(Trigger Warning for, well, what the title says)
I don’t think my parents realized the extent of my disordered eating while it was going on. I went to college almost three thousand miles away from home, on the opposite coast from where I was raised. I spent my sophomore year subsisting on grilled chicken breasts with barbecue sauce and broccoli. Occasionally I changed things up and ate a Boca burger – no bun, of course – with ketchup and pickles. And broccoli. I have no memory of what I would eat for breakfast when those weren’t options.
When I got home at the end of the semester, my resolve weakened. I’d been in hyper weight loss mode in preparation for a trip to Europe to visit a friend. She was a dancer and had taken time off from school in order to dance professionally. I was excited to see her, but I’d always been the biggest in our group of friends, and I didn’t want to be the fat one. I was the tallest, too, which is surprising, since I’m barely 5’4” with shoes on, but the average height among my college friends seemed to be around 5’2”.
So I got home and figured I could try to maintain my weight instead of trying to lose in the time between leaving campus and leaving for Europe. I still counted calories, but wasn’t getting my usual 45-90 minutes of cardio per day and was eating a bit more overall. I was the thinnest I’d been as an adult – and I wasn’t even 20, barely an adult at all. I’ve never again been as thin as I was in the month before my 20th birthday, either, but at that weight, I was still close to having a BMI that would have made me “overweight”. I think I wore a size 6-8 and was convinced that if I could just lose those last 10 lbs, I’d be set. And I’d wear a size 4.
And, not knowing any of my college eating habits, not recognizing that I was not only the thinnest I’d ever been, but that I was probably much thinner than my body’s natural size, my mother constantly questioned my eating. She asked if I was sure I wanted that or didn’t I think I’d already had enough.
Little did she know.
Nearly seven years later, I now weigh over 50 pounds more than I did the month before I turned 20. Over 30 pounds more than I weighed when I started that diet my sophomore year of college. Until just over a year ago, I had maintained that middle weight where I once felt so huge and unacceptable. My mother and I have done a lot of talking, particularly since 30-40 pounds in a relatively short period of time makes us both wonder if there’s an underlying medical condition. In the course of talking, though, I told her how I used to eat in college.
She said she didn’t know. If she had, she would have stopped me.
I’m not sure she could have.
A friend recently posted on twitter asking for information about how to be a good fat ally. Googling hadn’t lead her anywhere and Tumblr is a nightmare for searches when posts haven’t been tagged. Shannon kinda beat me to it, but this is a little different, so I figured it was time to write something up.
1. Basics
Be aware of thin privilege and notice when you are treated differently from your friends who are fat. Yes, thin and average sized people are body policed, but the implications are different. Fat people often face verbal shaming on a daily basis, consistent nagging from doctors about weight, and worries about fitting into places thin people rarely, if ever have to think about, like restaurant booths, airplane seats, and amusement park rides. Even though I’m on the smaller end of fat, I sometimes worry about taking up too much space on the subway, especially when squeezing in between two other people.
2. Health, Weight, & Fitness
First and foremost, health is personal and private. An individual’s health is between that person and their doctor. No one else. Don’t assume that your friends who are fat could lose weight if they just tried harder. Don’t question their food choices. Don’t ask if they’ve heard about the latest fad diet, exercise program, or weight loss pill and stop referring to healthful eating and exercise as weight loss programs. Eating well and being active will make most people healthier, but won’t make most people thinner.
Don’t talk about how you’re “just worried about their health”. You cannot tell whether or not someone is healthy based on their weight or physical appearance. On that note, don’t exclude fat friends from physical excursions because you think they aren’t fit or can’t keep up. That may be true, but it shouldn’t be your call. Many fat people are in good shape and enjoy physical activities. Conversely, stop equating thinness with health. Many thin people have health issues, even ones that have been traditionally associated with fatness, like heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and cancer.
3. Social Stuff
Do not engage in negative body talk around fat friends. In fact, stop it altogether. It’s bad for you, too. But think about it: If a thin woman thinks she’s “fat” (which is code for what? Out of control? Ugly? Lazy? Sloppy?), what does that mean for a woman who actually is fat? Think critically about why fatness is so reviled in western (and increasingly world) culture(s). What is it used as shorthand to represent? How are fat people represented on television and in movies.
