I am not especially talented at talking about The Health Issue, that is, the whole “but what if being fat is unhealthy?” question. There are a few reasons for this. For one, statistics bore me, and I lack the patience and interest to dutifully seek out medical studies to use to disprove other medical studies. I’d rather just settle to remove myself from that conversation altogether, since there’s lots of folks who do it better. Statistics don’t really speak to individuals anyway, and just because statistical data is making the case that, say, being fat means you’ll die X years sooner than a less fat person, that doesn’t actually translate to you, individually, dying X years sooner than your thinner friend as a sure thing. So I tend to shrug my shoulders unless something related to fat and health really grabs my attention, or, better yet, captures my imagination.
As of late, one thing I’ve read repeatedly in scattered and diverse places is the idea that it is impossible for a person to weigh 300 pounds and not have health issues as a result of their size.
Here’s the thing: much of the time, when it comes to human bodies, nothing is impossible.
The human body is more remarkable than the most remarkable thing you can imagine. It’s a miraculous self-contained machine. If you’ve spent even the tiniest bit of effort seeking out information on how the human body works, its efficiency and complexity has probably blown your mind. We’ve all heard crazy tales in which the body surprises us with what it can do, like the apocryphal story of a kid lifting a car off her trapped parents in a burst of adrenaline, or a hiker who managed to survive in the freezing wilderness for a week when even search and rescue efforts were losing steam (and hope).
The human body is not a simple machine. It’s an incredibly complicated one, and each individual unique body has its own quirks and subtleties and nuances. Some bodies are sickened by certain foods; some are not. Some bodies heal quickly from injury; some don’t. Some bodies have disabilities; some don’t. It’s hardly a stretch to argue that some bodies are fitter at certain weights and some bodies are fitter at other weights and both can be normal and “healthy” for the individual body in question. Sticking your elbow in your ear is a difficult bodily challenge. Weighing 300 pounds and being healthy is not so much an inconceiveable situation.
Because here’s the other thing: health, itself, is both private and subjective.
My health is none of your business. Your health is none of mine. The health of the barista who hands me my coffee in the morning? None of our business. The health of your postal carrier? None of our business. The health of a particular film star or professional athlete? None of our business. The health of a fat stranger walking down the street in front of you? None of our business.
A popular argument when discussing fat and health is “but obesity [sic] accounts for X% of healthcare costs and I don’t want to pay for fat people’s health!” Setting aside the fact that having this as a “problem” is a huge privilege, considering the numbers of people in the US with no health coverage at all right now, it’s also an academic point. In an insurance model, healthy folks will always wind up subsidizing the healthcare of those who are less healthy. Your premiums contribute funds to a company that then pays for other people’s chemotherapy, or their hip replacement surgery, or their smoking cessation plan, or their gallbladder surgery or their skin grafts or their physical therapy or their psychotherapy, and so on. And if you ever need any of these things, you can rest assured that your health insurance will be there to pay for your treatment too, and that it will consist of the dollars of fat people and smokers and the elderly and the disabled and promiscuous sex-havers and rugby-players and and anybody else you might resent for squandering your health insurance dollars by behaving or just existing in a way that may compromise their health and put them at risk for injuries (in other words, living a life). And if you never get sick or injured, and thus never get your hands on those precious insurance funds to which you’ve contributed so many dollars over your working life? Congratulations! You have managed to live a life never being sick or injured, which aside from being extraordinarily rare, ought to make you thoughtful and thankful enough to cheerily help those who’ve not had your experience.
Virtually no one can survive a reasonable lifespan and remain completely free of the need for medical attention. Even when your money is helping to pay the healthcare costs of others, their health is still none of your business.
Standards of health are always arbitrary and always mutable. If they are based on anecdata or individual experience, they may be too specific to apply to a larger group of people. If they are based on statistical analysis, they may have little to say to an individual person with a unique set of circumstances surrounding their body, their level of ability, and their particular experience. What if, for example, rates of elevated blood pressure amongst fat people are being influenced by the fact that many fat people are having their blood pressure checked with an incorrectly-sized cuff? What if medical research is occasionally biased in favor of supporting the result that the researcher (or whomever is funding the research) expects or desires, such as in the recent revelation from a former Harvard researcher that he falsified data on a sleep apnea study to make it look as though obesity was a contributing factor, because the real data was not supporting this hypothesis? What if there’s legitimate research that contradicts the stuff that everybody just knows but it simply isn’t gaining media attention because, well, it’s contradicting the stuff that everybody just knows about health and fitness and body size.
