I'm Not Sensitive, I'm Big Boned!

Maura Kelly writes a blog at Marie Claire. She made the faux pas of admitting she finds fat people kind of unpleasant looking. It’s not just the idea of watching two fat people make out – even watching a morbidly obese person walk through a room strikes her as kind of gross. It gives her the same feeling as looking at a drunk stumbling by, or a heroin addict passed out in a chair. Being fat is something you can control. Sure, it’s tough. Maura will admit that much. But you can control your weight, if you try.

Her blog post has resulted in an explosion of indignant rage across teh intarwebs:

How dare she be size-ist! Why, she’s nothing but a bully! This is a perfect example of how the fashion industry is biased against overweight folks!

The reaction caught Maura by surprise. She quickly penned an apology, and attached it to her original blog post.

That hasn’t helped. “Apology not accepted!” wrote one commenter. Another went so far as to demand she be fired.

Yoni Freedhoff -- an Ottawa nutritionist who I respect -- says it’s “the vilest, most weight biased article I’ve ever read.”

Someone on Yoni’s blog commented, “Imagine if you substituted the word ‘black’ or ‘muslim’ for the word fat?”

Seriously?

What the hell is going on here? I don’t get it. The seething, indignant fury is way over the top. What exactly did Maura Kelly do wrong? Don’t we all agree that being overweight is something best avoided?

***

I’ve had weight issues my whole life, ever since childhood. Or, to put it less politely, I have been fat. Very fat.

“You’re very close to becoming morbidly obese,” my family doctor once warned me. “You need to lose some weight.”

I understood exactly what she meant. I was at risk for stroke, heart attack, diabetes, and all those other preventable medical problems.

And I also understood that being morbidly obese is unattractive – at least in our cultural and historical context.

Mind you, I didn’t let my doctor’s warning change my eating habits. I was going to the gym. I figured that was good enough. It wasn’t. When not at the gym, I did things like eat ice cream for dinner. After going to the gym five days a week, for several months, I quickly burned out. And I quit going.

Meanwhile, I was having stress symptoms at work. Numb and tingly hands and feet, my nose going cold, borderline panic attacks – it was all too much. A nurse at my doctor’s office had this helpful advice:

“Maybe you need to see a therapist.”

If only someone had suggested that sooner. Because therapy changed my life. Suddenly, at age 40, I learned how to tackle my problems. I learned about me, and how I was missing from my own life.

Therapy taught me to take care of myself – something I never really did before. After getting my relationships in order, and tackling my financial problems, I looked around for other issues to deal with. That’s when I remembered – I was grotesquely fat.

I started food and exercise logging – writing down everything I eat and tracking my calorie intake and output. I found a website, My Fitness Pal, which proved to be extremely helpful. I turned to protein bars and protein shakes to fill out my diet. Most of what I eat now is fruits and vegetables, with the occasional “cheat meal” to remind myself I am still alive.

I started eating better in April. And now, in October, I am 65 pounds lighter. I went from weighing 280 pounds to 215 pounds. My goal is to reach 200 pounds, and then maintain the weight loss. I am certain I will do just that.

Let me stress this: without therapy, I never would have been able to lose the weight. Low self-esteem and emotional problems were keeping me trapped in fat. Overeating was a form of self-medicating – exactly the same way some alcoholics and drug addicts self-medicate. Therapy changed all that.

***

So, fat people – did you know you’re at risk for medical problems? Of course. And you know you’re a burden on the medical system – or may soon be? Right. You knew that. And you know people in our society find fat people less attractive than thin people, right? I bet that one is no surprise. And you know if you eat better and exercise more, you can lose weight, right? Of course you did. It’s not easy to do, but you know it, right? None of this is news to you.

So why is what Maura Kelly wrote coming as a huge shock? Why the offense? What she wrote is hardly news. It’s not even particularly insightful.

Okay, okay – she writes for a woman’s magazine. The fashion industry is Satan. I get that.

I’ve always been attracted to chubby women. I find scrawny “fashion model” women repulsive. I want a woman with heft to her. I am stunned at what the fashion industry calls a “plus-sized model”, because to me they don’t even look chubby. They look normal. Give me chubby, any day. Personally, I have no trouble watching two fat people kissing – unlike Maura Kelly.

My philosophy, back when I was dating, was, “If I meet someone, and she doesn’t strike me as physically attractive, give her a chance. Her personality could change my opinion. Genuine attraction is beyond the physical. Maybe we’ll click on a deeper level.”

But at some point, I don’t care what your personality is like. There’s chubby, and then there’s morbidly obese. At some degree of fatness, you reach a state where your personality simply cannot shine through to me. I’m human, and I have to say, no. I think every person has a point where they say, “Sorry, you’re just too fat for me.”

Is that offensive and shocking and terrible? I’ve probably been that fat – where people couldn’t see me for who I am. They just saw a fat man. Does that change the truth of what I’m saying?

***

P.J. O’Rourke once jokingly said it best. (I will paraphrase.) Don’t insult people based on weight, their physical appearance, or their handicaps. Save those insults for a special occasion. Because when you really want to hurt someone, nothing is more cruel than calling them a fat, ugly, crippled fuck.

Why is the obvious so insulting? Is it because we politely tiptoe around it constantly? People are so sensitive about their weight – we better not mention it. If we find them ugly, gross, embarrassing, or depressing, we should keep it to ourselves.

Fat people often complain that you can’t pick on anyone anymore – not for their race, or their religion, or their intelligence – but you can still pick on fat people. The obese are still fair game. Is this reasonable?

Jezebel, a feminist blog, comments on the Maura Kelly kerfuffle and asks:

“…how could she not know this [outrage] would happen? How could she think this was acceptable? It's that, as much as anything else, that's worrisome: that at a mainstream magazine with a wide reach and an ostensibly progressive outlook could think, in 2010, this was okay to write and implicitly endorse.”

I think of myself as a left-leaning, sensitive male. But I find Jezebel’s comments somewhat shocking. When did progressive come to mean politely tiptoeing around the obvious? Most people find fat people unattractive. Hell, fat people find fat people unattractive! Didn’t we know this already? Are we supposed to pretend this isn’t the world we live in?

***

Here in Ottawa, we’ve gone smoke free. It’s been that way for years. The restaurants and public spaces don’t allow smokers to light up. But back in the day, when the laws were still being debated, groups of people came together under the banner of “smoker’s rights”. Some of their arguments were just as surreal as what I’m hearing now about the obese.

“We’re not second class citizens! We choose to smoke! You can’t pick on us for that! We deserve respect!”

Ah, but smoking is bad for you. It’s a drain on our medical system. Everyone knows it’s bad for you, so why should we make accommodations for your addiction? Show some will power, and quit.

Of course, by the time we created anti-smoking policies, smokers were very much in the minority, so their complaints fell on deaf ears.

Do we have to be gentler with the overweight, because they make up the majority?