This is Thin Privilege

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Thanks

Hello there mods!

As a thin person, this isn’t really a place where I have a right to speak, but I just want to thank you SO MUCH for the work you do on here.

When I first started reading this blog, it pissed me off. I was underweight and struggling with an eating disorder, and I was a major thinsplainer, full of the usual defensive “omg r u saying thin ppl have perfect lives, we SO do not!!!!!11” bullshit.

As I kept reading over the weeks, I realized not only the purpose and truth of this blog, but I was forced to confront my own privilege and realize exactly how fatphobic I was, and the judgments that I made on fat people without ever speaking to them.

Thanks to you, that has all changed. I avoid making these judgments, and call other people out when they make fatphobic remarks.

This blog has taught me that all bodies deserve to be respected, and that all bodies are beautiful. What I feared most in the world was gaining weight, because I thought that people would lose respect for me. Because of the efforts of this blog and the way my perspective has been changed from it, I have gained 20 pounds and am recovering from my ED. And I don’t give a flying fuck if I get fat, because I will still deserve good things.

So thank you so much for helping me recognize what a shitbag I was being to myself and to everyone else.

I love you guys.

Whales at the pool.

I live in an apartment building that has a pool, I recently discovered how nice it is and as a bonus it’s also very empty most of the time. For some reason managment decided they needed to hire a lifeguard (even though noone really goes to the pool)

My (fat) girlfriend and I (also fat) decided that we would go for a swim (one of the most terrifying decisions for a fat person) and headed down to the pool. The (skinny) lifeguard immediatly gave us the most disgusted looks as we’re dropping our towels and getting in the pool. God forbid a fat person uses the pool our fees pay for right? Those same fees that pay her salary.

We shrug it off and continue. As soon as we get in and start swimming around she gets up and starts following us around the pool. Cause obviously these two giant fatties can’t swim! These two cows are gunna go right to the bottom! She’s clearly following us around not even trying to hide her death glares. If we go to the deep end she rushes around the pool to where we are, if we swim to the shallow end - there she fuckin is eye murdering us.

We just wanted to swim in peace with a little bit of privacy without getting judged as being unable to swim, unathletic, lazy, and ugly… The best (worst?) was when I gave my girlfriend a kiss and the girls face when from glaring and hating us, to pure disgust watching two fat chicks kiss.

 We wanted to swim for an hour, but we cut our swim in half because she was making us feel so bad about ourselves.

As we were leaving my girlfriend said “For your information, I might be fat, but I bet I could swim faster than you” - My girlfriend was on her high school swim team. Her mouth was left agape (probably used to it haha) as we walked out laughing

Not ‘client ready’

Thin privilege is not being turned down for a job because you aren’t ‘client ready’. 

When I asked for feedback over the phone, someone from HR read me the notes made by my interviewer. She told me I had been reported as ‘not client ready [due to] issues with personal presentation’. She (not being able to see me and only having the notes to go on) suggested I get some advice on expected standards of dress in a company of that level. I had been wearing a suit and tie, was clean-shaven with polished shoes and combed hair.

The only thing I can think of is that I am fat.

Thin privilege is being so terrified, at a size 14/16, of being fat-shamed by your GP that you delay going to see him for a symptom that could indicate a serious illness OR be caused by your weight gain OR mean nothing.

I ended up going to see my new GP after months and he found out it was nothing serious. He made no comment about my weight whatsoever. I’ve had more than one bad experience with the medical establishment in the past, but I’ll learn to trust him more.

Thin privilege is never having to deal with shit like this while you’re at work:

(I am working the reference desk. I have a great rapport with our patrons, and am often complimented for my positive attitude.)

Me: “This is the reference desk. How can I help you?”

Patron: “Can you tell me why fat people are so defensive?”

Me: “I’m sorry?”

Patron: “Can you tell me why fat people are so defensive?”

Me: “I can find you some materials on obesity, or prejudice faced by obese people perhaps—”

Patron: “I just want to know why fat people are always so angry.”

Me: “I’m sorry, ma’am; I don’t think I can answer your question.”

Patron: “See! You’re angry!”

Me: “I’m sorry; do I know you?”

Patron: “No, but I’ve been in your library before, and I recognize your voice. You’re fat. Why are you so angry?”

Me: “Ma’am, I consider your question offensive and bigoted. Would you ask that same question about a particular ethnic group?”

Patron: “You’re a f******* fat b****!”

(I’d like to say this conversation didn’t shake me, but I felt ashamed of my appearance for the rest of the day.)

From Not Always Right

“Overcoming my thinprivilege” — A muscly hair troll asks our advice on how best to be a dick to fat girls

Hi guys I’ve been thin most of my life and 4 years ago decided to try lifting weights recreationally. Problem is there’s this 18 year old girl who won’t stop coming on to me, she is overweight and bottom line is I just don’t find her attractive. I know she only has a physical attraction to me because I have no personality how do I let this kid down gently? I’m tired of being treated like a piece of meat I’m more than just muscles and hair you know?

