Hey Friends!
It’s Kayla your Fat Positive Therapist and today we are chatting about Fat Trauma in Social Experiences. If you are new to my work, Fat Trauma is the emotional impact of living as a fat person in society. After over a decade of working with larger bodied clients and through my own experiences as a fat person, I have been working on not only validating fat trauma but identifying types of Fat Trauma.
Humans are herd animals, making social connection an integral part of our self worth. We live in a society that worships the thin white ideal. A culture that forcibly communicates messaging around the ideal body, ideal features and ideal person. Messages that are weaved into everything we do, everything we believe and how we connect with others. Trust me it’s in everything! These insidious messages follow us through every social dynamic and can wear many faces.
“Do I look Fat?” or “I Feel Fat and Disgusting Today”
One example that is incredibly normalized is calling ourselves “fat” in front of our friends. Making negative body comments in front of fat friends is incredibly harmful. I don’t care if you are talking about your own body and insecurities. Making negative comments about your body teaches us know how you feel about fat bodies. Judgements we hold for our bodies come from a hatred of fat bodies. A fear of becoming fat. Connecting fatness with the ultimate failure. Us fatties are quite accustomed to being exposed to your hatred of your body. This is incredibly traumatizing and painful to hear people we love hate fatness and use fear of fatness as a motivator for restriction.
Not to mention the frequency of jokes around over consumption and poor health outcomes. As a fat person the last thing I want to hear about is the normalization of my early death due to your assumptions of the health of fat bodies. Health is not a moral trait and is not accessible to all people. No one wants to be reminded of our mortality or feel shamed about our food choices. These interaction are traumatic for fat people. We just want to spend some time having fun, not being told that we deserve an early death due to being fat. The level of dehumanization that has been normalized is insane.
Experience Access
Growing up fat is punctuated by denial to social customs that are not available for the fat body. What do I mean by this? Well, growing up we have social customs that are huge markers for value and assimilation in society. Have you ever been fat during halloween? What a nightmare. As a kid, finding a costume that fit was a luxury, finding the costume I actually wanted was impossible. Flash forward to college, Halloween is about skin tight barely existent clothing. Guess what is impossible to find as a fat person? A sexy halloween costume. Fat people can’t be sexy, right?
There are countless examples of social experiences that fat people are actively left out of without a second thought. Participating in matching clothing with friends or buying a concert t-shirt. We don’t get that option because manufacturers don’t carry our size. Family vacations that everyone enjoys become a nightmare for the fat kid who can’t fit into certain rides or has to be in public in a bathing suit. Shopping trips with friends leave us combing the accessory section to pass the time while smaller friends try on clothes and participate in adornment. These instances drive home a very clear message… You are fat and don’t deserve these experiences.
Purposely Excluded
Actively being excluded from things due to your body size is a traumatic experience. This does happen and is a frequently discussed painful topic in therapy when working with larger bodied people. We have been cropped out of group photos, left out of wedding parties, not invited to social outings... etc. I clearly remember helping my thin friends get ready for an ABC (Anything but Clothes) party that I wasn’t invited too. No one questioned my lack of attendance and maybe I wasn’t going to push, I could barely find regular clothing, how would I find clothing made out of “unforgiving materials”. Being left out is a normalized part of the fat experience.
Can we think about how damaging the messaging is that you don’t deserve to be in someones life because of your body? That most fat kids understand at an early age that being left behind or left out is an expected experience? How can we expect someone to build self worth and create healthy relationships if their foundational belief is that they are not worthy of people’s time or kindness.
Direct Bullying
Last but not least direct torment and bullying from family, peers and strangers. Diet pills were purchased for me at twelve years old. Family encouraged various dieting options from the age of eight. Trusted friends have actively called me lazy or blamed my weight on what I was eating in that moment. The people who care can do the most unintentional (or intentional) harm.
Side comments from teachers, coaches and other “inspirational” caregivers during our formative years lead many of us to eating disorders. Family paying us for each pound lost with the hopes of motivating us to live a “healthier life”. These experiences echo the sentiment that you are not enough as you are. That to receive love you must change your body even if that is impossible.
Then we have the wonderful behavior of active bullying (heavy sarcasm). I have been on social media publicly for a few years now and can without a doubt say that people hate fat people. To the point where they wish them harm. Luckily, I know this hatred stems from terrible self worth and the need to separate the self from my apparent failure. However, I often wonder how many vulnerable people are just trying to live their lives and are being hurled with insults from spectators. When your self worth is already fragile, how do we measure the impact of this verbal aggression. Hey guys we know we are fat. Kick rocks.
We can not longer pretend that existing in a fat body does not have long lasting traumatic repercussions to our mental health. This is only a portion of traumatic experiences fat people face.