Don’t exclude fat friends because you are embarrassed to be seen with them. If you are, you’re not being a good friend. Be aware that many fat people cannot shop in the same clothing stores you can and keep this in mind when making plans to go shopping. This is true even of people who are right on the edge of fat (inbetweenies). When out with others, or even alone, don’t comment about other people’s bodies or clothing choices. You’re giving yourself permission to judge people based on appearance, which reinforces cultural physical ideals.
Don’t assume that everyone finds fat people unattractive or that fat people are desperate for romantic relationships. Don’t treat fat people as non-sexual beings, particularly women, who are prone to being desexualized. At the same time, don’t fetishize fat people, who don’t exist to fulfill your fantasies.
4. And Finally
Educate yourself. Consider reading any or all of these books: The Obesity Myth, Rethinking Thin, Lessons from the Fatosphere, and Health at Every Size. Look carefully at the studies that supposedly show a strong negative connection between health and fatness. Most of those conclusions have been greatly exaggerated and the methodology (i.e. controlling for preexisting conditions, smoking, and regular physical activity) is poor.
Be open minded. Listen to people talk about their personal experiences and respect safe spaces. Understand that if you are not a fat person, sometimes the best thing you can do is listen and observe.
A lot of fat people talk about how they always knew they were going to be fat because they come from a family of fat people. I don’t. My father is tall and thin with a runner’s build. My mother is short-ish (like I am) with delicate bones and a narrow frame. In her teens she was a cheerleader and rhythmic gymnast. In her 20s she was a folk dancer. As a child, I appeared to be built like my father; I was tall and thin, 75th percentile for height and just 50th for weight. But I hit puberty early and it quickly became clear that I was never going to hit my predicted adult height of 5’8”. In fact, given that I was just 5’1” at age 10½, it’s a minor miracle that I even made it to 5’4”. Most women don’t grow much more than an inch or so after menarche. In some ways I am built like my mother; we’re about the same height and our frames are both somewhat narrow. I even have the same propensity toward gaining weight in my arms (the bane of my jacket-buying existence), but unlike her I am muscular and busty, with dense bones and slightly shorter limbs.
What I’m trying to get at is that neither of my parents understands what it’s like to be fat. When it became clear, early in my adolescence, that I was not going to be built like either parent, there were a number of trips to the doctor, referrals to nutritionists, and eventually permission for me to join Weight Watchers at well younger than their typical allowed age of 18.
There was never a question that what I ate was particularly unhealthy. I had a fairly privileged upbringing and my middle-class parents made sure that we ate fresh vegetables at every meal, got plenty of lean meats and high fiber grains, and reserved sugary cereals for Saturday mornings only. We never had soda, diet or regular, in the house; the few times a bottle made its way home with us after a party, it usually sat at the back of the fridge for months until we had guests over who drank soda. So instead of making all the substitutes that dieters are typically expected to make, since those were the primary foods available to me at home anyway, I was just told to eat less.
I remember lying in bed, around age 16 or 17, feeling particularly virtuous because I had eaten four fewer points than my minimum that day. This was before I knew what “starvation mode” was, when I was still so preoccupied with losing weight that health issues weren’t even in my line of sight. We all know how that turned out. Ten years later, I’ve gained back every pound I ever lost, plus a few more.
But none of this is what I intended to write about when I started this post. What I intended to write about is the experience of being a fat child of thin parents. As she’s gotten older, my mother has gotten less thin, but she’s still pretty small; my dad is the same size he was at age 30. Luckily, he realizes that he’s an anomaly. But it’s still hard not to be influenced by personal experience.
A couple years ago, soon after its publication, I handed my parents a copy of Lessons from the Fatosphere. I don’t think dad ever read it, but mom did and it changed her. She still slips up sometimes, still makes comments about what I choose to eat and worries about my health, but she gets it in a way that she never used to. She gets that I deserve to lead a happy life just as I am. She’s realized that her negativity has a direct impact on how I feel about myself; she’s my mother and we’re close – how could it not? I’ve given both parents a copy of Health at Every Size, too. I’m not sure if they’ve read it yet, but I suspect that it will help them understand, too. Mom sometimes comments that I eat less than she does on occasion. I’d still prefer that she not comment on my eating at all, but I think this is her way of integrating the fact that I’m not fat because I stuff my face at every meal. She’s still trying to reassure herself that my weight isn’t about fault or laziness.