The reality is that different bodies have different parameters of what it means to be healthy. People (of all sizes) with chronic ailments are going to have a wholly different concept of health for their bodies than I do for mine. And that ought to be okay. Because we should not feel obligated or responsible to each other – total strangers in particular! -to meet someone else’s standard of health if it doesn’t work for us.
This is why I am disturbed by movements such as Congress’ plan to incentivize health care by rewarding people for eating “healthy”, for exercising, and, of course, for losing weight. For one thing – eating well and exercising (or, at least, being active inasmuch as you are able) are their own rewards, as human bodies typically respond well to being used in the ways for which they were originally intended. Also, these programs essentially favor those with the financial wherewithal to engage in “healthy eating” AND people without long-term disabilities or chronic ailments that make exercise difficult or impossible (arguably, the latter group should merely give up, lie down and wait to die, when chronic health problems prevent their aspiring to the heights of health piety applied to those without these mitigating circumstances). Finally, good health is subjective. A person with chronic and uncurable back pain is going to define feeling healthy differently than a cross-country runner, just like a cancer survivor in her late 80s is going to define feeling healthy differently than a 20-year-old who’s never been hospitalized, and it makes total sense that this should be the case.
In a broader sense, there is something very troubling about the way we as a culture are moving toward a place where people’s bodies and their health are (sometimes literally) public property. I not opposed to people being healthy; I am rather opposed to a homogenized definition of health. Individual people should be both enabled and encouraged to be as healthy as is possible within the parameters their body has placed upon them – it is unfair to penalize someone and condemn them from “health” for the rest of their lives because they do not meet an inevitably arbitrary standard. I am also opposed to a world in which meeting said standard – which would change frequently anyway – is obligatory, and in which bodies of all sorts are colonized by a movement that claims to know what’s best for us, that our opinions no longer apply. Do we really, really want Health Police patrolling the supermarket aisles looking for health-criminals and health-deviants? Isn’t this a personal freedom issue? Oughtn’t we to be trusted with our own bodies?
In the end, some people weigh 300 pounds and are healthy. Some people weigh 300 pounds and are not. (Some people weigh 150 pounds, and ibid.) Both states are possible. Both states are legitimate. Both states are normal. And it’s still none of our business if they are or if they aren’t. The only bodies you really need to know are the bodies of anyone for whom you provide the bulk of their physical care – your kid, or your parent, for example – and your own. The body of that 300-pound stranger walking down the street in front of you? That could be me, and I am capable of managing my own damn self.
I was piled under blankets and sheets and could not move. I couldn’t lift my leg, my arm, couldn’t turn over to turn off the alarm. I was stuck under the weight of my own brain telling my body to disappear for a while. Squinty-eyed and full of snot I over-shot and hit the alarm clock onto the floor.
Oh well, it got re-set and so did I. A few hours later I woke up and while able to move, wasn’t feeling too excited about it. I was in the middle of a full-on body flare; pain, misery, muscle cramps and the foggy-brain memory of a crash test dummy.
Already sensitive to my over-sensitive body, I stayed on the couch and pretended to be productive. I typed, I listened to chefs cut things on wooden boards, I drank tea. I tried to be good to my body as it flailed through another toss-up in the land of disability and crippledom. I even googled gluten-free living, wondering if maybe the food I was eating was killing me.
Then I saw the twitterings on International No Diet Day. Here I was, sitting on my couch trying not to induce further pain and frustration and the world was trying to tell me to eat something tasty and enjoy my body. I was conflicted; enjoy what? Enjoy the pain, the crippledom, the suffering, the snot of a runny nose? Enjoy the twinges and cramping, the muscle spasms and exploding ovaries?
It’s really hard to be body-positive and disabled. On the one hand, there’s an entire world telling me that I am broken and surely I am. My government has designed a system to keep me from succeeding, my family pretends I can get better with the use of carrots and denial and the entertainment industry highlights those of us who look cool enough to stare at but have enough private equity to appear successful. My body is generally on display as fat but also as inhuman; as disabled and therefore open for grabs, jabs, pokes, prods, and full-on attack.
