A few weeks back I was leaving Food Court when one of my friends referred to a girl he knew as "a fat bitch." I can't deny the fact that the girl was rather loud, somewhat obnoxious, and maybe this would qualify her as "a bitch," but the "fat" remark was what stood out to me most. All too often the word "fat" is used in this pejorative sense. In the case I've described, the girl did have a large body size, but my friend's comment wasn't based on her appearance, despite his use of this as a vehicle for the expression of his disgust.
This presents a problem. We tend to frequently use the concept of "fat" as a weapon against those we dislike. I would argue that this criticism, however, is just as offensive as a racial slur or remark against someone based on sexual orientation (think about how often we use the word "gay" to describe unfavorable things that are completely independent of one's sexuality). Having a large body does not represent laziness, stupidity or lack of discipline. Most people who are large are so as a result of a genetic predisposition of their body to be healthier at a larger size. For these people, it would be harmful or unhealthy to attempt to sculpt their bodies toward the thin ideal set forth by the advertising industry and society in general.
Yet this doesn't stop us from using the word "fat" as a means to hurt others. Part of being human is to constantly evaluate our environment and those around us. Naturally, we notice the physical attributes of others. There's nothing offensive about that. If you notice that someone is large and describe him as such it's one thing. But if you look at someone who is large and feel superior to him because of this, that's a different issue.
We're called upon constantly to make judgments. But when these judgments become evaluations (assigning value to people because of how they dress, their size, their skin color, their sexual orientation, their gender or their socioeconomic class) we construct an arbitrary hierarchy. When this evaluative structure is then voiced, it places the evaluator in a position within this hierarchy that's superior to the victim and makes the evaluator feel good at his expense.
This is a kind of slippery slope, however. When the evaluator defers to the hierarchy to make himself feel good it also places him somewhere within the structure. In the immediate instance he benefits, but he won't always. Furthermore, he's succeeded in evaluating himself as well. He's confirmed to himself, and those of us around him, that he evaluates people based on a surface quality, such as appearance. This evaluation doesn't end with one obnoxious girl in Food Court, but extends to everyone around him -- including himself if he gains weight and thereby become something he evaluates as bad.
The latter is what is most dangerous about this situation. Guilt serves the social function of telling us -- usually based on feedback from others -- when our behavior is socially inappropriate or violates norms. When what is socially inappropriate is something that is outside of our control, however, a massive conflict ensues. Guilt serves as a means of letting us know when and how to correct our behavior -- but race, sex and size aren't behaviors and can't easily be altered. With some exceptions, they're biologically-determined aspects of who you are. And when those feelings of guilt are targeted at trying to change who you are, it causes a frustration and self-loathing that either results in lashing out against the unjust society that oppresses you, or is turned inward as depression. You buy into the evaluative system and evaluate against yourself.
The only self-preserving solution, then, becomes transcendence. You have to realize that the hierarchy is the enemy (not yourself), that society has erred (not you), and you have to take yourself out of the evaluative structure. You have to stop pacifying yourself by placing others below you in the hierarchy because you know that your place above them is insecure. You have to realize that the hierarchy is a construct manipulated by marketers to sell you products and services that capitalize on inadequacy. You have to stop judging others because every judgment you place upon someone else is a judgment that you place upon yourself. Because even if you choose to criticize a person for something that "they can help" it still doesn't make it right. Is it fair to judge the poor for wearing shabby clothing? Or to criticize homosexual couples for "flaunting" their sexuality by holding hands in public? Certainly one chooses the religion one practices -- is it right to then dislike someone because he's chosen a faith you don't agree with? My answer is no. And I believe that it's no more right to do any of these things than it is to look down on someone for being large.
Being diverse isn't reprehensible. Size diversity is no exception to this. Why do so many feel that it's okay to reject a person because they're large? Having fat on one's body isn't something inherently bad. Why do we allow criticisms of people based on their size that we would never allow for other features that make a person different from us? The media certainly plays a large role in constructing this -- just as it does with many other forms of discrimination. David Myers' text "Social Psychology" reports that psychological studies have found that "weight discrimination is notably greater than race or gender discrimination and occurs at every employment stage." Why is it that we tolerate this kind of prejudice in places where we would never allow other forms, such as racism or sexism?
The truth is that my friend never would have uttered a racial or ethnic slur against this girl as we exited Food Court, but he felt that it was okay to criticize her based on her size. How often do you hear people making similar comments? Or how often do you, yourself -- if not spoken out loud -- make such judgments in your mind? In a culture and on a campus that strives to embrace diversity, how is it that we manage to excuse ourselves when it comes to size? How many of you right now, reading this article, are deathly afraid of gaining weight? How many of you avoid desserts (or consider them as a luxury or reward) while failing to notice that they are part of a balanced diet? How many of you will go to the gym today to "work off" what you ate, or to prevent yourself from falling in the hierarchy? Do you feel entrapped? Do you ever wish that you could let it go and not have to worry about what you eat or how much you exercise? For it's only when you stop evaluating others based on things like body size that you'll ever be free of the self-imprisonment that is evaluating yourself.
