Last Word on Fat

Posted on May 12, 2005 in Anger Sugar and Fat

Go ahead. Comment on this picture.

I realize now that part of the problem in the so-called “cruel to the fat model” discussion is that just about everyone in the discussion — including me at points — conflating beauty and healthfulness. I based my concern on the healthiness of being overweight as the model appeared (and still appears) to be on me. When I stated this concern, I included remarks about her physical beauty — “she looks fine to me” which meant that I was looking at things like her face, her eyes, and her frame.

These need to be separated, which I failed to do. I know women who are in a reasonable weight range and taunted or shunned for being “fat”. It’s their bones and they can’t help that. They have every right to feel that they are beautiful (everyone does) and, what’s more, they have a right to be proud that they have maintained their weight at a healthy range, which is neither too thin or too fat.

I have remarked again and again that I feel anorexia is a dangerous weight condition as well. Yet not one of my attackers has gone to bat for “thin rights”. In fact, I have often seen so-called feminists attacking prominent, anorexic figures in ways that can only be described as cruel. Strangely, when I say that the people in question should put on some weight, no one gainsays me.

Hear it here: being too thin or too fat is unhealthy. Neither is a cause for ostracizing the person. Name-calling is out of the question. But pointing out a problem is the compassionate thing to do.

See what my wife has to say:

In this context, what really annoys me on the fat friendly side of the argument is how often I hear arguments that seem to want to dismiss what the medical establishment is saying altogether, and to say that weight really doesn’t have that much at all to do with your health – or at least not until you’re something like a hundred pounds overweight – that it’s different for everybody, and that whatever body you actually have is right for you. Which as far as I know, just isn’t true. And what bothers me on the fat unfriendly side of the argument is the moral indignation that sometimes comes out – as if fat is this huge character defect. A lot of it is class and opportunity, anyway, another large portion is genetics, and besides, we’ve all met at least some thin people who, putting all their bad habits together, live unhealthier lifestyles than some of the fat people we know.

Yep. I agree. Fat may be the byproduct of mental illness (as I know is true of some friends who have told me their personal stories.) But I don’t consider mental illness to be a character defect. Maybe that’s the problem. Maybe my attackers do and they want to keep that prejudice?