What’s in it for me? Learn the real facts behind some of the most common myths about fat people.
“If someone doesn’t want to be fat, they can just lose weight.
” “Fat people are always unhealthy.
” “Supporting fat people just glorifies obesity.
” Myths like these have loomed over discussions about weight for decades.
These harmful mistruths largely stem from anti-fat discrimination and society’s view of thinness as an ideal.
Despite being debunked time and time again, these ideas persist because they confirm the internal biases that many people already have against fatness.
“You Just Need to Lose Weight” by Aubrey Gordon features some of the most common misconceptions that society holds against fat people.
In this Blink, we’ll take a closer look at how some of these myths came to be and learn about the difficulties faced by fat people in our society every single day.
From the creation of the widely-criticized body mass index, to the origins of the so-called “obesity epidemic,” we’ll give you the information that will help you sort out fact from fiction.
By the time we’re finished, you’ll be able to reframe discussions surrounding weight, discover and analyze your own internal biases, and support fat activists in their fight to make the world a more inclusive place for everyone.
We should not be afraid of the word “fat.”
Author Aubrey Gordon was standing in airport security when she overheard a young girl call her a “fat lady.
” The girl’s mother was horrified, but Gordon simply smiled.
“It’s okay.
I am fat,” she replied.
Refusing to accept this answer, the mother continued to warn her daughter that using this word was inappropriate and that she should never say it again.
Gordon has had conversations of this nature many times.
Over the course of her life, she’s lost count of how many times she’s had to convince people that she is not offended by the word “fat.
” This isn’t to say that she hasn’t had her weight used against her as an insult.
Unfortunately, Gordon admits that she’s been called much worse things than fat – often by complete strangers.
She has overheard servers making remarks under their breath at dinner and has even been screamed at by angry men while walking down the street.
You may be surprised to learn that these kinds of experiences are not the ones that hurt the most.
The moments that truly sting are when well-meaning people avoid the word fat by using euphemisms to skirt around it – like the nurse who referred to Aubrey as “sturdy” while explaining that there wasn’t a blood pressure cuff large enough to fit her.
For Gordon and many others, avoiding the word only stigmatizes it – making it seem as if it’s an insult to be fat.
Instead, many fat people are choosing to reclaim the word.
For them, fat is neither positive, nor negative – it’s a neutral descriptor of their bodies.
As a society, we’ve grown accustomed to seeing this word in a negative light – sometimes viewing it as the equivalent of a curse word or a slur.
However, Gordon chooses to accept the word for what it is – just one of many that could be used to describe her.
She is also blonde, tall, and a woman.
Some people choose to be fat, others do not.
One of the most pervasive myths surrounding fat people is that they choose to be fat and could lose weight if they really wanted to.
After all, diet culture suggests that this should be simple, right?
Calories in, calories out.
If only it were that easy.
We often learn from a young age that our bodies are the direct result of the work we’re willing to put in.
If someone is thin, it means they’re hard-working and motivated.
If someone is fat, it means they’re lazy.
These assertions blindly ignore the mounting evidence that individual body weight is based on a multitude of complex factors and often has little to do with choice.
A 2016 article from the New York Times stated that most Americans believe obesity is related to willpower, despite clear links to genetics.
The truth is that while some people choose to be fat, others do not.
Many fat people try to lose weight, but are unsuccessful for a number of reasons.
There are even several health conditions – such as lipedema and polycystic ovary syndrome – that can make losing weight extremely difficult.
Ironically, when very fat people do lose weight, it may actually increase their likelihood of gaining back even more.
A study of former contestants from the reality TV series The Biggest Loser found that quick and dramatic weight loss permanently damages metabolism and makes it harder to lose weight as time goes on.
On the other end of the spectrum, there are people who identify as gainers.
Referred to as “fat on purpose” by writer Bruce Owens Grimm, gainers are people who aim to openly reject anti-fat bias by attempting to gain weight.
Contrary to popular belief, this is not a form of self-sabotage, but rather a protest against discrimination.
That being said, not every fat person has tried to lose or gain weight – or even has the desire to change their body at all.
Everyone has the right to accept their body for what it is.
The question then remains - if people can choose to be comfortable with their own bodies, why can’t others accept them too?
The use of the body mass index is harmful for many groups of people.
Even if you’ve never tried to lose weight, odds are you’ve been exposed in some way to the body mass index.
Although it's been regarded as a gold standard measurement for years, the cloudy history of the BMI is uneven at best.
The body mass index is a formula for measuring weight to height ratio, created around 200 years ago by a Belgian academic named Adolphe Quetelet.
You might be surprised to learn that Quetelet was not a physician.
In fact, he didn’t study medicine at all.
His specialties were mathematics, statistics, astronomy, and sociology.
As a mathematician, Quetelet strongly believed in averages.
In his eyes the mathematical mean of a population represented an ideal of normalcy that everyone should aspire to.
The problem was that gathering population-level data for his experiments required more time and resources than he had access to.
As a result, the formula that Quetelet used to create his ideal weight-to-height ratio was limited to data from male patients of French and Scottish descent.
And so, the concept of the ideal average being white and male was created – an idea that would be used to justify scientific and institutional racism and misogyny in the centuries that followed.
Whatever Quetelet’s initial intentions were, he made one fact very clear – his work was meant to represent the population as a whole.
It was never supposed to represent the individual, especially when it comes to personal health – which is exactly how it's being used today.
Medical reliance on the body mass index is particularly dangerous because it’s often highly inaccurate for many different groups – especially people of color.
For example, the measurement frequently overestimates risk levels associated with weight for Black people, while underestimating those same risks for Asian communities.
The relationship between weight, muscle mass, and health risks is unique to each person and based on a host of different factors – including human biology, our environment, and genetics.