Mod response:

Actually, just going on this post, I have no reason to believe you are more than your muscles and hair. (queue completely unironic “Oh ATL is so judgmental!” troll-responses) 

Good luck with letting that bottom-line-nuh-uh-fatty!-but-I’m-not-a-bigot “kid” down gently.

-ATL

Sculptures

Thin privilege is seeing your body represented in your town’s art. Downtown Colorado Springs has many sculptures, statues and murals. They are either of objects, abstract or of thin, white people (and mostly male). One is kind of thick with breasts, and wings, but that’s the closest they come to my body size.

I have been fat since I was very young. My mother is fat, my father is fat… and if I had a sibling, they would probably be fat too. 

As a child, I grew up with my doctor telling me that the exercise I did “wasn’t real”, because if it was, it would be working. If it were legitimate exercise, I wouldn’t be so fat and unhealthy, right? I hated my yearly physicals as a child… I knew I was fat, and I always felt shame for it at the doctor’s office.

When I about 12 or 13, I started refusing to visit the doctor. I hated it. I couldn’t bear to have them point out my insecurities and make me feel so terrible about myself. I went many years, as a young girl going through puberty and growing into a teenager, without seeing a doctor.

As I got older, I needed a new doctor since I was getting too old to list my pediatrician as my family physician, so (very grudgingly), I saw a new doctor at age 16, for my first physical in years.

Once again I felt like I wanted to be swallowed into the ground. Listening to a stranger tell me I was obese. Feeling my semi-naked body being scrutinized. I remember my new doctor asking what my highest weight had been, and feeling too embarrassed to tell her she was looking at it. So I told her I didn’t know. I felt more shame during that appointment than I ever did as a child… as a child, I felt less responsible. It was somebody else’s fault I was so fat, surely… after all, I was only a kid, right? But at 16, I felt entirely responsible for the first time, and my doctor treated it as such. It was all me… I was the one who was screwing up my body.

I never regained the courage to visit a doctor again after that appointment. I am in my twenties now, and I haven’t had a physical in six years. 

I had sex for the first time a few months after that last appointment, and six sexual partners later, I still haven’t been been back.

In my late teens, my period stopped. I haven’t had it for many years now. I am terrified about what could be wrong with me, but still… no doctor’s visit.

I have declined a surgery I require, and so I suffer on a daily basis because I will not go through several doctor’s appointments surrounding it.

I tough out illnesses and injuries. I suffer through pains. I constantly wonder if I’m ever ignoring signs of something more serious. I leave it up to chance, because the risk is always worth avoiding that dreaded doctor’s office. My fears and insecurities are so deep rooted, that even thinking about visiting a doctor brings me to tears.

It’s not fair. It’s not fair that I’ve been made to feel like my body doesn’t deserve medical attention. It’s not fair that I’m terrified a doctor will automatically link any problem I’m having to my weight. It’s not fair that I force myself to suffer. It’s not fair that I could have serious medical problems and not find out until it’s too late, all because I am so terrified of feeling shamed by people who are supposed to be helping me.

Fatphobia/fat shaming in medicine is not okay. I deserve to feel safe and comfortable receiving medical care. My body deserves to be cared for as much as any other body. Fatphobia could cost me my life one day, and that is not okay.

Target Demographic && Attractive & Fat

We all know by now about the fat shaming ass of a CEO Mike Jeffries for Abercrombie & Fitch.  He has been recently put back in the spotlight for statements he said years ago that were not only fat shaming but also sexist and shallow in general.  Overall, most people I have seen have been appalled by his statements. As a fat girl, I hate that he is defining his demographic as cool and attractive,  not thin.  Just because that means thin in their small minds, does not mean that ANYWHERE in the definition of cool or attractive, does it make it necessary for one to also be thin.  BUT had he come forward and just said, plain and simple, that his store was meant for thinner people, plain and simple, without insult, I wouldn’t have been mad but actually glad a bit.  Why?  Well, there are men’s clothes stores and women’s clothes stores and then just stores.  Ones that are not advertised for men or women specifically, like boston store or macy’s or old navy, or hell, A&F, you expect to have clothes for both men and women.  Now, there are Plus Size Stores, like Torrid and Lane Bryant.  And then there are stores.  There are no stores that advertise themselves as stores for the thin specifically.  

