1. It’s a shame you’re so underweight. You have such a pretty face!

2. Maybe if you just made a lifestyle change, you know, eating more fat and getting less exercise, you wouldn’t be so underweight.

3. I’m just concerned about your health. Being as underweight as you obviously are is dangerous.

4. There is a thinness epidemic going on! Everywhere you look, people are skinnier than they ever have been! Due to the current culture of obsessive dieting, our children are growing up undernourished!

5. You’re not thin! No, no. You’re just a little bit underweight.

6. I just prefer women/men who aren’t quite so underweight. It’s not my fault–evolution designed me to think this way.

7. It’s not just you who’se underweight–we could probably all stand to gain a few pounds. I know I could.

8. OMG, she was so underweight–she was like 120 pounds! Can you imagine? How awful!

9. You could be fatter; you’re just not trying hard enough, and that’s why you’re underweight.

10. You should see a doctor. Maybe there’s a medical reason you’re so underweight.

If a fat person approached an “average-sized” person and said these things–in other words, made comments that measured another person’s body by the standard applied to their own body–it would not be tolerated; and yet we fatties allow these kinds of comments to stand because we are so used to it that we don’t even think about it anymore.

How this came about: I was having a discussion the other night with my ex about using the word “overweight.” I’m not going to get into a lot of messy detail, but one of the reasons we split up was his lack of body positivity; immediately after we split, he started dieting and obsessing about being thinner. As a result of which, a fair number of our conversations now are about weight (him) and body positivity (me).

During the conversation, he said “overweight” a few times and finally I became exasperated and asked him not to use that term. He couldn’t understand my logic–isn’t “overweight” more polite, less offensive than calling someone “fat”?

In an effort to make him understand, I asked, “Would you refer to someone who is thinner than your particular standard of attractiveness as ‘underweight’?”

Well, of course not, was his reply.

I decided to write this post to show how ridiculous and offensive the statements people make so casually about our fat bodies can be. I originally had some funny ones in there, too–comments about shopping at the minus-sized store and reality shows called “The Biggest Gainer” or “90-Pound Weakling”–but in the end I decided not to use them, because I want this to be taken seriously.

Saying someone is “overweight” is like saying a short person is “undertall,” or a Caucasian person is “overpale.” The use of the prefix automatically implies that there is something missing, something in excess, something wrong.

Just so we’re clear: I am okay with being called fat, because I am, comparatively speaking, a fat person. I am a person on whose body there happens to be a substantial amount of fat. To acknowledge this is not an insult unless you say something insulting about it. Describing me to someone with whom you are setting me up on a blind date as “a cute fat blonde” is okay. It’s technically accurate and does not assign any value judgement to my weight.

It’s never okay to make dogmatic pronouncements about another person’s health, or even another person’s attractiveness, based on their appearance. Because you don’t know. You can’t.

I like to knit.

I learned when I was a kid, and I got into it again because of work (which is a long story for another post). I like it because I like the idea of being able to take measurements, do some math, and make a hat or shirt or socks that fits me perfectly, out of what is essentially some string and some sticks. (I’m still kind of hit-or-miss on the “fits me perfectly” part, but I’m getting there.)

Needlecraft is right up there with sewing on my list of Things Every Fatshionista Should Try*—not because I necessarily think everyone ought to make and wear knitwear, but because I think learning about these skills help us to better understand what makes our favourite clothes fit us the way they do, and how to make our not-so-favourite clothes fit better.

Just over a year ago, I started going to a knit night at a local consignment store and yarn shop. I confess that at the time I wasn’t particularly interested in meeting other knitters. The main reason I started going was that I had just broken up with my partner of some years, and was still living in the apartment we had shared. All of the empty nights were stretched out before me in this endless parade of loneliness, and I dealt with it by scheduling my days in half-hour ‘units’, the way Hugh Grant’s character does in About a Boy; I made sure I had something to do with every possible moment between waking and sleeping. And the stitch n’ bitch evening fit in nicely between my after-work gym visit and my before-bed skin-care regimen.

I ended up meeting a lot of really cool, exciting people at knit night, many of whom I consider friends. We talk about everything that’s going on in our lives: work, school, dating and sex, children, parents and siblings, investments, health… I have even had occasion to mention my fat blogging activities. I feel as though we share a really special little space where people can relax and enjoy themselves.

The one thing that never fails to make me cringe, however, is the consistent use of phrases like “yarn diet.”

