410 tell me im fat - Grade: A PDF

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KIN 410 11/27/18 Tell me I’m Fat Throughout the podcast “Tell me I’m fat,” Lindy West described her life as a fat person and the stigmas that come with it. She spoke about many aspects of her weight and how she herself first needed to overcome the stigmas before others. Stigmas such as; fat people are too lazy to lose weight or fat people are unattractive and skinny is the standard for all people. Throughout this podcast, different women spoke about how their weight has effect them in a social setting and the constraints people often give it. It is seen and normalized everywhere: fat people are unattractive and seen as lesser to fit people. In this society, we have normalized the stigma that fat is a fault, that there is something that needs to be done about it. While from a health perspective this has some support; exercise and body weight are two factors of cardiovascular health, it doesn't give any support to the stigma that fat people are unattractive. In society today we have created such a subtle divide based on something as simple as weight class. Our society has always portrayed skinny or fit as the norm, what everyone should strive to be. From TV commercials to simple word of mouth, the term fat has become a bad word. In the podcast Lindy pointed out the politically correct word “overweight” implies that the individual must lose weight, something that not every fat person strives to do. She also compares the lifestyle to being gay, and points out that others don’t question someone as coming out as gay, but to ‘come out’ as fat, or to accept yourself

as fat is simply unheard of. Every person is composed of different genes and different bodies, there is no one correct form for any single person to take. One idea that is helping end the stigma is the new trend of embracing fat. A body positive movement that helps people understand the emotions and reasonings behind a fat individual. It helps society grasp the concept that not everyone wants to lose weight, and as a whole should stop fat shaming and judging large individuals. There has already been an increase in plus size models, embracing their bodies like any other model. Campaigns like the ‘Arie real me’ campaign that promise non-touched or photoshopped Ads. Movements like these help to discuss and deminish stigmas around fat people. The second speaker on the podcast, Elna Baker, was the most influential to me. She spoke on how she became skinny after an entire childhood of being fat, but for all the wrong reasons. She explained as a fat woman she would have paranoias of her weight being the reason why she couldn't find a boyfriend or a job. When she eventually lost the weight she found that all to be true, now married with a successful career; Elna found her fat to be her precise problem and becoming skinny had essentially given her what she wanted. This led to a dangerous pattern of using hard drugs that suppressed her appetite to help to lose weight. The trick that first helped her lose over 100 pounds quickly became a lifelong drug addiction. I found her talk to be most influential because of the raw truth of it. The desire to be so skinny and fit in as a member of this society, you sacrifice parts of yourself for the results. I thought this was especially interesting because Elna spoke about the negative effects of her losing the weight, while others

speakers tend to talk about learning to love all of themselves and becoming comfortable in their skin....