By advertising your store for young people and then not carrying larger sizes,  what are you saying about young people who are fat?  If you advertise yourself as a store for everyone and then don’t have sizes for everyone, or at the very least the VAST majority of people, then what are you saying?  It is taking specific bodies and making them the “other” the “abnormal” the “ugly”.  While I hate Jeffries for equating goodlooking, attractive and cool with being thin, everyone knows he’s an ass.  But more importantly, everyone knows he targets really thin people, so when I don’t fit the clothes, no one judges me.  But a store like H&M that advertises itself to college aged people (like me) and even puts a “plus size” (aka a tall size 8-10 who’s not even fat) model to try to put the message out “oh hey we love all bodies” if I didn’t know better from experience, I would think that store included me because it was for “all bodies”.  Then I enter the store and not only do they not carry even close to my size, I am asked to leave by a thin classically attractive store clerk who tells me they have nothing for “my kind” there.  And people see a girl who’s “too” fat.  Not too fat for the thin clothes store, but someone who’s just “too” fat, so fat I can’t buy clothes without a specialty store.  And these are the same people who claim Jeffries is an ass for not carrying larger clothes. That experience hurts a lot more than walking past an a&f and just knowing, they don’t have my size and besides everyone knows the ceo’s an ass.

But on a positive note, the amazing blogger, The Militant Baker, took a photoshoot of herself paired with a conventionally attractive (aka thin) man as well wrote an open letter.  It made me happy to read, the photos are gorgeous, body and tattoos and I thought it might be nice to share it here.  It also targeted what I found really wrong about Jeffries statements,  not that he didn’t want to carry larger clothing, but that he made a point to express the idea that you can not be fat and attractive.  This blog post is proof otherwise.

http://www.themilitantbaker.com/2013/05/to-mike-jeffries-co-abercrombie-fitch.html

Thin privilege is not having to go to a totally separate part of a store that carries clothes in your sizes therefore marginalizing your body type which implies some negative connotations about having your size (i.e. being told by a sales associate that you ought to go to a different part of the store, with the implication that the clothes in the section you are at will not fit you).

“Petite” sizes tend to be right next to all the other clothes and come with an attached name that has never been used oppressively. Petite, socially speaking, translates into “I’m tiny & cute” whereas “plus sized” implies that you, yourself, are more, more than you should be; “under sizes” are not a thing and this language perpetuates our ideas about size/weight. Thin privilege is having “underweight” be just a medical term, not a social term (as opposed to “overweight”).

Thin privilege is not having to face words with connotations that inherently name you as different which, more often than not, translates into bad (i.e. “she’s a bigger girl” or “plus sized” instead of she’s big- and there are even negative connotations in “big”).

Thin privilege is being assumed to be healthy regardless of your daily health habits (regardless of whether you eat healthy/workout or not) and to not be assumed as a lazy person with a bad diet.

Thin privilege is being able to go about your day and not be told that “you need to/should workout and eat right,” even if you already do.

Thin privilege is to not have the expectation placed upon you that need to go out of your way to do more physical activity and “eat better.”

Thin privilege is being told that whatever you’re doing to have your body, even if it’s just going about your day or being unhealthy, you’re doing it “right.”

Mod note: Of course, there isn’t really a monolithic definition of “health” that applies to everyone, and ‘exercising’ and/or ‘eating right’ are neither well-defined nor magic tickets to “health” nor moral imperatives. Just FYI. -ATL

“Hey your mom looks good!” …but she’s sick.

Just this past December mom was diagnosed with uterus fibroid, so she had to undergo surgery the day after Christmas. Problem is, that she had been suffering a whole year and some with these symptoms and neither her doctor nor the diabetic specialist she was being sent to, (my family has a med history of diabetes/heart/blood pressure problems), could determine the cause of her EXCESSIVE weight loss. She was constantly tired, out of breath, had pelvic pain, a heavy flow in her period, back aches, and frequent urination; on top of that she is anemic. An entire year suffering, and what did her doctor treat her for? Diabetes, and fixed her diet to prevent weight gain because it was apparently due to her diabetes that she was sick. The message the doctor sent was ‘getting fat+gain diabetes=sick’ at least this is how I personally felt. I’m 300+ Lbs and since an early age my mom has constantly made it a priority to “try” to control my weight, but at 23 years old I’m free of any health issues she and my dad both go through, (dad takes insulin), and both are at a weight acceptable by society. What really rubbed me the wrong way and hurt me was the plethora of compliments mom was getting because of her weight loss. I was even stopped sometimes because I knew many of her acquaintances and even a few of my friends just so they could tell me “Wow! Your mom (Doña Imelda) lost so much weight didn’t she? She looks GREAT!” “Your mom looks so good since she got skinny!” “Whatever your mom is doing, tell her to keep up the good work.” 

It made me sick inside, all I wanted to yell/scream was “NO! My mom is not looking great, not feeling great, and her being skinny does not mean she is FINE!”, but this is how far society has brought us. We have been lead to believe that someone like mom at 5’6 and a size 6 looks great, and that I, her daughter 5’9 and size 18/20 looks pretty in the face, but not at the waist.