My body has sadly become a casualty to ableism and here I am just trying to be fat!
Given that I am disabled first, fat second I left my house as the cripple that I am and ate in public. I ate in public like I fuck; hard, intentional and present. I ate a giant lemon-custard danish on the train and stared down a nurse. I let the filling touch the tip of my tongue and slowly sucked it down until I was left with glazed pastry crumbling around the corners of my mouth. I took a bite and inhaled, the dough melting on my lips before entering the cavern of my mouth. Before I could suck the sugary glaze off my fingers the nurse had gotten up, stared pointedly at me while standing over my straightened frame and huffed. Best pastry-gasm I’ve ever had. Possibly ze was having trouble reconciling that pastry-erection and had to exit, stage left? Maybe I should have used the protection of a nice waxy paper sleeve, accidently biting a corner and ruining the deliciousness so soon.
Like a good cripple, covering up so as not to bring reality outisde my bedroom – the good fattie hides the food ze eats. As if we don’t eat. As if humans subsist off fumes and really good imagination.
Sometimes you just gotta go public.
NOTE: there was a picture but I ated it. Soon fatsies, soon there will be a photo shoot including ice cream porn. Soon…just wait.
SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY: Lessons From the Fat-o-sphere authors Marianne Kirby and Kate Harding will be turning up in Boston for a book reading and signing event. The event is sponsored by the Center for New Words and will be taking place at Lir Pub on Boylston Street at 1pm. As a bonus, both myself and occasional Fats contributor Julia will be reading from our pieces in the book as well. More info available here. Folks who’d like further social time afterwards are welcome to join those of us loosely adjourning to the Prudential Center mall when things wrap up.
FREE MONEY: Sort of.
NOLOSE is offering seed money of up to $1,000 to support projects that expand the reach of fat queer activism. 2007’s SPAL projects included an inspired Zine-making party in London, a fabulous Roller Skating party in Philadelphia, and the very successful Fat & Queer mini-conference in New York. We loved supporting those projects because they were creative, fun, informative, and community-based.
Timeline
>> All proposals are due by June 1, 2009.
>> Notifications will go out July 1, 2009. Funding/agreements will go out soon after.Sound good? We hope you apply! If you have additional questions, or need to submit a proposal through other means/media, feel free to email us at SPAL@nolose.com.
Find out more and access the SPAL application for funding here.
That’s all for now. Hope to see some of you on Sunday.
Yesterday, #twowholecakes made its Twitter debut as a hashtag, and my kneejerk inclination – over-explainer that I am – was that I should probably rapidly define what two whole cakes is, what it means, where it came from, why it’s stuck with me so long. I didn’t actually plan or intend for it to spread like it did. Therefore I had expected to begin this post by telling the story of where the phrase “two whole cakes” first captured my imagination. Telling that story, however, would necessitate the visitation of some additional context and backstory that would probably diminish the beauty and simplicity of the broader two whole cakes concept, which has come to represent something greater than the sum of its parts, those original hypothetical cakes of yore. This is all the more evident after reading the various creative contexts (and occasional confusion) that the “two whole cakes” tag was cultivating on Twitter.
When we don’t know what something means but it sounds compelling nonetheless, we try to create meaning for it. And so it happened that the two whole cakes tag evolved into a slightly non sequitur fatty shout-out.
As a result I no longer want to ruin it by telling the mundane tale of the origins of the phrase. Instead, I am taking a more gentle, inclusive approach, and asking: what does two whole cakes mean to you?
To me, two whole cakes represents the absurd hyperbole associated with weight and body size. It acknowledges that there are folks out there, in numbers, who sincerely believe that all fatasses everywhere do things like sit down and eat two whole cakes on a regular basis, whence their fatness is maintained or improved upon. The over-the-topness of not one, but two whole cakes highlights the ridiculousness of beating myself up for choices that, ultimately, are not going to ruin my life or anyone else’s. Did you eat something yesterday that you’re judging yourself harshly for? Stop. Did you say or think something critical about someone else’s eating habits or their body? Think about why you did that, and how you feel when someone else does it to you. Did someone else say something damaging to you that’s lingering in the back of your mind? Acknowledge why it hurt, and move on.
