STOP POKING FUN AT BODY FAT

I was disappointed to see Bruce Mackinnon’s Jan. 21 cartoon, showing someone in a larger body being measured by a doctor, and a fat joke about “inflation” due to the pandemic.

We’ve been living a collective trauma over the past two years. Many people have died or been sick. People have lost their jobs, have been isolated, and their mental health has suffered.

Despite all of what we’ve been through, we’re still constantly being bombarded by messages that our bodies are not good enough, and that the worst thing we could have let happen to ourselves in this pandemic is gaining weight or becoming fat.

Some might think “it’s just a joke!”, but this type of messaging has very real implications for a lot of people, and causes real harm. It’s exhausting and feels awful to constantly see bodies like yours be shamed and the butt of jokes, especially in such blatant and public ways.

Unfortunately, this cartoon isn’t surprising, and is just one example in a sea of weightbased discrimination that is normalized and inescapable. There is, of course, the “we’re just concerned about their health!” argument. If we were really concerned about fat people’s health, we wouldn’t use their bodies as a punchline. We’d embrace body diversity in all its forms. We’d encourage people to tune in to their bodies, move their bodies in ways that feel good, nourish themselves in ways that fuels them and is satisfying. We would treat each other with kindness, empathy and respect, and see people as more than just their bodies. That is health.

There’s so much that we have gotten wrong about weight and health, and there are so many strong voices out there trying to change the narrative and make the world a safer place for folks in marginalized bodies. Regardless of your opinions on fatness, one thing we should all be able to agree on is that shaming and making jokes about people in larger bodies (or anyone), is harmful.

Even if these jokes seem “minor,” it’s all part of the larger societal issue of anti-fat bias, discrimination and fat phobia. It’s part of a system that’s responsible for people in larger bodies getting less timely and thorough access to health care, and that leads people to get diagnosed with eating disorders.

It’s part of a culture that leads kids to opt out of swimming class even though they love being in the water, or keeps people out of the gym or joining sports because of the shame they experience.

It also intersects with other systems of oppression like racism, ableism, homophobia and transphobia. Fat phobia is said to be “the last socially acceptable form of discrimination.” If your body has changed during the pandemic, or if it hasn’t but you’re still struggling with body image, it’s OK. It doesn’t define you.

My hope is that future generations learn to love their bodies, care for them, and see themselves as more than a body, regardless of its size. We can make that happen if we all change the way we see and talk about weight and bodies.

I hope you can help, too.

Suzanne Pothier, Halifax