For those of you who don’t know, yesterday was International No Diet Day! As I was reflecting on the concept of not dieting, I started thinking about the word fat and all that it means in our society and I remembered this clip from Friends. If you don’t have time to watch the whole clip let me sum it up for you: Chandler calls Monica fat. She then loses a ton of weight (in the course of a year) to get back at Chandler for insulting her. And somehow Chandler ends up losing the tip of his toe.
All the friends make a big deal about the fact that Chandler called Monica fat, which make sense because calling someone fat is just about the worst insult ever. But the more I thought about it, the more I wondered why being called fat is such a bad thing after all? (Before you get all upset and start lecturing me about the “dangers” of obesity please know that I am talking about how our society feels about fat aesthetically not in terms of health, ok read on).
I’m not here to define whats fat and whats not, but I have been thinking about the ways that I can personally embrace my female fat and think of it as a good thing instead of such a dirty three letter word. Here is what I came up with:
Great post!
I was just studying about fat cells today bottom line we need them. Now what to say when someone tells you it looks like you have gained weight?!
Wow! That was great and I do agree to an extent. Some fat is good, too much, for me, personally is not a road I want to go back down, again.
Very well written and thought out, tho..
Isn’t what you’re suggesting the same thing the GLBT community did with the word gay? They took a word that used to be an insult, took ownership of it and redefined it.
I was unaware that the GLBT community had done that. But yes, it’s kind of like that. That’s really what our Cheeseburger Rules and our Cheeseburger Definitions of the week are all about, re-defining the status quo and making it something different. Hope to see you again.
-Tiffabee
For what it’s worth, there is a whole civil rights movement going on against fat discrimination (and it has been for about 30 years.) People who are fighting it do not want to be called “overweight” (over WHAT weight? over WHOSE weight?) or even worse, “obese.” That’s a medicalized term that dehumanizes fat people. They call themselves fat acceptance, or fat rights, or fat liberation – not obesity acceptance, or obesity rights, or obesity liberation. Much the same way gay people prefer to be called “gay” or “lesbian” instead of the medicalized “homosexual,” or little people want to be called little people instead of dwarves or midgets.
Er – I’m fat
nice post.
so nice one !