Two whole cakes is about giving up and letting go of all the self-hating garbage we carry around inside our heads, and finding acceptance and contentment as we are now. Even if we’ve eaten two whole cakes.
Because ultimately, you or I could eat two whole cakes and probably the worst thing that would come of it is that we’d feel terribly sick afterward (me especially, as I am not a person who is big on sweets). But our lives wouldn’t end. We wouldn’t be bad people. We wouldn’t even have anything to apologize for. I don’t really advocate the eating of two whole cakes literally, but the phrase, to me, captures something of the wild freedom and relief I felt when I was first discovering fat acceptance. It reminds me of the way that simple concept – of eating what I wanted, when I was hungry, without feeling guilty, and stopping when I was done – was such a revolution. I could eat two whole cakes if I wanted to! I don’t want to, but I could, if I did.
Two whole cakes is about laughing at the stereotypes and assumptions that hurt us and thereby lessening their power to do so. Pass it on. Tell your friends. Reinvent it for your own purposes. Two whole cakes is a power that can’t be denied.
I have a devastating reality to share with all of you. This will be painful, but we will get though it together.
It’s about fat acceptance. You know, all that bullshit about how diets don’t work, and self love, and intuitive eating, and being healthy regardless of weight? Yeah, it’s all an elaborate ruse. And I am here today to rip down the shimmering curtain hiding the truth and expose fat acceptance for what it really, really is.
In fact: fat acceptance is a masquerade, a blind for the true purpose of all fat activists – the purpose that rules us all, that finds us and brings us all and in the darkness… um. You get the general notion. Fat activism is, in reality, a secret fraternal organization of like-minded individuals with one unerring mission in life. I will rip apart the hideous web of lies surrounding this terrible secret and foist the reality upon the world even as it screams and blocks its ears and screws its eyes shut in horror!
The hidden true purpose of fat activism, the secret club to which we have all sworn a blood oath, is…
Scoring souls for Fat Satan.
That’s right. FAT SATAN.
“But Lesley,†I hear some of my readers sheepishly inquire, “I have never heard of this before. Who is Fat Satan?†Ah, it has been Fat Satan’s will that he should remain unknown to you until now. But I shall tell you. Fat Satan is the evil deity to whom all fat activists heartily pledge their undying loyalty. Fat Satan is bubbling gaily at the bottom of every glass of full-sugar soda being imbibed by an innocent child. Fat Satan smiles darkly every time a fat-punishing gym rat thinks, oh, I am so tired, I will skip Advanced Misery Thigh-Shredding Step Aerobics III today. Fat Satan lives in a castle made entirely of butter rendered from the fat that Oprah Winfrey has gained and lost over the years. Fat Satan’s beady eyes gleam with delight at improved plus-size shopping options, because – of course! – every new plus size clothing line makes it Totally And Universally Okay to be fat, and wipes away all existing cultural body standards with a majestic sweep of overpriced polyester hems.
You are dubious, dear readers. I know. I can sense your discomfort. You are worried that I’ve lost my mind. But Fat Satan is real. Fat Satan is the reason why Kentucky Fried Chicken tastes so good even when you know it will wreak holy havoc on your intestines the next day. Fat Satan is the voice in your head that whispers, “Take the elevator! Why disdain 150 years of hard work on the part of elevator engineers? Take the fucking elevator, you pulley-hating Luddite freak!†Fat Satan invented the hangover, and every time it’s 3 AM and you’re thinking, “Wow, a pizza would taste really fucking good right now,†Fat Satan is there with you. Fat Satan is why Judy from Accounting drops by your desk with a box of donut holes on Fridays. JUDY IS A TOOL OF FAT SATAN. All donut-lovers are. She knows you’ll take a donut hole or two even if you’d valiantly refuse a whole donut as Too Much, and sometimes we must focus on winning a battle rather than winning the war.
Fat Satan has a great plan for us, for all of us, and we, as his disciples, are willing agents; our objective is to secure the souls of once-thin people – of noble dieters and impassioned worker-outers! of committed butter-deniers and ardent carb-avoiders! – and turn them fat, such that we can deliver them to Fat Satan’s gaping, slobbering maw, liberally-oiled with the fat of those who have passed that way before. This is why we nod knowingly or shake our heads with barely-restrained smugness at the latest tale of failed weight loss (or successful weight gain, if you’re a glass-half-full sort of minion). When this happens, we are thinking, YES, FAT SATAN WILL BE PLEASED. (We get big points from Fat Satan for every soul turned. I’m saving up to trade mine in for a rocket-powered Segway made entirely of self-replicating cake.)
