Does Georgia Hate Fat Kids?

The new year is here, and so is the flood of diet ads, weight loss pill advertisements and general fat shaming.

Salon's Mary Elizabeth Williams has a great article out today, Why is Georgia Shaming Fat Children?, discussing a new Strong 4 Life ad campaign. The campaign features five different kids talking about how hard it is to be a fat kid in school today. Obviously, my heart breaks for these kids, and I have no doubt that life is hard for them. But is making them feel worse good for them? And other fat kids? If shame were that powerful a motivator, there would be no fat kids left. Right?

The balance between not shaming and acknowledging the fact that children are getting more and more unhealthy is a tricky one. As Williams states, "Despite our cultural obsession with weight problems, we still chafe at identifying individuals – especially children — who have them. Calling someone obese is considered a cruel taunt rather than a statement of fact. The unusually frank public service announcements demystify fatness." I get that, but I also get that this ad campaign, and the vast majority of other obesity-fighting initiatives focus on obese PEOPLE and not obesity. Demonizing people keeps the focus off other issues like the influence of food industry lobbyists on nutrition standards, lack of public places to excercise, diminished focus on physical education, etc. Basically, you know, the causes.

Am I Pretty?

I stumbled across Teaching My Girls About Beauty: What I wish I was told as a kid on Babble, and it obviously brought up a lot of my own shit about wanting to shield my daughters from this crazy culture we live in. I want them to feel everything – smart, funny, and yes, beautiful.

My parents were no slouches in the compliments department where intelligence was concerned. I knew that I was smart, and I knew they were proud of how well I did in school. I don’t remember my “beauty” really being discussed at all other than it being something trivial, like liking boys, and that I should focus more on studying. Other people’s beauty was up for grabs, though. I come from a long line of judgers and critics and the family get-together almost always included gossip about someone’s nose or someone’s fat ass or so and so losing or gaining weight. Even if people didn't directly talk about my physicality, I knew enough to know that someone would notice and that someone somewhere would be talking if I got too fat, got a bad haircut, had a pimple or did something with my Scorcese-esque brows. Someone was always trying some new diet or workout regimen so the message, or at least how I interpreted it, was that there was something deeply wrong with being fat or ugly and you should do whatever you could to work against that. So I got caught in the cycle, and my esteem for my physical self has always been for shit.

And then I got pregnant. Pregnancy, along with running, gave me an appreciation for my body that 20+ years of dieting and grooming obsession never could.

And then I ended up with all these girls.

Like the author, I feel overwhelming pressure to “ be the “perfect example.” As recommended by the experts, in that role I wouldn’t do things like criticize the creases at the backs of my thighs (otherwise known as cellulite) or my big (ahem, I mean, larger than average) butt, at least not in front of them. And I would do this all while pursuing my writing dreams as a working woman. All of this, I imagined, would save me from having the self-esteem issues of my girls looming over my consciousness … and perhaps save them from having to endure the unhappiness I once felt.”

Yeah, that’s working out great. I stare at my middle-aged baby pooch in horror while I obsessively moisturize, pluck, tweeze, and spanx myself into some work clothes while snarfing down my breakfast of champions – Cocoa Krispies and coffee. But hey, at least, I’m not SAYING I feel ugly. Good cover.

I know that I can say all the right things and that I can avoid saying the wrong things, but the absolute BEST thing I can do for my girls is to be the kind of girl I want them to be. And like the author, when they ask me if they are beautiful or pretty, I can tell them, “yes, you are, and so much more.”

F is for Fat

I am fat. Maybe yes. Maybe no. I have learned not to trust my expertise on matters of my own fatness or lack of. Essentially, I am seriously fucked in this area.

Stats (since I understand these are important when writing about fat): I am 5 ft, 6 inches. My pre-pregnancies weight that I'm fairly close to again is 177 lbs. That gives me a BMI squarely in the middle of "overweight."

I have spent so long – almost as far back as memory goes -- obsessing about fat in some way. Being fat, not being fat, obsessing about getting fat, obsessing about getting fat AGAIN, afraid of fat, how [insert X] makes me look fat, how I am so much fatter than X. I spent, and to some extent, still spend, endless hours wondering what my life would be like if I were less fat or less afraid of being fat, but I’m not sure I even know what being thin means. I don’t know how to define it, and I’m not sure I’d even know what it was when I got there. I have my own fantasy of being thin, and in this fantasy, I’m not just a smaller version of myself – I’m not me; I am someone else completely.

In my fantasy, I am cool. So unbelievably cool that everyone secretly wants to be me. Not the cheerleaders and the student government popular kids, of course. They would still think I’m a loser. But I would be a patron saint for all the freaks and outcast – the weird kids with black clothes and clove cigarettes, pink hair, all the musicians, the poets, the gay boys and the artists. They would all know I was special. And then there would be that one popular kid – just like in an ABC After School Special – who felt guilty about being such a shit, and after initial distrust and disdain, we’d become great friends and mosh together at the school dance. Apparently, I’m still in high school when I’m thin.

But this coolness transcends time and place. When I’m thin, I have a great career that I like and that people understand. Even more stunning is how laid back and not worried I am. I am quirky, and I delightedly just roll with the punches. I am definitely not neurotic, and I do not have a “process” for everything. I have no idea what it means to be efficient with a capital E. I just roll with it, man.

When I am thin, I am no longer introverted. I am goddamn jolly and busy myself with the tons of acquaintances I’ve picked up along the way – people I’ve chatted up in bookstores, coffee shops, on the T. I own the room, not matter what I’m wearing. I am CONFIDENT.

There’s no big reveal here, no great surprise at the end of the mystery novel. None of this – absolutely nothing in this fantasy – has anything to do with being thin. It all has everything to do with being me. I, and presumably everyone else who funds the billion dollar diet industry, fantasize that being thin – or thinner – will magically transform me into an amazing new person. I’ll shed a few pounds, tear off the gift wrap, and there will be a shiny and sparkly new me with a brilliant new personality.

I still struggle with this a lot. I know what a bunch of horse shit it is, and it's partially why I read and write a lot about fat "issues" -- I'm still trying to figure it out day to day.