I’m fat.
Around the time I was five years old my doctor warned my mom I was severely underweight. Probing her for ideas on how to fatten my up, my mom came up with chocolate milkshakes.
My parents were fairly uneducated; my mother graduated high school. My dad was the breadwinner with a carpet trade skill, sans any diploma.
The envy of all other kids, I had a tall glass of chocolate ice cream whipped in the blender for breakfast every morning before school. I wasn’t aware this was abnormal until years later.
The weight-gain diet worked but my mother loved her little boy and kept giving them to me until I was eventually overweight. I’ve been so ever since.
I don’t fully blame my parent’s education, doctor’s orders or attempts to appease me for my weight. I’m fat. I’m also okay with that.
During my akward teenage years I was mocked for being fat. It was easy. Some kids had acne, some were short, some were too tall or too short. Adolescence look for the easiest go-to point to mock. It bothered me that I was being made fun of and that I had trouble dating girls. I thought about losing weight but as I got older I cared less. I was happy with who I was.
I’ve watched with excitement as my homosexual friends saw “being gay” as socially accepted. It’s a huge win for common sense. Making fun of someone for their sexuality or race or religion has become ridiculous. People who still do it typically hide behind anonymity on the internet because it’s not acceptable. Society has gotten smarter and with that comes acceptance.
Except when you’re fat.
I don’t need protection and I’m never offended when people try to hurt me by pointing out my weight. My reaction is typically more concerned with why they want to hurt me, as if I was fired at but the bullet never came close.
I’m happy with who I am and what I have, my weight being no factor in that (I have no drive to run a marathon). But when people openly mock fat people, I’m offended. Offended that our society has grown enough to understand a man loving a man isn’t something to mock but if one of them is overweight you can rip all the fat jokes you want.
This also isn’t to say we need to abolish fat jokes. Some might be too politically correct to understand this part, but comedy clubs and friends in the 21st century rip people for their sexual preferences or religion or race all the time. The difference is, they’re in on the joke.
Chris Christie was easy material for the White House Correspondence Dinner a while back. Weight jokes were the easy pick.
While Christie may have been in on it (as in, okay with the jokes being on him and his weight), and lots of others before him, some aren’t. I’ve seen friends and strangers alike mocked for their weight. For a fat person, you might as well tear them apart for being black. Or Muslim. Or gay.
But in our society, its perfectly acceptable to mock fat people. To their face and otherwise. When I’ve confronted people on it, I’ve heard responses like, “Well he chooses to be fat” or “Fat people are disgusting.”
I never cried because of my weight, but I sympathize with those that do. There’s no easy fix (seriously, there isn’t) and there are lots of reasons people are fat (“eating a lot” isn’t the top of the list).
So, for those out there that are fat: it doesn’t get better. People will always be assholes.
Tommy West