It happens all. the. time.
I’m having a casual conversation with someone, almost anyone. We’ll be chatting about clothes, sales, swimsuit season… you know, life-changing stuff. It will inevitably come up that certain stores or designers don’t carry my size, and I’ll refer to myself as fat.
“Gasp! Don’t say that! You’re not fat!”
Every. Time.
Look, I know I’m not fooling anyone. Clever ruching and standing with my shoulders back will only get me so far. I’m here, there’s a lot of me, and I’m fat.
I know, I know, you’re trying to encourage me. You don’t want to hear your beloved friend talk badly about themselves, want to encourage them and lift them up and only say good things about them. The thing about that is, though, by not allowing me to label myself as fat, you’re telling me that being fat is awful. Is it fun? No. Would I wish it on myself? No. But is it the worst thing in the world? No.
J. K. Rowling has a famous quote that is very dear to me: “Is ‘fat’ really the worst thing a human being can be? Is ‘fat’ worse than ‘vindictive’, ‘jealous’, ‘shallow’, ‘vain’, ‘boring’, or ‘cruel’? Not to me.”
Fat isn’t the worst thing someone can be. It’s not fantastic or something to strive for, sure. (It’s also not an indicator of health, before you pull that one out.) I’m not cruel. I’m not vindictive. I can be shallow and vain sometimes, sure. I’m not evil or manipulative or selfish. I don’t inflict pain on others, I break for squirrels, and I don’t put pineapple on pizza. Being fat is not the worst thing I could be. But when you shush me, when you tell me not to describe myself with such an awful word, you’re not protecting me, you’re projecting your own feelings about weight onto me.
I am fat. It’s okay. It’s an adjective, a way to describe part of me. I’m also tall. Loud. Blonde (unless I haven’t been to the salon in a while). I’m a mother, a friend, a wife. I’m a photographer, a writer, a homeschooler, and a Twihard (yes, still). If I’m allowed to describe these other aspects of myself, why can I not also mention my size? Calling myself fat is just a description. Check the comments of any plus-size-related social media account and you’ll quickly see that the rest of society gets to call us fat, so why can’t we, the actual fat people, own our own word? You wouldn’t correct a thin person who called themselves skinny, and you wouldn’t stop me from referring to myself as loud, tall, or easily-excitable. So why am I denied the word “fat”? What is just so awful about one adjective that I cannot use it for myself? Again, the issue is not my appearance, it’s your feelings towards – your fear of – the word itself.
“But Jen! What about those girls who aren’t really fat, they’re just fishing for compliments when they say it about themselves?” Give them compliments. Is that so hard? Do people need to earn compliments? If someone is feeling the need for accolades, then they’d probably really appreciate your flattery. There’s no daily quota on compliments you’re allowed to give out or a size profile one must fit to deserve them. Toss those things around like confetti. Compliment away without needing to negate part of someone’s identity.
Speaking of identity, you don’t get to decide how someone else defines their body. If a skinny person wants to call themselves fat, you are not the size police who gets to determine whether or not their self-description is valid. If a fat person wants to call themselves fat, you are not the feelings police who get to try and save them from their self-description. Their body, their words. Curvy, fluffy, big, plus-sized, or fat, it’s just a descriptor and it’s not shameful to say.
More than anything, what I think that’s happening is that you, the shusher, are uncomfortable with the word. You noticed I’m fat and you want to make sure I know you’re not disgusted by me. You may even have genuine compliments for other aspects of my appearance. But me calling myself fat makes you uncomfortable because you feel like you’re not allowed to say it. I’m calling attention to the elephant in the room (no pun intended), and your politeness has taught you that if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all. I’m not saying you have to walk up and greet me with, “Hey, Fatty, how’s it goin’?” But if I want to call myself fat, it’s actually rude not to let me. Me calling myself fat is not the opposite of nice – hinting that being fat is bad definitely is, though.
Listen, I have enough discomfort to carry on my own. Society doesn’t want to see me and doctors don’t want to hear me. Some chairs hurt me and most stores don’t cater to me. I have my own self-esteem to nurse every morning, and it takes COURAGE to leave the house some days. I cannot also bear the burden of your discomfort with a word. I cannot lightly tease and argue and convince you that yes, I am fat and yes, it’s okay for me to say it. I don’t want to draw even more attention to the most obvious thing about me by having an entire conversation surrounding the way it’s described. So please, let me call myself fat.
My hands are shaking. My heartbeat is visible through the skin over my collarbone. I’m so nervous and humiliated that I feel lightheaded. I do not want to share this.
But I have to. For a week I’ve been fighting this, and for a week I’ve tossed and turned and been awakened by my brain that seems to want to write this on its own. So while I don’t want to share this, I need to.
I love fashion. I hang out in sweatpants and Backstreet Boys t-shirts and revel in the no-makeup days, but I love fashion. I also love to laugh. It seemed a given that I would enjoy a marriage of the two, Fashion Police on E!. I DVR’ed the heck out of it, I wanted Joan Rivers’ job (and wardrobe!), I laughed, I looked forward to it. Until a few months ago when I read an interview with a random celebrity that I can’t even remember, but their words stuck with me. She said that she did not watch Fashion Police, because it was hurtful. The women they tore apart on that show left their house feeling beautiful, and those “judges” thought it was their place to say otherwise. Boom. I haven’t watched since.
