Re: This Post

“However, fat is not a feeling. When you say “I feel fat”, you are using it as a catch-all for any and all negative feelings you have about your body. Can you not see how that would be offensive to an actual fat person?

I recognise that you may not be doing this intentionally. It’s possible to hate your own body while accepting the bodies of others. That said, you’re not off the hook. Words mean things. When you say “I feel fat”, you are perpetuating the idea that fat = bad.

In short, why does your insecurity come at the cost of our dignity?”

[Source]

Thoughts of fatness (when someone says “I feel fat”) can often be a common denominator for a variety of more powerful forces, especially dysphoric moods (look up body dysmorphic disorder that creates other eating disorders like anorexia or bulimia and even obesity). Here’s the kicker: the problem comes when a person is unable to decipher these moods and they get condensed into a final common denominator: feeling “fat” when, in all likelihood, they’re normal people who are feeling insecure and more (back to that list of synonyms above).

Feeling fat and/or having a “bad hair day” are part of the same phenomenon—the product of an internal bad feeling that gets projected out onto our appearance. Fat is definitely NOT a feeling. The problem with feeling fat is not literal fatness, but rather the painful emotional state within, whether you are actually fat or not fat at all.