Size-ism and fatphobia

I am fat. According to my BMI I am actually morbidly obese and I've flown before and yes, I had trouble fitting into the seats. Luckily I flew on skybus (they're out of business now) and they were much kinder than most airlines. And yes, my weight does make me terrified to fly... I also can't go to amusement parks.

It may be shocking to know, but fat people know they're fat. Honestly we do. And the majority of us work every single day to rectify that fact of our lives. The human body is complex and there are many things that contribute to weight such as, over eating, eating disorders, medication, psychological and emotional disorders and associations with food, slow metabolism, depression and anxiety (which create certain hormones which cause the body to hang onto fat), as well as bones/genetics, diseases such as hypothyroidism,and more. There are many thin people who are incredibly unhealthy (hello anorexia) but they don't get razzed for being unhealthy- not like us fatties do. It's a common fall back to say "it's not about how they look, it's about their health!" I'm incredibly healthy.. and yet still fat. my cholesterol is perfect, my blood sugar and blood pressure are great, I eat well (and vegan) and before I hurt my ankle I was extremely active (and still fat)- bottom line, health isn't the issue, sizism is the issue- i'll reiterate, fat people KNOW they're fat.. really we do- and we're all trying really fucking hard to get skinny and we don't need to be shamed, exploited, or bitched at in the mean time. I personally eat between 1200 and 1800 calories a day.. (yes, I track every single thing i eat or drink every day) not exactly stuffing my face now am I?

So I want to take a few minutes to outline some of those more complex issues that siez-ists and fatphobes dont' seem to get.

Medication: There are many medications that cause increased appetite... but firstly I'd like to point out how psychologically torturous and maddening it is to feel the need to eat and try to restrain yourself all day every day for weeks, months, years, etc. I should point out that people do not have infinite supplies of will power. Will power is controlled by the frontal lobe and is a finite resource. The more you have on your mind, the less will power you have- so expecting someone to be strong as steel when their body is constantly telling them to eat, is unrealistic at best.

Disease: The one everyone knows is hypothyroidism, but it's far from the only disease out there which makes people gain weight. Others include cushings, polycystic ovary syndrome, and Hashimoto' to name a few. And that doesn't even address the people who are undiagnosed or the people with sluggish metabolisms who just barely don't meet the guidelines for diagnosis.

Then we can discuss depression and anxiety- aside from the chemicals that make your body hold onto weight you also get water weight (with anxiety especially, but with depression as well). Depression also causes cravings for sweets as well as carbs. Why? the consumption of carbohydrates as well as chocolate induces seratonin in the brain- the more depressed you are, the more you want and as we both know, very carby foods are also very high in calories.

Moving on to eating disorders- this can partially be lumped in with depression and anxiety. The two eating disorders common to obesity are binge eating disorder and compulsive overeating. The problem is that people with these often do literally stuff their faces.. and then people like you look on with disgust and think they should just control themselves.. they do not get the same empathy and sympathy as the anorexic or the bulimic who ends up in the hospital. Binge eating disorder is similar to bulimia in that the patient consumes and then purges that which they have consumed. The difference is that the binger often eats excessive amounts of food (where as a bulimic may consume moderately normal amounts of food). Compulsive overeaters are often caught in the vicious cycle of binge eating and depression. With the eating disorder of Compulsive Overeating food is used as a coping mechanism to deal with uncomfortable feelings. Many compulsive overeaters speak of using the episodes as a way to numb all that is going on around them.

which brings us to our next point: emotional and psychological attachment to food. Even those without eating disorders often experience this.. comfort foods do actually give comfort. I'll give you an example: As a child we were never ever allowed to have sweets- my grandparents (whom I lived with) kept various kinds of candy sitting out in bowls that we weren't allowed to touch.. if we did, we got beaten. My sister and I were abused up until the time when we could decide to not go back. My mom moved us out when I was 6 (though we still were primarily taken care of by my grandparents) and we didn't have sweets because we couldn't afford them. We got sweets right after pay day or when we got taxes back or when it was our birthday. Sweets were special. So when I first moved out buying sweets made me feel good.. emotionally and psychologically they were a trigger that told me I was doing well, I was independent, and that I wasn't poor (even if I was). Luckily because I have a fairly good grasp of psychology- especially for myself- I figured this out fairly early and could take steps to rectify it. Now I feel well off and independent when I buy vegetables. But even the average person develops dependence, emotionally, on certain foods. It often causes a vicious cycle- eat, get depressed, eat because you're depressed, get more depressed, and on and on. Not everyone has the strength to break this cycle. Sweets, in our culture, are both held to high esteem (they ARE special) and despised at the same time. Often times these cycles begin in childhood when the child has little to no say over what they eat, but they are, nonetheless, set up psychologically to deal with these issues for the rest of their lives.

And these reasons and more are why obesity and morbid obesity are seen as, yes, medical issues- but also disabilities.. because there is a complex system that goes into the determination of a person's weight and it's not something that can be switched on or switched off. Current attitudes on the subject would be akin to someone telling you to just get up and go when you're fatigued from diabetes, or to just cheer up and snap out of it when you have clinical depression- while there are things that we can do to make ourselves less depressed (monitoring our diet, exercise, opening the windows to let in sunlight, keeping your head up, etc) it's not nearly so simple.

Please understand that the attitude of "I did it so why can't you" is not only hurtful and insulting, but it's an arrogant position to take. You will never know the details of a person's life and how they got to be the weight that they did.