Our latest point in Fat Satan’s column: Kirstie Alley, who after a few years as a shill for Jenny Craig, is magically, remarkably – dare I say miraculously? – fat again. Evil laughter emanates from the flabby midsections of fat activists nationwide, because the souls of famous people who have become fat are the most precious of all. Famous gainers illustrate the inability of paid-for diets (and even “lifestyle changesâ€) to permanently recreate a thin body out of a fat one. The failure of weight-loss culture is writ large. Literally.
Oh Kirstie, we know why you went on Oprah’s show – because you both know what it is to have your newly-refatted soul in debt to Fat Satan. You knew Oprah would understand, even when no one else could. And I hope you both met up with Carnie Wilson afterward and all three of you had lunch together, an unholy trinity of the physical, palpable, jiggling evil that is… unrestrained fat people, eating.
Readers, I am sorry to foist this revelation on you with no warning or preparation. I didn’t even ask you if you were sitting down first (though you probably are, lazy fatties). But think about it. Think hard. Deep in your fat hearts, y’all had to know this all along, right? You knew Fat Satan was looking out for you. That in the times when there was only one set of fingerprints in the bowl of raw cookie dough, those were the times when Fat Satan was feeding you. That fat acceptance couldn’t possibly be about loving yourself for your own good, about treasuring the awesome machine that is your body and loving it and taking good care of it and listening to it, by nourishing it with delicious and healthful foods and by using it to do cool active things (as your physical ability permits) – fat acceptance could not possibly, in all seriousness, be making the case that all these things are worthwhile for their own sake, whether they result in weight loss or not. It couldn’t be that fat acceptance advises shedding self-hatred and disassociating body size and shape from morality and character because it’s the right thing to do, and because universalizing standards of bodies and health that discourage bodily diversity are harmful to every single person who has to confront them, no matter what that person may look like. It isn’t about respecting difference and body autonomy and trusting individual experience.
No. Of course not. Fat acceptance is about scoring souls for Fat Satan. Now you know.
ALL HAIL FAT SATAN.
(And an aside to Kirstie Alley: don’t you worry about Valerie Bertinelli. She can only slip out of Fat Satan’s clutches for so long. We’ll get her back. MWA HA HA.)
This weekend I left my LCD-lit internets-cave long enough to attend the Saturday evening performance of Big Moves Boston’s new musical, Fat Camp, with a few other noteworthy fats. It was a great big fun time and while the Boston run is over, there’s good new for folks in Philly – Fat Camp is coming your way this weekend, with shows on Friday night and then twice on Saturday (it’s happening at The Rotunda at 4014 Walnut Street; see their calendar for more information).
As if this weren’t fabulous enough, at 4pm, sandwiched deliciously between the Saturday shows is a reading from the two hot dames responsible for the forthcoming (this week!) Lessons From the Fat-O-Sphere, Marianne Kirby and Kate Harding (full disclosure: I have two short pieces in the book myself, which should put any lingering doubts to rest as to whether it’s a worthy purchase). So Philly folks, get your fat asses out to support fat events this weekend if you can.
As for the Avenue surprise: I went to avenue.com today to look for workout wear, as these are the only Avenue items I am reliably pleased with and thus the site is typically my first stop for clothes falling under the heading of Things I Can Sweat A Lot In. My surprise was noticing that Avenue has a selection of wildly-affordable cotton (COTTON!) sundresses on their site at the moment. We’re talking $23 kind of affordable. They all seem to be the standard surplice-top, elastic-ruching waist style, and whether they fit as weirdly as Avenue’s stuff usually does (my opinion and experience only, of course) remains to be seen, but I thought it worthwhile to note an apparently new source of non-synthetic summer dresses.
Have any of you bought or tried on any of these dresses? Let us know what you thought in comments.
