By Meriel Colenut

We have a taboo against big bodies in our society. Since lockdown began, I have seen an increase in the number of jokes about gaining weight in isolation and the fear of getting fat. In some of my favourite shows and movies, I have noticed the constant use of fat jokes, as if being fat is the most shameful thing a person can be.

Despite this, we are also seeing a growing demand for beds in eating disorder wards and an increasing health - income gap, in which members of some families are having to forgo food, due to a lack of accessibility during the current crisis.

Why do we have such a bias against fat bodies? 

When we look back on ancient standards of beauty, we can see that larger bodies were deemed to be more beautiful: the Greeks, for example, saw plump bodies as being full of virtue and wealth.

This was also emulated in other cultures, as being bigger often suggested that one had better access to food and therefore was wealthier, whereas being slim meant being a labourer and therefore poor. In many African and Arabic countries today, being overweight has been associated with affluence, health, strength, and fertility.

When did this change?

Arguably, in the 1920s, the preference for a boyish, slim look rose to popularity as more women gained access to the workplace, therefore wanting to downplay their feminine features. From this, beauty eventually developed into the form of heroine chic, in which white, middle class America suffered a portrayed a backlash in favour of a romanticised view of lower class life. From then on, wealth slowly became equated with thinness as it promoted a rebellious counter-culture, while poverty became associated with obesity due to the reliance on cheap, unhealthy food.

So when did being big become a problem? One argument for this is through the creation of the biomedical model. Personal issues of health emerged as public issues, and over time, obesity was treated as an epidemic disease threatening the public's well being. As a result, the war against obesity constitutes a moral panic and war on fat people, further enhanced by the individualist approach to health. This attaches moral overtones to health, blaming a lack of self-control rather than actually trying to improve it.

In response to this, fat activists have started to ask: “Why should health status or physical ability be the basis for discrimination?", challenging the idea that fat bodies are flawed and should be subject to discrimination.

One way that this is done is by replacing the biomedical model with the social model. This differentiates between impairments and disabilities by looking at ways in which social and built environments create barriers for people with impairments by privileging those with able bodies.

Like the impaired body, the fat body is a site for medical intervention, with fatness seen as a pathological, physiological state in need of correcting.  Fat activists argue that impairment is a part of human variation but under a system of oppression has become a category of social significance.

Furthermore, slimness and mental health are both elastic categories and we are all encouraged to take action to ensure them. The promotion of thinness is therefore an ableist assumption and uniting the two categories opens up new opportunities for social transformation.

From this, we can see the utility of the social model, because being fat is considered a personal problem or a medical affliction which can be cured by weight loss. The social model reframes our experiences of self-hatred and stigma as a political issue instead, so that the problem lies in the construction of prejudice and not in our bodies. Unfortunately, it fails to challenge the neoliberal healthist norms around embodiment and shifts the borders around who is seen as deserving of political recognition. 

I am guilty of being susceptible to the constant messages of undesirability that have framed large bodies. I constantly struggle with thoughts of weight gain and dread the words "weight restoration". But, hopefully, if we continue to see large bodies as a marginalised group worthy of acceptance and not as a deformity, we can let go of the never-ending struggle to maintain the ideal thinness that our neoliberal society desires.

All bodies are beautiful and I hope that I will begin to accept that mine is as well, no matter what size.

If you are worried about yourself or a loved one, please call the Beat hotline on: 0808 801 0711 or  0808 801 0677.

Email the writer: merielc98@outlook.com

References:
Giddens, A and Sutton, P. (2015) Sociology Cambridge: Polity Press.

Lawrence, F. (2020) "UK hunger crisis: 1.5m people go whole day without food." The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/apr/11/uk-hunger-crisis-15m-people-go-whole-day-without-food   

Naigaga, D et al. (2018) "Body size perceptions and preferences favor overweight in adult Saharawi refugees." Nutritional Journal. https://nutritionj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12937-018-0330-5 

Pause, C, Wykes, J and Murray, S. (2014) Queering Fat Embodiment. https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.oxfordbrookes.idm.oclc.org/lib/brookes/reader.action?docID=1652956 

Rizzo, M. (2001) "Embodying Withdrawal: Abjection and the Popularity of Heroine Chic." Desire Vol 15. https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?cc=mfsfront;c=mfs;c=mfsfront;idno=ark5583.0015.004;rgn=main;view=text;xc=1;g=mfsg 

Yang, E. (2015) "Women's Ideal Body Types Throughout History." Buzzfeed. https://www.buzzfeed.com/eugeneyang/womens-ideal-body-types-throughout-history#.ohrrLWZkZ