Relying on such a homogenous measurement is not only misleading, but it can result in misdiagnosis and potential harm.
Misleading studies have led to an overblown panic over the “obesity epidemic.”
In the early 2000s, the beginning of a new century brought with it a host of new questions and possibilities.
This was also the time when Americans were suddenly and dramatically informed that they were in the midst of an “obesity epidemic.
” Average body weight in America had been steadily rising in the previous decades, but the issue wasn't considered an immediate concern.
This began to change in 1995, when the World Health Organization decided to simultaneously adopt the body mass index as its preferred measurement of body size and lower the threshold for what was considered “overweight” and “obese.
” There was no sudden increase in average body weight, but over the next few years public rhetoric changed drastically.
As far as the media was concerned, a devastating obesity epidemic had begun.
New broadcasts were increasingly filled with horror stories about this so-called “health crisis,” superimposed over unflattering images of fat people’s bodies.
In 2004, the Journal of the American Medical Association published a controversial study called “Actual Causes of Death in the United States,” which shockingly claimed that four hundred thousand Americans were dying each year as a result of being overweight.
As you might expect, this study immediately captured the public’s attention, but its findings were widely debated among other researchers.
One major issue was that the data sources used were not representative of the current population.
In fact, the oldest data sets were pulled from 1951.
Living conditions, food systems, and even the threshold for what was considered overweight had changed dramatically in those fifty years.
This study failed to take these factors into account, resulting in highly inflated mortality estimates.
Although this study and many others like it have been widely discredited, the connection between obesity and mortality is still a highly debated topic among researchers.
While fat people can die from conditions we generally associate with weight – like type 2 diabetes and heart disease – these diseases kill thin people, too.
Assuming that weight is the major factor in these deaths ignores other complications like family history, lifestyle, and access to healthcare.
As is the case with the BMI, oversimplifying the issue and relying on generic calculations is a dangerous game to play.
Treating fat people fairly does not glorify obesity.
When Aubrey Gordon was eighteen years old, she posted a picture of herself in a bathing suit on a blogging platform called LiveJournal.
The one-piece was modest, but it was the first time that Gordon had found a swimsuit that she actually liked on her body.
Having less than a hundred followers, she didn’t expect much of a response.
Unfortunately, leagues of angry commenters found their way onto the site to harass her.
Most left negative comments about her appearance, but some accused her of “glorifying obesity.
” She was understandably confused.
She was just trying to post one of the rare positive moments she had with her own body – how could this be seen as glorifying anything?
This leads us to another very common myth about weight – that supporting fat people glorifies obesity.
Like the other misconceptions we talked about in previous sections, this idea is deeply rooted in anti-fat bias and body discrimination.
Consider for a moment the comments you might see under a picture of a thin person wearing a swimsuit.
Odds are the reactions would be overwhelmingly positive.
Why, then, is this not considered “glorifying thinness?
” In the age of social media, this issue is something that fat people have to navigate every day.
If someone who doesn’t “fit the mold” posts a picture online – even something as innocent as eating dinner or sitting on the beach – it’s often seen as an act of defiance against social norms.
The media’s influence on this topic cannot be overstated.
Nearly every news outlet is quick to praise weight loss and mock weight gain.
Tabloids will happily chastise a celebrity for gaining weight after pregnancy, then congratulate them when they finally lose the baby weight.
Ironically, glorifying fatness has very little to do with the actions of fat people.
It is more closely related to the attitudes of those who have never been fat and their anxiety surrounding the topic.
The only way to combat this stigma is for these people to put in the work and analyze their own internal biases to discover why accepting fat people makes them so uncomfortable.
Skinny shaming is individual, while fat shaming represents a broader cultural bias.
Shaming anyone for how they look is wrong – no matter which way, shape, or form it’s presented.
Our bodies are our own.
They are not something to be judged by other people.
This simple fact should be obvious, but body shaming is a very real and unfortunate part of modern life.
Under the banner of body shaming, there are two categories that often get the most attention – skinny shaming and fat shaming.
Neither is fair or appropriate, but one is significantly more harmful than the other.
Viewing these two practices on an individual level, they seem pretty similar.
At its core, any kind of body shaming boils down to making someone feel “less than” based solely on their appearance.
However, when we look beyond the damage done to the individual, things start to get more complicated.
The main problem lies in the fact that skinny shaming is an act of individualized aggression, while fat shaming is a systemic issue.
Being criticized for looking “too thin” is obviously harmful to one’s well being, but it’s not the same as not being able to meet your most basic needs.
Fat shaming is part of a complicated web of institutional, cultural, and personal biases meant to keep fat people trapped on the edge of society.
Body shaming has never been a way to create positive, meaningful change.
Telling someone they need to eat more is not going to make them gain weight, just as telling someone they’re fat is not going to make them lose weight.
The only by-products of this practice are pain, shame, and feelings of isolation.
People of all sizes can benefit from fighting against body shaming and supporting fat activism.
Thin people can help by confronting their own preconceived notions about fatness and speaking out against body shaming when they see it.
Fat people can support this process by continuing to tell their stories and share their unique experiences.
Myths about weight are deeply ingrained in nearly every part of our society.
Final Summary
These harmful ideas stem from a long history of anti-fat bias and are used to isolate anyone who doesn’t fit the perceived social norms for appearance.
Every day fat people are forced to defend their own bodies – trying to make their way in a world that was never designed to include them.
From the idea that they should easily be able to lose weight to the concept of the “obesity epidemic,” our conversations about weight are deeply flawed.
By learning about these myths and the real truths behind them, you’ve taken a crucial step in the fight against anti-fat discrimination.
By re-examining our own internal biases and actively supporting the work of fat activists, we can help make the world a more inclusive place for people of all shapes and sizes.