Coming Out Fat

fattyforever:

Trigger Warning: Diet Talk

fatanarchy:

So I went to a body/fat positive pool party today and it was fucking awesome. It was so freeing to be surrounded by people of my own size and the cool water felt great on my bare tummy. My fatkini may be the best thing that’s happened to be so far this summer. In fact, this is the best summer I’ve had since I was a kid.

In the evening, I met up with my cousin and his new wife. They’re minorly aware of the change in attitude about my body and he’d mentioned that he was hoping to get her to accept her body more. She’s kind of an in-betweener. At dinner she mentioned that she’s trying to get to a place where she can accept her body but she’s not quite there. And I told her I’d help her and she said we should talk.

On the way home, my husband wants to get some donuts and it comes out that this woman is on a diet and she’s bemoaning the fact that she can’t have one even though she really wants one. She’s even recruited her husband, my cousin, to be her food police. You know that person- the one the dieter asks not to let them “get weak” and eat something they’re “not supposed” to eat. And they love the dieter, so they want to be supportive. So they think that means agreeing to help the dieter police what they eat. He called himself the “food nazi”. I guess this means she asked him to be really unforgiving with her when she wants something but “shouldn’t” eat it.

When I hear all this, I say nothing.

Then later, my husband says “Aren’t you going to eat your donut?” Now maybe here is where I made a mistake. Maybe I should have said “Fuck yeah.” And stuffed my face with it. But instead I said “No, I’m not going to eat a donut in front of her when she wants one but can’t eat one” (I realize more as I type this that that was my mistake. Well, live and learn). So this, of course starts the “smoking conversation”

“No, go ahead, I don’t mind.”

“No, it’s okay.”

“No, I really don’t mind. It doesn’t bother me. Go ahead.”

The conversation moves to the motive for the diet and is teetering on the edge of the “why are you on a diet” question, which isn’t my business, so I refuse to ask it.

I can feel a verbal vomit coming, so, to avoid it, I say that I don’t want to talk about it. I say that I mean it in the most respectful way because it’s her body and she can do what she wants with it, but I don’t think she should be on a diet.

See here’s the thing. The way that sounds is that I think she’s thin enough. That’s what that sentence sounds like in the present social context. But what I really meant was: “I don’t think you should be buying into the lie that you need to change your body to fit a social norm.”

But she doesn’t know that.

So….

Awkward.

The conversation stopped right there and was quiet for a moment. Then we started talking about our dogs.

So yeah. A learning experience, I guess. I haven’t quite figured out how to deal with people on diets that I care (or am supposed to care) about. I want to tell her that I didn’t mean it the way it sounded, but I don’t know how to do that without qualifying it and explaining a whole bunch of shit.

So yeah.

Sometimes I forget that there are people in the world who are dieting, or want to loose weight.

Which is good, because that means I have successfully trained my brain into thinking that doing that is not normal. (At least in my world.) But it is also bad, because when I come across people who are trying to loose weight, I kind of come across as rude/disapproving. It just shocks me that this beautiful person would want to change themselves, and I feel I must correct their mistake immediately. (But really, is it even any of my business? The answer to that is a resounding “NO.”)

Where is the line between sharing about body positivity, and just shoving rhetoric down an unwilling victims throat? As much as I hate it when people tell me I should loose weight, do others feel the same about me telling them not to loose weight?

I guess for me, not loosing weight is a big part of my owning my own body. As I have discussed before, diets are a rather sore subject for me due to my upbringing, where many were forced on me during different stages of life. So not dieting is a big stand for myself and loving my body. 

I do believe however that people have the right to do whatever they would like with their body, whether it be dieting, or otherwise. So if that works for you, it works for you..

I guess what all this rambling is about is that I don’t honestly know how to politely react to people dieting. Something I will have to work on in the future.