Every week, we ooh and ahh over the stock that has come into the shop, and the various delicious yarns that are on sale, and every week the discussion that happens over whether or not to buy these things has the overtones of a Weight Watchers commercial. People have yarn ‘binges’ and then they go on yarn ‘diets.’ Those who encourage other people to buy are ‘enablers’; those who don’t buy are ‘being good,’ those who do buy are ‘being bad’ or ‘cheating’. It’s all said in a light-hearted, bantering manner, much like the discussion I mentioned in my previous post about calories that ‘don’t count.’ But it strikes a nerve with me.

I think this subset of diet language has its roots in our modern sensibility that we have consumed the Earth—mined it out, burned it up, and swathed it in deadly greenhouse gases—and that now we have to cut back, or risk paying an awful price. This type of thinking is understandable, and sound as far as it goes. But I think that it is becoming conflated with the idea that consumption–any kind of consumption, be it commercial, nutritional, sexual, or what have you—is sinful (both allegorically and literally), and that abstaining from opportunities to consume makes a person virtuous. And so, we ‘diet.’ We don’t eat, we don’t shop, we don’t do the things that would bring us pleasure. We deny ourselves in the present because we are convinced that this will make us better people in the future.

I’m not saying any of us needs to bankrupt ourselves in an orgy of shopping ‘therapy’, and I recognize that there are people out there for whom shopping is an addiction. But honestly… why shouldn’t we buy high-quality yarn, if we are going to use it and if we can afford it? We’re supporting a hard-working local retailer, and we’re financing an activity that brings us all joy, and friendship, and no small measure of satisfaction.

And why shouldn’t we, if it comes to that, eat what we like if it’s what we crave? It reminds me of something that has come up in conversations I’ve had with fellow Fats.com bloggers stitchtowhere and Lesley: the idea that diet food has to taste like crap, because then you know for sure that you are being virtuous. Except, of course, when it tastes SO good that you feel sinful (which is where the marketing fits in).

We fear this stigma, this reprisal, this disapproval that we have internalized to the point where we enact it upon ourselves. And the fear, at its core, is one of the sources of fatphobia: the idea one can only become fat through overeating, and that, therefore, all fat people are decadent, overindulgent.

Sinful.

Bad.

And if you aren’t vigilant… it could happen to you.

*Please note that I said “try” and not “do.” If you tried it and it’s not for you, no disrespect here. It’s not for everyone.

Am I the only one who keeps finding myself in these situations?

I have a pretty diverse selection of friends, as a result of which I tend to end up at parties or general hangouts where I only know one person. These hangouts usually consist almost exclusively of women around my age (I’m 30), and there are almost always snacks involved. The conversation seems inexorably to turn to food, calories, dieting, etc etc etc—at which point the statements coming out of the mouths of these reasonably intelligent, educated women become increasingly preposterous. Playful debates over which calories “count” and which ones don’t; agonies over whether one should eat one more slice of pizza or “save some calories” for dessert; and of course, the martyr’s rallying cry of “I can’t—I’m trying to lose weight.” It’s like being in a Special K commercial. Except that I am not really in the commercial—there are never any fat girls in those ads. I am forced into horrified spectatorship, watching these nice, attractive, healthy women pillory themselves in the stocks of self-denial.

Having been raised by a relatively strict English mum, I have a certain amount of ingrained politeness that prevents me from clawing at my hair and screaming obscenities when I get trapped in one of these conversations. But they always end up reaching a point where I just can’t keep quiet anymore.

And then it happens.

Now, I’m probably dating myself here (I’m certainly not dating anyone else, HA HA), but when I was a child I used to be a devotee of the Marvel Comics character the Incredible Hulk. For those of you not familiar with the basics of Hulk mythology, Bruce Banner, a mild-mannered nerdly scientist type, receives a dose of radiation that causes him to transform into a gigantic walking tank—rage personified. This happens, predictably, whenever he gets angry, because rather than expressing his anger healthily, he represses it until it literally starts to bulge out all over him.

As a quiet, nerdy kid, I was totally fascinated by this character. I found myself wishing I could be even just slightly irradiated, in order to be able to ward off bullies in the schoolyard.

Now, as an adult, something very similar happens to me when I get trapped in these diet-talk scenarios: I become the Incredible Bulk. I bust out my ‘secret’ alter-ego of self-defined, unrepentant fat girl. Up until that point, everyone has (obviously) been aware of the fact that I am fat, but they are (to a degree) prepared to overlook that as long as I seem to worship at the altar of diet. However, once I start rampaging, the fat simply can’t be ignored.

