From 2022, March 4 is the World Day against Fatphobia. health professionals and anti-fat-phobia activists have created a manifesto and improved today, which was originally World Obesity Day. The purpose is to show how strongly this system is hostile to the food culture in which they all grew up. For some time now, WHO no longer considers obesity as a disease, but as a risk factor that can trigger diseases, such as a large consumption of red food for colon cancer, but not a disease in itself. If you are curious, you can obviously read about this day here.
World Obesity Day is a pathological physical condition and not a health one, which is only related to BMI (body mass index). That is, body size is penalized, there is no other health information than weight and height, placing disease in larger bodies than BMI, and health in thin bodies. Obviously, this is not an axiom, the healthy are fat, as the sick are thin. Having a certain weight, or a BMI of less than 30, does not make you healthy.
I always liken fatphobia to feminism: we grew up in a patriarchal and macho system in which our language and actions are conditioned by it, both for men and women. I believed that I was good when I entered the clubs for free, and on the contrary my friends had to give, until I realized that I was bait, and therefore I no longer accepted, I paid with my own. body
Thinness is so valued that a cancer patient told me he would rather have cancer again than be fat. Terrible, and very sad, that no one could say this.
Language creates things and, according to how we think, we express ourselves. There are thousands of fat-phobic expressions because we were raised in a system that rewards thinness above all else. Thin promises you success, acceptance and closer to the ideal of beauty that we have come. The reality is that no one ever achieves that ideal, and most, if not all of us, live or have lived frustrated with our bodies. Especially, women, since we suffer from aesthetic power, it is greater.
There are many signs that our language and our society are full of weight; I leave it here with only one intention, that we may know how we express ourselves and what consequences this has on others and on us;
- Using the word “fat” as an insult is fatphobic. Fat is not an insult, just like ‘thin’ is not an honor. The problem is that we have given the word fat a pejorative meaning. For example: “I love you fat” is used when you don’t like someone, but you don’t say “I love you thin or fit”.
- The prize for thinness, regardless of its origin, is fatphobic. Thinness can be natural or desired, but it can also come as a result of illness, loss, depression or an eating disorder, and even then it is valued positively.
- Not being asked to give fatphobic advice about food or sports.
- Believing that everyone, with exercise and healthy eating, can have a normative body and be fatphobic is unrealistic, because body diversity exists and there are as many strong bodies as there are people. In addition, it is unknown that not all of us have the same access to a healthy diet, regardless of social, economic and family conditions. The neoliberal system is typical.
- Considering an obese person brave or daring to wear a bikini, showing off their body or wearing a dress, is fatphobic. Clothes are not for fat people and others for thin people, they are clothes and everyone should wear what they want for their body.
- A fatphobic attitude is a fatphobic attitude by proposing dark colors and loose clothing, you have nothing to hide.
- Assuming that a man, larger in body than what the canons say, feeds beyond the process of food, and does not move from the bed to eat, the phobic faith is fat.
- Saying things like “What a pity, you have a beautiful face”, “you would be much better thinner”, “if you lost a little weight, you would look better”, etc. it is extremely fatphobic and harmful. Beauty is subjective, and as you can see, you just have to see how the canons of beauty have changed over the decades. What happened that our body was different in the 90s and should have another in 2023? No, gentlemen, our bodies are strong and beautiful, for what is in fashion.
- Putting the fat person’s body as morally to obtain things: “If he has a partner of the body, so I do”, “he has a lot to love with the body, yes that love”. Oh really? We are more than the body and the fat man has the same right to life as the thin. Again, success is measured in kilos.
These are just a few examples of how our language is conditioned by our weight and diet culture, there are many more. This article is intended as nothing more than an invitation to think about how we express ourselves, to take care of our language and thereby make the world a kinder place.
