Maybe leave us out of it?
Sometimes I am really confronted with how much work I have done on my internalized fat phobia, and how much the default response of most people to fatness or things related to fatness, is disgust and judgement.
On Facebook the other day I saw a woman I used to go to school with posting about her daughter’s difficulties since being diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. That is not the thing that hit me. That sucks and I wish her and her daughter the best.
It’s how she went ON AND ON about how it was not her daughter’s fault. Because type 1 is not the one where it’s your fault. My issue being the idea that type 2 is your fault? She explained over and over about how she and her daughter are following a diet based on her doctor’s recommendations and watch her food and she’s a healthy eater and they are doing all the right things.
Here’s the deal. I understand that this is a woman who has only had to deal with fat phobia as it applies to every woman in the Western world, which is admittedly no small thing, but therefore has never had to dismantle the structures in it. And she is a societally attractive woman. So she has most certainly experienced privilege based on her beauty. Which is not a slight. Just a truth. I like her. She’s a nice lady.
But fuck did it hurt my feelings to hear her try to insist her daughter is one of the worthy ones, instead of inherently understanding that every one of us is worthy. Even if we have eating disorders. Even if our bodies are not the standard. Even if we are hugely fat! Yes! Even then!
Fatness is not always an addiction. I didn’t understand that until I had my eating under control. There are plenty of happy, healthy fat people. People who love their lives and their bodies and are simply fat.
I was not one of those people. I was an addict. I wanted to stop and I could not. And even though I did it to lose weight, I KEEP my eating under control because it makes my life better. But it doesn’t always keep me thin. I have been very thin but I have also been quite chubby.
It turns out thinness is not as predictable for me as common lore would have you believe. Calories in calories out is not actually the way it works. Not for me, anyway.
But even if it is clear that a person is fat, and an addict, and miserable, and not doing the “right things,” do they really deserve to suffer and die?
There are plenty who will say yes. And I think it’s quite possible I would have been one when I was in the food and miserable and a self-hating fat phobe. Because I used to believe one had to earn their place in the world. But now that is not true of me.
I guess I will wrap it up with this thought. Sometimes the only way to change is to think you are worth it. And when you tell people they are not worth it, you are just slowing the process of the thing you think should happen.
Also, maybe mind your own business. You can talk about Type 1 diabetes without bringing Type 2 into it…
onceafatgirl 