Fat

Back in the 1970's, when my mother was a teenager, she was what they referred to as "fat." (Whether she was overweight or obese, I neither know nor particularly need to know.) Back in the day, if you were a young, white, dating-age woman, being fat was absolutely the worst thing that could happen to you (worse, even, than belonging to a different religion from the guy you were interested in). It wasn't just that individual men saw fat girls as unattractive. It was that the male hivemind saw fat girls as unattractive, so even if you were a man who found a fat girl attractive you wouldn't have dared go out with her. Many of these young women were so desperate to get some male attention that they would sleep with anyone who asked, just to say that they had a boyfriend. (In case that sounds remotely like a good idea: as a consequence, fat girls were proclaimed "easy lays," further discouraging anyone from wanting to date them for other reasons.) In order to get my dad to pay any attention to her (and boy, what a catch he was), my mum had to virtually starve herself until they were married.

Fortunately, things are a lot better now. Right?

Haaaaaaahahahahahaha.

Sure, it's no longer quite so stigmatized for a man to date a fat woman. He's allowed to it, but now he's derogatorily referred to as a "chubby chaser" - a special brand of pervert who's into FAT WOMEN of all things. (Same goes for gay men, actually.) Meanwhile, fat people on the whole are seen as stupid, slovenly, lazy beasts, shuffling down the sidewalk in search of their next Big Mac. On the other hand you've got the "size acceptance" people, who are so frustrated with their inability to lose weight through conventional means that they've given up and are declaring that they - and the rest of the world - need to get over it and "embrace their curves," among other optimistic euphemisms.

The problem with these mindsets - the "hey, fatty, ever heard of a gym?" and the "beauty at any size" perspectives - is that neither of them seem to grasp the complexity of the situation.

Before I continue, I feel I should point out that I am a caveman, and everything I am going to say is going to be informed by that fact, and therefore it will not necessarily be congruent with the perceived reality of non-cavemen. Gehddovuhit.

Firstly, the anti-fat. This is the mindset that is the most annoying and potentially damaging, for a few reasons: firstly, it is so pervasive that even fat people hang onto it, and secondly, it advocates a "weight-loss-at-any-cost" mindset that can and has destroyed people's health. Even worse, it's based on a model for health that is narrow, incomplete, and based on dodgy science.

Case in point: my mother. Weight problems from a young age, as I said. She spent most of her earlier adulthood doing the "yo-yo" form of diet - follow the guidelines until you reach the recommended poundage for your height, at which point you get sick of starving yourself and start eating again, at which point the weight comes back with extras. The reason this happened was because she followed the "starvation diet" model - an idea that encouraged her to underconsume calories to force her body to cannibalize itself, and get most of her other calories from carbohydrates - a source known for its low calorie-to-consumption ratio, which gives the consumer the illusion of being full without eating extra calories, and its ability to burn up extremely quickly inside the body, leaving you with... nothing.

So just from a scientific standpoint, this kind of thing is damaging. Fatphobia has led to doctors and dietitians everywhere to advocate the dangerous "calories in/calories out" lifestyle, wherein people try to eat as little food as possible and expend as much energy as possible to force their bodies into a starvation state so they can shed those horrible, horrible pounds.

Problem is, it doesn't work. For one thing, the body isn't fooled by your attempt to stuff it with calorie-void fluff (hence why you can eat three cups of salad, but only one six-ounce chicken breast). You can persuade it to accept fewer calories if the food you eat is nutritious, but the kind of food they advocate - bread, cereal, rice, and pasta - is anything but. It's cheap energy, and the human body doesn't appreciate it.

Since continuing on this subject would require a long, dull, scientific and highly controversial blog post all on its own, I'm going to turn the reins over to Mark Sisson at Mark's Daily Apple. He is also a caveman, which means that he eschews the "stuff with fluff" dietary ethos in favor of a grain-free, meat-and-veggies type of diet. Before you read any of his resources, check out the pics of his abs.

Anyway, so in lieu of an actual health-focused diet for the overweight, they have the low-calorie model begotten by a knee-jerk fear of fat and fat people. That's the scientific side; now let's talk social.

Years after she recovered from the need to yo-yo diet, my mother is still suffering from fatphobia. I can hear it in the things she says. She describes her own body (a victim of lower-end obesity) as "gross." She puts down chubby women who dress in revealing clothing, rails against pot bellies, and gripes regularly about the bad food choices people make - despite being a fat woman herself.

This hypocrisy not only confused me, but encouraged severe self-esteem issues when I was a child. I remember getting into a spat with my little brother over some food, and my mother marching me into the bathroom, made me look at my own obese reflection and made it known to me that the reason I was fat was because I ate too much. Another fat-combating tactic that she employed: poking me in the stomach and telling me exactly what I'd been eating too much of. My dad joined in the fun, criticizing me for an accidental overspill of bleu cheese dressing by telling me I was well on my way to becoming my obese aunt. The message: "Even though I am buying you highly-processed food, including sweets, and ignoring your actual nutritional needs, you are making yourself fat."

Now, it's true: I have an eating disorder. I will eat when I'm bored, I will eat when I'm stressed, and I will eat even when I'm full just because I like the taste of whatever I'm eating. It's something I fight with all the time. And realistically, there's no way my parents could have known that I was sneaking frozen snack cakes to eat in the middle of my chores. But maybe instead of blaming a ten-year-old child - who saw his/her parents not as trying to help him/her, but as creatures bent on controlling as much of his/her life as possible without actually making an effort to help him/her change - they might have taken a little more proactive steps. Like not bringing snack cakes into the house. You can't ask a ten-year-old child to muster up a level of self-control that many adults (including my dad) can't cultivate in themselves.

Yes, I would say that fatphobia has affected me deeply.

Even today, when my mother professes herself to be an ally of persons with "extra fat", it doesn't take long in any conversation for her colors to come through. We can talk about someone who appears 20-40 pounds overweight, and her favorite way to preface her acceptance of their fat level: "I'm not saying he/she couldn't stand to lose a little weight, but..."

Persons familiar with the anti-racism movement might notice a similarity between this and another popular white phrase: "I'm not a racist, but..." It means basically the same thing. "I don't want you to think I actually support being people being fat, but I think she's fine just the way she is [as long as she doesn't dress in any clothing that I think is unflattering on her]."

So. Anti-fat = fail.

Tune in next time for Part 2, where I take on the fat acceptance movement and why it isn't any better for people.