Backstory: Forever 21, purveyor of inexpensive trendy garb to slender teens, announced a couple months ago that it would be launching a plus-size line this May. On to the letter:
To Forever 21/Faith 21/WTFE:
It’s May! The flowers are blooming. People are shedding their heavy, full-coverage winter apparel in favor of warm-weather clothing. Oh, it’s just fucking beautiful. Also, you have your plus-size line, Faith 21, appearing in stores! Trendy fats nationwide eagerly lean forward into the glow of their computer monitors, awaiting the bounty, hands clasped, eyes wide, shivering in anticipation, as it were.
So what the fuck is this?
That’s the size chart for the “new” “plus size” line! Look y’all, it goes ALL THE WAY TO JUNIOR 2X! It’s a bleeding fashion revolution, is what it is. Thank you, Faith 21, for slightly expanding your size range so that marginally larger people can also purchase your wares!
Since you’ve made the decision that anyone over a 2X is too fat to bother with, I feel entirely justified in saying: fuck you, Forever 21, and your patronizing over-hyped foray into “plus size” apparel. This oughtn’t to hurt your feelings or distress you in any way since I am so far outside the parameters of your fashion consideration.
Sincerely (irritated),
Lesley
(For those interested in seeing the actual clothes, which are mostly heinous in my typically-humble opinion, click here. My rage is tempered only by the fact that I wouldn’t want to buy any of that crap anyway, though my continuing frustration with the inept mismanagement of badly-conceived plus-size lines by a number of traditionally non-plus retailers may be amplifying my anger at Forever 21 in particular.)
Recent posts on the fatshionista livejournal community have me thinking about the gulf between experience and the intolerance/misunderstanding that often grows out of that gap. A casually-dressed poster admits to pulling clothes off the floor and zie is met with comments like “that’s unhygienic” and accused of “advancing a sloppy fat stereotype.”
Of course, the “dirty/rumpled fat person” stereotype is just as much about hating fat as it is about villifying a certain income bracket. In our society, we boast a rich (!) and long-standing tradition of looking down on modest/zero earners, all the way back past the serfs in the feudal system to biblical times. Even though many of us have witnessed, first-hand, that working hard does not make everything and anything possible in North America–that discrimination and a whole host of isms deny perfectly willing and capable people opportunities–we hang onto the puritan work ethic, the false belief that compensation is proportional to the effort of the individual, and blame poverty on the poor. We hate the poor, because it’s easier to assume laziness/lack of self-respect on the part of fellow humans than to interrogate a system that promises–even if it seldomly delivers–so much. In fact, in capitalism poverty–and all the assumptions/associations packaged within the term–becomes the ultimate insult. We deride those who stand outside of the white-upper-clas-euro-American-christian patriarchy by labeling them “cheap”–in values, beliefs, actions, image, appearance, and worth.
As long as I’ve been consuming culture/media, a foothold in class mobility serves–whether subtly/overtly–as a way to alleviate/temper the other facets of identity–race, gender, sexual orientation–for which people are oppressed and marginalized. In the fatosphere looking “groomed” (read: like your putting MONEY into your appearance) becomes a way to stand in opposition to the erroneous-as-it-is-pervasive assertion that “fat people are slobs who don’t take care of themselves.” In short form: “I may be fat, but at least I am not CHEAP!”
While there’s nothing wrong with being “groomed” there is also nothing morally wrong with not being middle/upper class and presenting in a way that reflects that. It’s only abhorrent if you’re desperate to keep up with the Thin Jones’ which, I will not deny, many fatties feel tremendous pressure to do (especially in the workfoce, where image and presentation seem, more so than job-proficiency, to beget opportunity/job-security). There is much more to say about how it’s easier for thinner people to dress “casual” and the associations with upscale leisure activities–yachting, golfing–that often go hand-in-hand with that particular iteration of casual, but i will leave that for now to make a point about style/effort in general.
I hesistate to articulate some of my “poverty rage” because my circumstances have changed enough that I’m certainly not scrambling for food and living under the threat of eviction/zero utilities from month-to-month. But I have lived that way. When I was a kid there were months where we didn’t have fruit and veggies and our clothes were torn and didn’t fit us and there was never any money for hotdog lunch. During my undergrad, as a part-time job holding full-time student, I had on more than one occasion been in a position where I had to choose between food for the week and laundry detergent. (dirty clothes won’t kill you. starvation will.) To this day, my annual wage–though almost double what it was when i was a student–places me, as an individual, well below the poverty line. the canadian gov’t considers me to be one of the working poor, and if I didn’t live with a partner, there’s probably no way I could realistically keep a roof over my head, food on the table, and clothes on my body.