The cultural messages encouraging us to believe that weight is about self-control are everywhere and they’ve gotten stronger in the past few years. Unfortunately, much of the data has been misrepresented to us, and even my parents, both smart people, have been duped by headlines announcing that obesity causes diabetes and heart disease and cancer. I’ve spent a lot of time during the past few years trying to help them understand that fat is not a death sentence; in fact, it seems to have some protective benefits. Changing how you think about a highly charged topic is difficult, especially when the truth is different from what national health organizations tell us every day. But this is personal for me in a way it isn’t for them and that makes it even more important to me that they understand why I care so much about FA.
This little essay was originally posted on my Tumblr. I’ve decided to create a slightly more serious blog and this seems like a good post to start with. Additionally, trigger warning for anyone who is sensitive to reading about clothing sizes.
Basics
First the basics. I’m 5’4”, wear a size 12-14 US, and have a BMI just over 30. According to my BMI, I’m fat. According to my height and clothing size, I’m average. I think that’s probably why I was, at first, hesitant to become involved in FA. Even though I meet the medical definition of fat, most people (with the exception of those who actively want to make me feel bad about myself) don’t seem to read me as a fat person. There are certain stereotypical fat experiences from which I have, luckily, been exempt. I’ve never been called fat to my face. I’ve never had anyone moo at me or call me a cow while out being active. I was never bullied at any point during my educational career. No one has ever told me that I have “such a pretty face” or that no man would want me unless I lost weight.
And yet my mother used to question almost every food choice I made. As recently as two months ago (and I’m in my late twenties) she asked me if I was “sure I wanted that second helping” at dinner. (Well, being angry kind of kills my appetite, so no, I guess I don’t want it anymore.) At my thinnest, I was still subject to body policing. It’s a scary and disturbing part of western (particularly USian) culture. I remember once sitting in an airport, reading a trashy magazine while waiting to board my flight home for a holiday. The article I was reading was on the opposite page from an advertisement for a weight loss drug. I glanced up to find the man sitting next to me trying to get my attention. He caught my eye and pointed to the ad and then pointed at my belly. I don’t think he spoke English, but the language barrier wasn’t going to stop him from telling me that I was too fat and should take untested, potentially dangerous drugs in order to look how he thought I should. I gave him a dirty look and went back to reading. But inside, my heart was racing. I was ashamed.
Everything is pre-something else these days. Overweight is “pre-obese.” Blood sugars on the high end of normal are “pre-diabetic.” Perfectly normal cholesterol readings between 150 and 200 are “borderline” (oops! Make that “pre-high-cholesterol). Well, guess what: everything is pre something else. As humans, our bodies are always moving towards eventual death. Yep. We’re all pre-dead. And that’s normal.I spent my teen years desperately trying to lose weight. Mostly, it was Weight Watchers, but I occasionally peeked into the Zone or South Beach. All of them worked, but none of them stuck. I was convinced that if I only weighed under XXX lbs. my health would be perfect. I’d never deal with the high cholesterol my dad has or the diabetes from my grandmother and great-aunt. And yet now, heavier than I’ve ever been before, my cholesterol is lower than it was three years ago. Not just a little lower, either; we’re talking about 40+ points lower. Everything else is normal, too. Even those scary blood sugar and insulin numbers I got a few months ago seem to have been a fluke. (Probably because you’re supposed to fast before those tests.) The most recent tests, done after a 17 hour fast, showed very normal insulin, blood glucose, A1C, etc. numbers.
So I’m totally healthy. In fact, I have a ton of privilege when it comes to health, and most of it is just luck of the draw. But I’m still pre-dead.
Yes, health decline and death are inevitable. Sure, we can take steps to hinder the progress of aging, but we can’t stop it, internally or externally. Torturing ourselves to look a certain way because we think it means we’ll also feel a certain way is lying to ourselves.
We owe our bodies more than that.