Being Fat
I, like many of us, maybe all of us, have been raised in a culture where fat is seen as ugly, bad, unhealthy, an epidemic, where being able to ‘pinch an inch’* is an individual and moral failure. Like the air we breathe that shit gets everywhere and into everyone.
Being fat is a descriptive term unlike the ‘O’ words which carry judgement and value. Being fat for me means that I just about fit into some seats – on buses, on aeroplanes, in meetings. I feel shame at the thought I may be encroaching on someone else’s space, making them feel uncomfortable. It means, I struggle to find clothes that fit on the High Street and anticipate the shame in both senses of the word of going on holiday, forgetting my swimming costume and not being able to buy another one big enough to replace it. It means having the thought that mine will be the fattest body in the dance class, in the swimming pool and making the extra effort to do it anyway. And then, when I go red and sweaty in the face, feeling the shame of the assumed judgment of unfitness, fatness and general moral weakness. It means fearing that when and if I get something wrong with my health like plantar faciitis, raised blood pressure, high cholesterol or similar that friends will assume it’s weight-related and the doctor won’t treat me other than to tell me to lose weight.
In my adult life I have lost weight through restricting what I ate twice. As my body got bigger again through menopause, lockdown and stress-related cortisol I had to make a choice. I could continue to hate my body (and therefore myself), restrict what I ate, starve myself, ignore my hunger, stop being social (eating and drinking), use my precious energy to drive my body and indeed every part of me to work harder, do better, be smaller. I decided I could not do this. Despite the rhetoric and alleged evidence that fat = unhealthy it did not seem a healthy or joyful way to live the rest of my life. Surely there was more likely to be health in honouring my body and being with my friends and family? After 50 years of being brutally hard on myself it was time to try something different. In the words of the much missed and adored Andrea Gibson
“I know most people try hard to do good and find out too late
they should have tried softer”
So, I learned about the ten principles of intuitive eating (which is way deeper and more political than ‘just’ eating what you feel like) and I followed them. Slowly very, very slowly alongside podcasts, coaches, therapists, yoga and moving my body in ways which felt good I discovered I could have a relationship, be in relationship with my body. I am now mostly kinder to my body and those of others. I don’t crave certain foods, I don’t believe I have to earn certain foods, I don’t deny or restrict.
I fill my Insta feed with people in fat and larger-sized bodies doing incredible things and providing the evidence that health and fatness are not opposites. I hate on the patriarchy and White supremacy any time I can feel the sides of a chair on my thighs or someone mentions BMI or someone is abused for being too fat or too thin. I get angry for the menopausal women who went to a doctor for HRT and were told to lose weight and the many, many people whose health needs were not fully investigated because it was believed that their fatness was the cause. Body size or shape is not a moral measure of worth or value or goodness or what is deserved. When I can feel myself turn towards judgment of someone else’s body, which is often, I actively think the thought “I wish you nothing but love” and I really do.
I am now usually grateful for my body. I am here on this earth, and I can move my body, and be with my body when it is suffering and when there is joy. I am grateful for the wisdom of women, often from marginalised groups who have taught me about the relationship between Whiteness and fatphobia. I am grateful to my kettle bells teacher who offers modifications for when a body part is getting in the way of a move. I am grateful to my partner who has loved and fancied me in all my shapes and sizes. I am grateful to my kettle bell class friend who when I said I was struggling with my energy asked if I was eating enough and taught me that not everyone will assume my fatness is to blame for health-related issues. I am grateful to myself for knowing there was not a way for me to be smaller without harming myself and that in being kind to my body I would find ways to be kinder to other parts of me too. And incidentally have more compassion for others.
And yet. There is no happy fairy tale ending to this story. I do not love my body. I still sometimes feel the shame I describe in the first paragraph. The discomfort of being in a larger body sometimes feels overwhelming, particularly when I am ill, injured, tired or just struggling.
And now. There are GLP1s (Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro) that promise a quick fix. Maybe I could get help to starve myself, make myself thinner and then be at ease clothes shopping and getting my clothes off for the swimming pool or sea. It could remove my fear of others’ judgments and my shame. What a relief that would be.
It is hard having any sort of body in this world, and I understand why many people every day make choices aimed at shrinking their body, changing their body or their features. There’s a multi-billion pound industry designed to make us feel fat (and perhaps through yo-yo dieting and weight-cycling make us fat) and then marketing to us the so-called cures for this – most and maybe all of which don’t work, may cause harm and or certainly don’t work for all bodies.
Today and for now, I am making the choice to be with the grief of losing my thinner and younger bodies. I am sitting with the paradox of wanting to be smaller and not wanting to take action that could harm my body and contribute further to societal attempts to remove diversity of bodies, stop people taking up space and stop us having energy for protesting the patriarchy. I instead notice when the self-hatred comes up and try when I can to get curious about what has caused it to arise and to practice gratitude.
I also feel grief for the bodies I could have had, and we all could have had if we had always been told our body was OK as it is or was. If we all had the resources, time and capacity to move our bodies and feed our bodies in ways that felt good. Wouldn’t that have been a wonder to behold?
I question myself as I always do about the self-indulgence about talking about my fatness when there is so much worse harm being done to other people. I am reminded of the work of Sonya Renee Taylor who talks about a hierarchy of bodies. How some bodies are valued more than others. I know I have a lot of privilege in relation to my body. I am White, cisgender and am a ‘small fat’. I don’t need to ask the flight attendant for a seat belt extension or need to buy two aeroplane seats. I can afford new clothes (mainly online) as my body changes and the more expensive leggings that control some of the fat. I haven’t been abused in the street, to my face or in ear shot. I can afford the intuitive eating counsellor who helped me make peace with food. I can afford a gym where I can swim and find some peace in the weightlessness of my body. I have some class privilege when I visit health care professionals [although that did not stop an NHS physiotherapist suggesting I lost weight by restricting my calories before even exploring with me what I ate, how I moved my body and if I had a history of disordered eating].
The hierarchy of bodies is so evident in our world. It is the reason we welcome some refugees and migrants but not others. It is the reason trans people are being denied access to a toilet. It is the reason that violence against women and girls is not being taken seriously but used to argue against the rights of trans women to exist or asylum seekers to be here in the UK.
I have versions of this blog going back several years and I haven’t posted it until now. The reason I think is shame and internalised fatphobia. What if people don’t get it? What if I am judged as a bad person? What if people think I’m lazy, I don’t care about myself? I have fought the urge as I write to tell you all the ways I am a ‘good’ fat person.
I have in recent months tried talking more about fatness and my struggles and this has sometimes brought some relief. So, finally, I share this now to contribute to building community and reducing aloneness whilst honouring the different choices we all make to stay safe in this harm filled, judgmental world.
If you are interested in joining a coaching group to explore being with your body in this challenging world please get in touch.
A few of the many resources and individuals that have helped me make more peace with my body and continue to do so:
Your Fat Friend (Film) BBC Four - Storyville, Your Fat Friend
Anti-Diet: Reclaim your time, money, wellbeing and happiness through intuitive eating; Christy Harrison (Book)
The body is not an apology: the power of radical self-love; Sonya Renee Taylor (Book or search any podcast featuring Sonya)
*reference Special K advert of the 1980s
