Color Me Fit: weight loss, fitness, exercise

This had started as an answer to one of the comments left on my previous entry, but given how long it turned to be, I decided that it deserved its standalone post.

The sentence that triggered it all was the following: “I think I dress badly on purpose, because it is what is expected of me”. And it got me to think, really—about the way we’re perceived, about what and how people (more specifically thin people) expect us to behave. Overweight people aren’t considered as “normal”: we’re set apart no matter what, as if our weight was also supposed to be some sort of mental impediment preventing us from functioning properly in society. I suppose we could even at time called this discrimination, in a way.

People expect us to dress poorly. It’s not always a complete misconception (large clothes can be really butt-ugly, and tend to look absolutely awful once worn), but even for a person who is “only” overweight and not obese, this thought seems to stick. It’s like we’re supposed to hide in too large, shapeless sweaters and pants, because wearing anything remotely elegant would force the world outside to acknowledge our extra fat. The world outside doesn’t want to know, you see. It wants to go on basking in the sweet illusion of model-sized women.

People expect us to be lazy, especially in the workplace. Some even admitted it. The cause-to-consequence logics in this is of course: “if she’s obese, it means she doesn’t want to care about herself and is too lazy to exercise, therefore she must be lazy for everything in her life, including work”. Seriously, this is stupid, and I know of more than one thin person who’re just a lazier ass than I’ll ever be able to be.

Overweight women have it harder than overweight men, and (almost) everybody seems to find this normal. Except at school. There, every overweight kid gets picked on. At least it’s some form of equality, I suppose.

People also expect us to shut up. Ever got the “yo fatty, you had something to say, huh? Shuddup” attitude? Do they think that because we take more room than a normal person, we should compensate for this fact by shutting up and never voicing our opinions out loud? It’s easy to call us out on fat. You can’t really verbally hurt a person you don’t know if she doesn’t have any visible flaw, but fat is visible; it’s the very easy choice of the cheap shot, so to say. Whether we’re able to retort with witty remarks or not isn’t the point: we’re fat, and that’s the element we’ll be attacked with first.

Once there was a troll, on this French weight loss forum I regularly visit. She’d spit all the common “fat is bad” opinions: that overweight people don’t wash, stink, that they’re lazy, have no ambitions in life, and so on. It was awful, and we of course knew that it was aimed at hurting and mocking, so none of use was really offended, but the fact remains: how many people do think like this and don’t voice it, or at least not openly?

Yes, they expect us to be ashamed and behave accordingly. And in a way, perhaps it’s the reason why some people are so intent on sabotaging out efforts and tell us innocently “you shouldn’t lose more, you’re already soooo skinny” when we clearly still need to shed a good 20 pounds or so: they’re afraid of losing their easy target. They’re afraid that once we’ve lost the weight, they can’t treat us like they used to anymore. I know, I have half of a family who consider me like a fat cow who should shut up and look in awe at her thin sister.

Sure, I may be a little paranoid about all of this, and of course, not everyone nurtures such thoughts—fortunately! In any case, though, it’s a fact that lots of people would expect us to behave this way. It’s sad, but it’s true. And too bad for them, but I don’t intend on shutting up anymore.

Tags: appearance