Not that I start tearing off my clothes or throwing furniture, mind you (at least not until I hit the gin); it’s more that I go on the offensive before I even realize I’m doing it. I get into arguments and refuse to back down. And I tell total strangers that the essential ‘truths’ they’ve been told their whole lives, by everyone, are complete B.S. I’m not sure whether it’s damaging my cause more than it’s helping.

In one particular situation, a friend-of-a-friend had mentioned the well-known ‘fact’ that children were increasingly fatter with every generation, and I blew my top and started naming article after article from Junkfood Science that she needed to read before I was even going to listen to that crap again.

More recently, I was at a party where one woman was rationalizing aloud why she chose not to have a second slice of cake, and I burst out with, “Oh, for crying out loud, would you please just eat it?!” before launching into a long diatribe of the reasons diets don’t work.

I also gave a guy shit on a dating website (which shall remain nameless) for listing “being overweight” as a “habit” that he felt was a deal-breaker. (He contacted me, having clearly not read my profile, where I talked about my fat activism.)

I can’t deny that my alter-ego has been effective on occasion. People do listen to you when you’re being ranty, more so than when you are being polite, and the fact that you are so impassioned about something makes them curious enough to go and check it out.

A part of me hates that I am this person. I don’t want to become known as that rude fat girl who is always yelling at people to eat. I don’t want my anti-diet-talk to become as offensive to others as their diet-talk is to me. Because I try to respect people’s right to do things I wouldn’t do, like aspire to lose weight, in the hope that they, in turn, will respect my right to be unapologetically fat.

But it is just so exhausting to see beautiful, smart people agonizing over whether a cupcake is going to prevent them from reaching their ‘goal’ weight. Every time I hear talk like that, it’s like a slap in the back of the head, reminding me that some of these women would probably rather die than look like me.

So I’m not sure what the answer is yet, what form and voice my fat activism needs to take to be both striking and effective for others and comfortable for me. Perhaps there isn’t an answer.

Maybe the next time I rage out on someone, I will give them the link to this post.

Now that spring is here (or in any case, I can be relatively certain that it isn’t going to snow) I’ve been thinking a lot about fat and cycling. I bought a new bike this year, for the first time ever—all of my previous bicycles had been chosen for me, first by my folks, and then by my (now former) partner, a bicycle mechanic and avid cyclist.

For a very long time I have had a love-hate relationship with cycling. It started when I was a child and continued well into my adult years. I loved the freedom of it, the speed (I don’t drive so cycling is really about as fast as I go), the carefree feeling of just hopping on my bike and going wherever the spirit moved me. When I was growing up, my little red Supercycle with its white banana seat represented the quickest way to make an escape from bullies or a bad scene at home. My bike enabled me to be just as light and fast and strong as all the other kids I knew. I lived in an area that was just starting to be developed, which meant that in order to get anywhere interesting it was necessary to have wheels of some description.

In my adult years, I also loved that cycling was something that connected me to J, my bike-boy boyfriend.

I didn’t love the fact that, as I got older and transitioned to a more age-appropriate ten-speed, cycling aggravated many of my long-standing health issues–my carpal tunnel, my asthma and allergies, an old knee injury–and I also didn’t love that I always felt a bit like a circus act when I sat, hunched over, rolls of fat rippling gently in the breeze, perched atop my bicycle like a bear in a tiny car. It made me sad that J and I were never able to bond over our mutual love of cycling; he liked to go fast, and far, and I didn’t really feel equipped to do either.

I knew for a long time that my ride–a mountain bike that J had customized, with shocks, knobby tires, and a large, heavy frame–was not for me. The chain knawed away at my clothes, no matter how I rolled or tied or bound them, meaning the bike tended to have an adverse effect on my fatshion choices. I always felt too bent over, my fat belly uncomfortably compressed and being pushed up into my chest as I pedaled, my trendy cycling jersey (a gift from J) bunching up attractively around my middle. The seat was too high and too small for my fat ass. I didn’t feel comfortable riding in traffic because the bike was so heavy and clunky. J had me pretty much convinced that it was because I didn’t ride enough, that I just needed to get out more and my body would adjust. It was a message I was so used to hearing from a variety of sources that I didn’t really question it.

