The Five Stages of Fat

Show of hands: How many of you have had someone ask if you were pregnant when you weren’t? This just happened to me (for the third time in my life) the other day. A woman I had just met said, “When are you due?” I said, “Do you think I’m pregnant?” She immediately realized her mistake, but when I clarified that I was just fat, she said, “I’m so sorry, but you’re so fat!”

what

What I want to talk about today is not that conversation, but they way I reacted to it – and the way people reacted to it when I shared it with them. Most people were horrified for me. Disgusted. Sad. Apologetic (from the whole of humanity, it seems).

What did I feel, when it happened? Glad. Because it gave me a chance to educate that woman (in essence, I told her that she should not ask a woman that question unless she could see the baby being born). It gave me a chance to think about how her words made me feel about myself (and about her). And it gave me the idea to write this post.

So, here I present to you the Five Stages of Fat (with apologies to Kübler-Ross). One note: These stages are not a progression. They’re more non-linear, wibbly-wobbly. Feel free to move from stage to stage and back again as you see fit. I do!

  1. Denial. I don’t deny that I’m fat, but I sure know what it feels like to deny that I’m this fat (usually until I see my reflection from the side, or a particularly unflattering photograph). There are plenty of people who would love to help us stay in this stage. Try it out: Say to someone, “I’m so fat!,” and you’ll likely hear a chorus of “No, you’re not, you’re beautiful!” in reply. Because obviously those things are mutually exclusive.tina
  2. Anger. Oh yeah, I’ve felt this stage. I feel it. Some days my anger at being fat is small and quiet, and other days it’s an enormous green rage monster. Some days my anger is directed inward, and I hate me for letting myself get fat. Other days, I’m angry at the world for treating me badly because of the size of my body. Anger is probably the most powerful and pervasive stage of fat, along with #4. hulk2
  3. Bargaining. How many times have I thought, I will do anything to stop being fat. What would you do? Starve yourself, exercise until you collapse, swallow pills, allow your body to be cut open? What would you give up to no longer be fat? (A recent survey shows that one-fifth of folks in Great Britain would cut off a finger!)fingers
  4. Depression. This is probably tied with anger for the most popular stage of fat. How easy it is to be depressed when you’re fat! Everything is a struggle, from finding nice clothes that fit to getting adequate medical care. Being fat means we might not get the job we want, or the romantic partner we long for. And the cherry on that sundae is the message that we are unattractive, stupid, lazy, and smelly. We do not fit in the world, it is not made for us, and it doesn’t want us. How could you not be depressed, in the face of all that?beiste
  5. Acceptance. This is the big one. How many people reach this stage of fat? The diet industry doesn’t want any of us to get here. If we accept that we are fat, if we embrace our bodies as they are, then how will they make sixty billion dollars a year? How will they have money to fund studies that say being fat is the worst thing ever and all fat people are about to croak immediately? Acceptance is where I was when that lady asked me if I was pregnant, and then exclaimed that I was “so fat.” I accept that I am fat, and now she accepts it, too. (An interesting fact: You can accept your body and still be angry and depressed. Wibbly-wobbly, remember?)fatamy

I hope that you reach the acceptance stage of being fat. Of course, now is the time when internet trolls would say I’m encouraging people to abandon their health, that I’m “promoting obesity.” That phrase makes me laugh. What I am promoting is acceptance of your body as it is, right now. What you choose to do with it is your choice. I hope that you will choose things that make it healthy (and hopefully we can all agree that that doesn’t mean “thin”) and happy. Health is a personal choice, a personal decision, despite what politicians, the diet industry, the media, and internet trolls would have you believe.

What stage of fat are you in? Do you think you can make it to acceptance? What would you have done if that lady had said, “But you’re so fat!” to you?

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