I don’t write this as a bid for sympathy, or because i’ve got some I Grew Up Poor chip on my shoulder, but to hammer home that the poor/working class fatty is confronted with an additional level of difficulty when it comes to finding suitable clothes for his/her/zir fat body, nevermind developing STYLE. You might very well disagree with me here, but i tend to think that style is equal parts content and equal parts creativity. Even if you’re the visionnary equivalent of Rodin when it comes to wardrobe styling, your final product will still suffer if your materials are wanting. Fat people already contend with a serious dearth of clothing options. Access to more diverse genres of clothing has improved thanks to online sellers, but if you don’t have a credit card/can’t afford to spend the same on shipping as on the garment itself, the cheapest of online stores will remain closed off to you. Remove internet shopping/ebay from the picture and you are limited to the paltry offerings of local retailers/thrift stores, and, empirically speaking, working with a helluva lot less. If you have dependants to support, and live in a small town or rural area, the struggle becomes even more pronounced.
While I very much admire the style of wealthier fats who can more readily access upscale options–better tailoring, better materials–and envy them their luxury of being able to court and quickly sport new trends and styles the minute they hit the runway, I’ve got an extra special admiration for the fat people who post outfits comprised entirely or primary of thrifted or discount items. I’m not saying that online shopping is effortless and without heartache, and that people with money to burn don’t put thought into their style, but I know from experience that when budget plummets, time expenditure necessarily soars. I know how much time and effort goes into cultivating a mostly thrifted/ discount store look and how much creativity is invoked to make that clothing–much of which is the sartorial equivalent to one-use dollar store trinket–SING. It may seem effortless to put on a thrifted vintage dress, but just locating one in the first place–and then having it FIT–is often the product of at least tens of hours of scouring secondhand and charity stores, garage sales, estate sales, and disorganized sale bins/racks in demoralizing multinationals. (I won’t even get into how expensive well-fitting bras are, and what a difference they make when it comes to fit.)
The working-class (or working-poor) fatty has to work really damn hard for style & fit. Zie is probably guerilla in more than one respect, learning to sew and knit*, thinking constantly about how to re-wear and repurpose items from seasons to season. Zie cuts hir hair at home and is in all likelihood not benefitting from quality hair products and styling tools. Zie is probably limited to box dye–if zie’s colouring hir hair at all. The working-class or working-poor fatty is probably not buying mineral makeup, or fancy brushes with which to apply that makeup. Zie is not taking hir clothing to the dry cleaners and having it professionally steamed (with a drop of lavender essential oil) and pressed. I’m not saying to have to hold hir up as some sort of underdog hero. I’m not saying you have to fall all over yourself to acknowledge hir style. I’m not saying you have to LIKE it. I AM saying that zie, like any other fat person daring to take up space and be visible, like any other HUMAN BEING, for that matter, deserves to be treated with respect. I AM also asserting that casual–or, if you like, “grungey casual”–whether you’re fat or thin, is a legitmate look. And that you, as a fat person, as any type of person, needn’t present in way that makes you uncomfortable because you feel you “owe it”–again with the financial terms–to other fatties/people to embody a specific type of put-togetheredness. That’s bullshit. You don’t.
*I should point out that the materials required for sewing/knitting aren’t exactly that cheap anymore, either.
I weigh 242 pounds more or less. I stopped checking whenever hospitals required my presence because the number they’d repeat (happily or not) would send my mind into a spin. Too large? I couldn’t eat for a week. Too small? Sweet, I succeed at life! Same as before? How lazy am I, how many burgers have I consumed and why don’t I start back at the gym on Monday.
No other number has plagued me so. I am 5′5 and I’ve never been bothered by it. Sure I’m slightly shorter than my sister and taller than some of my closest friends but who cares? My shoe size is 9 and that’s never phased me; some of the best shoes in life are a size 9 and if they aren’t, then clearly another pair were destined for me. I wear a size 18/20, sometimes a 22/24, sometimes an XXL or 2X and that’s never ruffled my rolls. But that number on the scale? Forget it, I’m toast.