The week before we broke up, J and I took a trip to Boston. While there, we decided to rent bicycles and go on a cycling tour. When we got to the shop, they rented us hybrid bikes (a combination of elements from both mountain bikes and their sleeker, speedier cousin, the road bike). I had never been on a hybrid before, and the moment I started to pedal along on the sidewalk, I knew things were going to be different. The hybrid was lighter than my own bike, which meant that I was able to carry it over my shoulder like a conquering hero as I ascended a pedestrian overpass. It was faster, which meant I was able to keep up with J without feeling even the slightest asthmatic tickle in my chest. And a more upright riding position was easier on my wrists and back. As I propelled myself around the Back Bay Fens, I realized that for once I didn’t feel as though I were trying to squeeze myself into a mold I wasn’t meant to fit.

The weekend that J broke up with me, I broke up with my bicycle. I managed to restrain myself from throwing either one off the balcony (if only because the debris would have inevitably landed on my mother’s terrace several floors below).

Shopping for a new bicycle was harder than I thought it might be. I had been somewhat insulated from this by having my own live-in bike mechanic, but the cycling industry is predicated on thinness. Sales staff in many bike shops don’t really know how to fit fat kids for accessories. Friends of mine have experienced outright fat-hate in some of these establishments. There’s a bit of an attitude of “fatty needs to get the hell up out of our sport, you dig?” As for my part, I have learned that if a fat girl walks into a bike shop asking for a hybrid bike, sales staff will automatically assume she wants a cruiser bike.

Now, don’t get me wrong–there is nothing wrong with cruisers. I love the gorgeous, paint-and-chrome classic look of them, and they are definitely the height of comfort and style. I think they would make a fine addition to any fatshionista’s collection.

However.

People kept trying to talk me out of the hybrid bike I wanted, all the while talking around the big fat reason they felt the way they did. It’s more of a commuter bike, they told me. I don’t know if it’s the right size for you. I don’t know if you’d like the riding position. The thinner tires mean you have to have really good balance. Maybe you’d be more comfortable on something that has a smoother ride. Or, most memorably, I have two female friends the same size as you and they both bought cruisers, and they love them. (That’s right, because all fat people are the same, forever.)

I won’t get into the shenanigans involved in my purchasing the bike (there were some issues with shipping charges) but in the end, I finally got the one I wanted. I had them add a chain guard (so I can finally wear the outfit of my choice while riding my bike) and a basket (into which I can put a baguette and some flowers as I tool around town in a floaty dress on a summer afternoon).

I peeled out onto the pavement a few weeks ago, and oh man, it was glorious. I can’t remember the last time I went so fast. I whizzed down a main thoroughfare, cutting in and out of traffic, taking corners on a dime, keeping pace with the vehicles alongside me. It At one point I rang my bell at a little kid dancing on the sidewalk, who pointed and said, “Look at that fat lady on the bike!” I don’t know how his mom replied (she looked mortified) but in my opinion, the kid’s tone had been one of admiration. I felt like I was back on my little red Supercycle again, racing to the end of the block, ready for life’s next big adventure.

I would like to preface this by saying that I debated whether to post this, as I am reluctant to give this article any more attention than it rightly deserves. It really is a self-indulgent piece of garbage and I regret that I wasted time reading it. However, I did read it, and I did formulate a response, and so without further ado, here it is.

Before today, I had never actually heard of Ruth Fowler, author of a laughably misconceived and openly prejudiced article entitled “Flab Isn’t Fab.” As far as bloggers go, Ms. Fowler wasn’t even on my radar (which is not surprising, as she is not a super-engaging writer) and so it was a bit shocking to discover that she just plain doesn’t like me, despite the fact that we have never met.

I also wasn’t surprised to see yet another addition to the legion of diatribes on how dedicated, herculean overeating is the ONLY POSSIBLE CAUSE OF FATNESS, written by yet another person who has obviously never been fat (she did have fat parents, a fact she obviously resents) or done more than ten seconds of research in the fatosphere.

Except she has! In the middle of her “fatist” rant, she, as if at random, links to Kate Harding’s illustrated BMI project. I’m not really sure exactly if she thinks it is supporting her point or whether she is trying to tear it down. Maybe you guys can figure it out:

It seems nowadays we’re just either too fat, or too thin, and the real role models, the people who exercise occasionally, eat a balanced diet and have a healthy BMI are ignored.

Eh? The whole point of the project is that BMI is a ridiculous concept that has no relation whatsoever to size, health, eating, exercise, astrological sign, etc. Citing it is probably not going to help your case if you are trying to suggest that “healthy BMI” is the same as “not fat.” And if that isn’t what she is trying to suggest, then… I’m lost.

