Maya Kamat, Contributing Writer
“Oh my god. You are so fat!” my friend said to her older brother as he reached for her fries.
Everyone around me, including my friend’s older brother, started laughing. I remember this distinct, numbing feeling of shock. I hadn’t heard another person call someone fat so light-heartedly, so casually or so publically since I was in elementary school.
Since that day, I’ve felt like I can’t escape it.
“Time to go be fat!” a friend will exclaim with enthusiasm before dinner.
“I’m such a big-back,” someone else says as they reach for a snack after lunch.
“OK, skinny,” my coworker replies to the girl who admits to having skipped a meal.
Over time that sharp feeling of surprise has dulled around the edges, but I am no less disturbed by this cultural shift. Fatphobia has been an issue in our culture for decades, but recently it seems to have become terrifyingly normalized.
In November, when the government slashed government assistance programs as a result of the shutdown, we watched in horror as news anchors declared overweight people didn’t deserve food stamps.
Recently, it has felt like ads for GLP-1 medications like Ozempic are plastered everywhere. The message is clear — the most highly regarded female athlete of her generation, Serena Williams, uses Roe (and so should you).
Given the world we live in, it’s not difficult to understand why people are feeling especially insecure about their bodies. However, addressing these insecurities in such a flippant manner with off-color jokes is simply not the solution.
The global prevalence of eating disorders has increased from 3.5% to 7.8% between 2000 and 2018, and nearly 22% of children and adolescents worldwide are impacted by eating disorders. Despite these significant numbers, eating disorders are still very underdiagnosed, especially in men. Many people get overlooked because they are considered to be at a “healthy” weight.
Many people have a complicated relationship with food. When people use fatphobic language, it’s possible that anyone around you, including someone you know who “looks healthy,” could be deeply triggered and affected by it.
The word fat isn’t an inherently bad one. Many advocates even encourage using the word in an effort to reclaim it as a neutral descriptor. The issue arises when people, who are objectively not in a large body, start using the word fat to describe an action as innocuous as eating lunch.
Fatness isn’t an action a person gets to indulge in for an hour, it’s the lived reality of many Americans. In a world where thinness is often inaccurately equated with health, ascribing fatness to indulging in a particularly heavy meal pushes the narrative that there needs to be guilt attached to food and eating.
The reality is that everyone needs to eat — every day and multiple times a day.
Villainizing food isn’t the answer, but there is power in the language we choose to use. Everyone’s relationship with food is different, and while some people may be able to be enthusiastic about eating without attaching guilt, for others it may be harder.
If you do struggle with food I suggest starting with talking about food with neutrality.
Say “I’m hungry so I need to eat,” or “I have a busy day — I should fuel myself.”
You aren’t a “big back” — you are just hungry.