Even though it’s just a number and we can all say it’s just a number we all know it’s quite the opposite. It’s tender, legal and binding in the world of social acceptance. How we repeat it and discuss it becomes fodder for daytime television and comic routines. How we treat it becomes fodder for a whole industry of money-making schemes in little plastic bottles or the cardboard backs of dehydrated food product.
But it’s 3 digits. Sometimes 2 if you’re particularly short, sick or starving and sometimes 4 if you’re being featured on The Learning Channel (TLC). But really it’s meaningless. I’m 242. Maybe I’m more today, maybe I’m less. It’s been whispered in my ear like a dirty secret, shouted across the room in gym class, scoffed at in theater troupes and hidden behind mounds of paperwork. Don’t make me feel bad, don’t make me cringe, I know I’m fat and wretched and yes I’m starting that diet tomorrow. Please, I know I don’t look that fat. People who have that number on the scale usually grow fat arms out of the sides of their heads and extra fat mouths to consume extra fatty foods to add to the number on the scale. The scale must be off, my shoes are heavy, I’m menstrual.
Anything to avoid having to face that number.
But it’s there. It’s staring us in the eyes. It’s screaming at the top of its little lungs and it’s time we drown it out with our own voice.
242. 242. 242. 242. 242. 242.
I’m not even averting my eyes.
Someday, I hope in the near future, I will get back to reliably contributing thinky content to this blog, and not just mindless consumerism.
Until then, however, I’d like to talk about belts.
For EVER, I thought I could not wear belts. (There are, no doubt, folks who would argue that I still can’t/oughtn’t wear belts, but they don’t get to me.) My individual antibelt position was based on my decidedly apple-like shape – belts, I thought, were for folks who had defined waists, or at least curvier hips than mine, or at least folks who were less overtly BIG FAT in the middle than I. I felt like they drew unwanted attention to my waistlessness, or if not to that, to the belly-rolls under by nonexistent waistline. Sometime over the past year or so (click here for an early belting experiment from January 2008), I’ve changed my belt posture. I am now a positive fatties-in-belts evangelist. Here’s some seriously ridiculous proof:
… and that ain’t even all of them.
Some of my favorite belt resources*:
1. Steel Toe Studios: I have three leather belts and four buckles from STS and cannot say enough good things about them. The proprietor is blacksmith/designer Erica Gordon and she has never been anything but fabulous about custom-sizing belts for me. Though the goods are not cheap, everything from STS is extraordinarily well made, wears like iron, and in my experience, worth every damn penny. STS also has an Etsy shop now, where they offer one-offs and sale items.
2. Speaking of Etsy, iamErica will cheerfully custom-size any of her gorgeous handmade obi-inspired sash belts for you. I’m particularly fond of this style of tie belt, since it’s easy to adjust for the best combination of fit and comfort.
3. A new source of belts I’ve just discovered is Viktor Sabo’s eBay shop (link goes to a search of all items identified as “plus size”). Viktor Sabo is located in Canada, and makes plus-sized leather wrap belts in a variety of lengths. The belts are lightweight and super-soft; I chose a 112″ belt to wrap twice around my 48″ waist and still have slack enough left to tie, and I’l glad I did, since the soft leather stretches quite a bit. This option is also quite the bargain – most belts start at US$9.99 – particularly so if you buy more than one, as the proprietors will ship up to four belts for the flat Canada-to-US shipping fee of US$10.
4. A belt-maker I’ve not yet tried, but who has responded in the affirmative when last I inquired about custom sizing, is RADCOW on Etsy. They’ve got some incredible hand-tooled options; the only thing holding me back at this point is deciding which one I like best.
Of course, those of you with access to a sewing machine (or a whole heap of patience) can also make your own sash belt, out of whatever fabric you like; this is a tremendously simple project that yields great results, and is perfect even for folks just learning to sew. You don’t even need a pattern to do it. There’s a solid tutorial on the subject here, though I am bound to mention that plus-sized bodies will need more fabric than specified in the tutorial – more still if you’d like to be able to wrap the belt around twice before tying it. I prefer my sash belts to be somewhat wider in proportion to my excellent fatness.
Got a great belt resource? Shout it out in comments below.
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* I know this list is kind of leathercentric, but so am I. Sorry vegans!
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