Many people are fat and they listen and see the way we talk about their bodies. And this can hurt. Because the ways we share insecurities can send strong messages on which bodies are worthy of living and loving.
Yes, all the people should have space to elaborate their thoughts on the body, but this cannot happen without considering the dignity of other bodies. Whether a person teases himself/herself or someone else, the message is the same: you are worth less if you weigh more.
Fatphobia: our fear of gaining weight
When we joke about becoming fat, when we process that fear, there is always someone who listens who is fatter than us. There is always someone living in the body that we are describing as a nightmare.
So every time people shows their body they feel more pressure to prove that they are “fat the right way”. They must have an excellent state of health, they are exercising and they are eating “well”.
What is happening? The more we want to move away from a standard, the more we create new standards without having, among other things, medical or sports or nutrition skills in the illusion of being able to create a solution that works for everyone. Even if who have these skills don’t believe and have never believed to these things.
Those who admonish someone else to be sick, lazy or disturbed by food instills a sense of shame that is useless, but that only leads to having less esteem in our abilities, to make we feel more anxiety about our body and to do many more self-destructive things that constructive for themselves in the quick and easy search for a change that may not be positive and not in the way we are generally told it’s worth.
Instead of wasting time creating new standards to mask our fatphobia, we may begin to no longer shame people for what they are living by giving voice to their experience.