could do to be better allies to fat people. “Talk to your doctor about how they treat fat patients. See if they have equipment that holds fat people. In your friendships with fat people, ask them about their experiences as fat people. Ask them what you can do to help them in the moment if you witness street harassment or someone treating them differently as a result of their size. There are all kinds of ways for folks to show up for this kind of work,” Gordon says. Photo by Luis Alvarez/Getty Images.

As a full-time organizer with 12 years of experience, Gordon wanted her book to be accessible to folks who may not know much about anti-fatness, as well as being validating for other fat folks. “There are two entry points in: if you’ve never thought about this before, if you’ve never thought about fatness and fat people in this dignity- and justice-centered way, there will be plenty of user friendly entry points for you. And if you are a fat person who has thought about this a lot, my hope is to have created something that allows fat folks to see themselves reflected in a way that doesn’t usually happen.” One area she focuses on, which I found enlightening, was the way the body positivity movement — along with other similar areas — treat the concerns fat people raise as ‘insecurities.’ ‘You just need to feel better in your skin!’ But that ignores the reality that fat people can feel as fine as they like in their skin, but that doesn’t mean a lot if they can’t buy clothes in person, or sit comfortably in a restaurant, or receive quality health care that doesn’t assumer every ailment from an ear infection to a broken bone is caused by weight. When was the last time you spoke to a fat person about their experience being fat? Or, if you’re fat, when was the last time a thin person asked you about your experience of fatness? According to activist and writer Aubrey Gordon, our conversations about fatness are extremely one-sided: “We’re very good at talking about fat people without ever talking to fat people.” Everyone, but especially straight-sized individuals, and people who still hold onto ideas about weight as a proxy for health.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Fat - ScienceDirect What We Talk About When We Talk About Fat - ScienceDirect

Anti-fatness isn’t about saving fat people, expressing concern for our health, or even about hurting us. Hurting us is a byproduct of reinforcing the egos of the privileged thin.” By sharing her experiences as well as those of others—from smaller fat to very fat people—she concludes that to be fat in our society is to be seen as an undeniable failure, unlovable, unforgivable, and morally condemnable. Fatness is an open invitation for others to express disgust, fear, and insidious concern. To be fat is to be denied humanity and empathy. Studies show that fat survivors of sexual assault are less likely to be believed and less likely than their thin counterparts to report various crimes; 27% of very fat women and 13% of very fat men attempt suicide; over 50% of doctors describe their fat patients as “awkward, unattractive, ugly and noncompliant”; and in 48 states, it’s legal—even routine—to deny employment because of an applicant’s size. Diet culture is insidious. You see it on TV, like when Miranda from Sex and the City joins Weight Watchers right after having a baby. You hear it from your co-worker who won’t stop talking about how they simply cannot eat another cookie at the holiday party. And I’d venture to guess you even hear it in your head, when your pants are suddenly fitting a little differently. Regardless of how normalized diet culture is, it’s harmful.From the creator of Your Fat Friend, an explosive indictment of the systemic and cultural bias facing plus-size people that will move us toward creating an agenda for fat justice. Anti-fatness is everywhere. In What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat, Aubrey Gordon unearths the cultural attitudes and social systems that have led to people being denied basic needs because they are fat and calls for social justice movements to be inclusive of plus-sized people’s experiences. Unlike the recent wave of memoirs and quasi self-help books that encourage readers to love and accept themselves, Gordon pushes the discussion further towards authentic fat activism, which includes ending legal weight discrimination, giving equal access to health care for large people, increased access to public spaces, and ending anti-fat violence. As she argues, “I did not come to body positivity for self-esteem. I came to it for social justice.”