The thesis of Ms. Fowler’s argument is that fatties are fat because they are dedicated to eating, because they continue to eat after their bodies and common sense dictate they should stop.

She references an article that claims Britons were at their healthiest during WWII, due to rationing. However, when you actually read the article, it says no such thing (although a causality link is implied in the title). The article’s point is that people’s habits were healthier, and that people as a whole ate better, because food was distributed more evenly among Britons regardless of income, and the foods most readily available were also the ones with the most nutritional value–brown bread, vegetables, etc.

Even she seems to recognize that her own article’s premise is without foundation:

And where do people get the money to feed what equates to a small African village every day? Beth [Ditto]’s monthly food bill would probably pay my mortgage for a year.

It would, if Beth Ditto ate the amount that Ms. Fowler posits she is eating, based solely on (one can only assume) a completely groundless estimation of what she ought to weigh vs. what she reportedly does weigh.

Because I had never heard of Ms. Fowler, I decided that in the interests of a balanced viewpoint, I would read some of her other writings in an attempt to get a better sense of her as a writer. I came across this gem, a rant (I think for Ms. Fowler, “blog” is synonymous with “bitch about shit that pisses me off”) about how every time there is a scandal involving a sex worker, the same tired old stereotypes about sex workers are dredged up and recirculated:

Sex scandal? Suddenly everyone’s an expert! Because somebody knows somebody knows somebody who teaches pole dancing at Virgin Fitness and knows somebody who knows that Russian girl who used to strip at Pussy’s in Shoreditch and voila! An article is born! Like yesterday’s thoroughly tired article about stripping, which claims that “academic research has linked lap-dancing to trafficking, prostitution and an increase in male sexual violence against both the women who work in the clubs and those who live and work in their vicinity”.

Hmm, academic research - where? By whom? The author prudently withholds the information, which makes me think she’s a bit of a tease herself. Nor has the author thought it prudent to interview anyone in the industry she has chosen to Reveal Shocking Truths About (stripping) other than one disgruntled anonymous immigrant who obviously wasn’t particularly good at her job because the most she ever earned was £205 a night.

I have to trot out the phrase now, I have to say it. Yes, I used to be a stripper, and let me tell you, however objectified I felt on stage and in the Champagne Room, it was nothing compared to how objectified and humiliated I’ve felt having “my story” told and retold by journalists and interviewers who have not done my job, have probably never been in a strip club, and only venture forth to anywhere remotely connected to the sex industry in the hopes of revealing some whiff of scandal, some dark revelation.

Let me see if I understand this correctly: Ms. Fowler thinks it is ridiculous that people make broad pronouncements about a much-maligned group (of which she is a member) and back those statements up with some seriously sketchy pseudo-research. She feels objectified and humiliated when yet another article appears, written by someone who has never lived through the experience she has had, yet presumes to understand what she and everyone like her is all about.

Then she goes and writes an article about how fat people are “just wrong.” She explains that the kind of fat achieved by people who weigh 16 stone (a number she claims to be shockingly gargantuan) can only be achieved through “the consumption, python-like, of about six whole rotisserie chickens a day washed down with 16 pints of double cream, half a cow and probably the entire produce of Ireland’s potato farms, deep-fried and with a coating of beer batter.”

Now, here is where it gets personal for me. Because, you see, I have weighed 16 stone (that’s 224 lbs for the North Americans) and it is not unhealthy. (I say “have weighed” because I have no idea what my weight is now, since I haven’t voluntarily been on a scale in almost a decade, but I’m sure it’s got to be in the same ballpark). At that weight, I wore size 16 jeans, played organized sports, cycled to school every day, and was on a strict diet (which didn’t work, of course, because diets are bullshit).

When I was going to the gym more frequently, I probably weighed more than I do now, because I was building muscle mass, which is denser and therefore heavier than fat.

And keep in mind, I am only 5′3″ - 5′4″. Someone taller than me would be downright skinny at the weight I am now.

Frankly, I don’t think Ruth Fowler would know 16 stone if it hit her in the face in all its bootylicious glory.

I have more to say on this topic, believe me, but it’s lunch time and I have to go roast several pigs on a spit and start buttering twelve buckets of baked potatoes (with all the fixins) and a crate of corn on the cob, after which I’ll probably eat a few two-litre pails of ice cream and about a kilo of cookies, washing the whole thing down with several two-litres bottles of soda, of course.

You know, just an average day.