Many of you know that I struggle with my weight. Yes, I say “struggle”. I’m still battling the irrational anxiety that has popped up in the last year. I went from fat and happy to fat and terrified. Terrified of what people thought, terrified of what people saw. Leaving the house means winning an internal battle some days. As much as I love to encourage others, I cannot seem to rally myself to hold my head up as often. Yes, my husband loves me and tells me how beautiful he thinks I am. Yes, I am HEALTHY. No, I never share this struggle with my children. Because this weight is beyond my control, I feel like I am grasping at nothing, drowning, falling down a well. I want to wear a sign that says “Yes, I know I’m overweight, but NO, I did not do this to myself.” I feel like I need to explain myself to the perceived disgusted public. It’s a truly overwhelming feeling to not have control over your body. Enter the hot tears. I can take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5). But the outside? The part that people see? All I can do is shave my legs, do my hair, and put on some makeup. Well, it’s winter, so the legs can wait. I have literally had panic attacks in the middle of stores because I was so ashamed of how I looked and what I thought people were thinking. Again, I know it’s irrational. But again, grasping at nothing.
Last week, my worst fear happened: I caught someone taking a cell phone picture of me. This is where my hands shake and my heart races again. This person was trying to go unnoticed, pretending to check emails or Facebook, until the flash accidentally went off. I was sitting alone, just a bare wall next to me. When I climbed far enough out of my shame cloud to tell my best friends and husband what had happened, they all tried their obligatory encouraging alternatives: “Maybe it was your beautiful hair! Maybe they liked something you were wearing! Maybe this, maybe that…” Nope. Momma was having a ROUGH day that day. Ponytail, my black flats with the holes in them, glasses. Also, we had been chatting, so a compliment could have been offered up at any time. I also know that this person is a member of a very trendy gym, one that prides itself so much on fitness that the various branches host competitions for members to prove themselves. I’m not calling this gym out, I’m just saying that given this person’s trained way of thinking with regard to fitness, and my appearance that day, it is not hard to conclude why that person took a sneaky picture of me.
I’m fat.
As a fat person, I’m allowed to say that. It’s not the worst thing someone can be, so I’m okay with saying it. It’s just a descriptor, it’s not my identity. But when that’s all someone bothers to notice about you, especially as a woman, it hurts. You can’t tell by the picture that person took that I love my family and friends, that I’m a beast with a glue gun, that I can quote every episode of Friends, that I’m freaking funny and flippin’ awesome. That picture doesn’t show my dedication, my creativity, my desire to help other people. It doesn’t show the rivers of tears I’ve cried over pants that stop fitting, the number of doctors I’ve met with to find a cure, or at least a STOP. It doesn’t show the fear I have when I approach a folding chair, an amusement park ride, or when I pass someone leaving a restaurant. It doesn’t show the internal battle being waged by my hormones, how my body is turning against me, how I have no control and no end in sight to this horrible, horrible disease. But you know what it does show, that image of my outsides? It shows the insides of the person who took it.
As a photographer, I can assure you that this person was within their legal rights to take my picture. Once you attend a public event, you lose what is called a reasonable expectation of privacy. As a human, I want to shout that they had NO right. I am a mother, a wife, a friend… not a punchline. I may not meet that person’s standards of beauty, but then again, I’m not trying to. I can call that person rude, judgemental, callous, a butthead… I can say whatever I want, but it doesn’t take away the shame. Again, I wanted to scream, “I didn’t do this to myself!” I don’t owe that person an explanation, but I was so humiliated that I felt the need to justify my measurements. Instead, I just hung my head. My worst fear, that a stranger was internally laughing at my appearance, had just played out in front of me. Me, the strong-willed, opinionated, loud, energetic force of nature, had been reduced to a lump of indignity. My friends and husband also gave me the obligatory accolades, but the facts that I’m caring, sweet, thoughtful, funny, or made of concentrated awesomesauce don’t show up in sneaky, malicious cell phone pictures. It hurt. Bad. It still hurts. Writing this has helped some, given me a sense of control over how I will react to it. Like I said, it says as much about the person who took that photo as it does about the way I look. But beyond a personal victory, I needed to share this so to offer my perspective, the person on the other side, the person who is likely in someone’s newsfeed with a crude caption.
Please consider this side the next time you do the same. People of Walmart can be hilarious and mind-boggling, and you KNOW there are people who dress that way intentionally in the hopes of a POW appearance (or the $50 gift card), but what about the innocent ones? The people who don’t have any fashion sense, the people who say “Screw it, it’s Walmart and I need toilet paper!”, the people who don’t have the money for nice clothes, or even a home to hang them in? What about the people who don’t have the mental capacity to arrange a Milan-worthy look, the people you see wearing holey clothes, too-tight clothes, too-short clothes, too-dirty clothes, too-ugly clothes, too-old clothes… what if those are all the clothes they have? Can you imagine how they would feel to see their photo on a website devoted to judging peoples’ appearance, to read the comments of strangers about how they look, when no one knows their circumstances? I myself am guilty of taking a sneaky photo of a cashier who was dressed exactly like Blanche from Golden Girls. But now I ask myself, “Why?” Why did I need the picture? Why was it my place to secretly tease this woman? And what pain and embarrassment might she have felt, what insecurities might I have unearthed if she’d noticed? When did our desire to judge and tease become greater than someone else’s right to dignity? If I am fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14), if I was knit together in my mother’s womb (Psalm 139:13), if I am God’s MASTERPIECE (Ephesians 2:10), then so are you, so is Blanche, so are we all. Taking pictures and laughing isn’t going to change that person’s life for the better. And it certainly won’t make you a better person. So please, stop.
