CALL ME FAT: Discovering Body Neutrality in a Fatphobic World
I am fat, and I want you to call me fat.
Please, don’t feel bad for me. Don’t worry about me. And worst of all, don't tell me I'm still beautiful as if it's a miracle to be fat and beautiful. I know you mean well, but it's actually a criticism.
You see, I call myself fat because I want to make fat a word that is acceptable, respectable, ordinary, not marginalizing, and no longer a social justice guest hidden under the table at an eternal party of thin people.
For me, calling myself fat is an act of empowerment.
It’s a way of taking control of my narrative and rejecting the shame that society often tries to impose on people with larger bodies. It’s about standing tall and proud in my skin, unapologetically.
I am not apologizing for being fat.
Finding Body Neutrality
I’ve done a lot of inside work with a coach to stop internalizing fatphobia, which involved challenging and reshaping my thinking and my beliefs. I have come to embrace - and I still have my moments - that we were all socialized to believe that the pursuit of the thin ideal is the most important thing in the world.
My brain needed some re-training to believe that ‘fat’ could be seen as a neutral descriptor and that pursuing the thin ideal is the least interesting and important thing.
Google told me that some fat synonyms are rotund, elephantine, gargantuan, porcine, and the worst of all - obese.
How about instead, we get Google to tell us that fat is ONLY one thing… human.
Words have power. They shape our perceptions and influence our attitudes. By changing the way you use the word "fat," your attitude towards fatness will change.
This is not about ignoring health or promoting unhealthy lifestyles; it’s about acknowledging that body size alone does not determine a person’s worth, health, or abilities.
Body neutrality is the concept that I like better than body positivity, which became a diluted term co-opted by diet culture starting in the ‘90s. Body positivity was started by fat Black women to bring love and positivity to their bodies and was co-opted by diet culture.
Body neutrality refers to the idea that ALL BODIES ARE JUST ONE THING: BODIES. Neutrality is anti-judgement, and is a reminder that our bodies exist for one purpose: to live life. This was revolutionary for me and took me a while to fully understand, because everywhere around me bodies were being judged.
Lizzo has been a loud proponent of body positivity.
My ultimate hope is that once you start calling me fat, the idea will become contagious, and soon, more and more people will grow to not immediately connect fat with unworthiness. It will take a whole lot of practice, and some expected missteps like the quasi-accidental offhand “you’re not fat” comment are to be expected.
Then fat people like me will not have to work so hard to de-marginalize ourselves and instead just get on with our lives.
But here’s the caveat to my ask…
Don’t fake it till you make it. Don't whisper fat like it's a bad word or say fat through gritted teeth. Us fatties will sniff your fakeness out like radar.
I'd love for you to call me fat in a way that doesn't scare you, that feels mostly genuine, in a way that when you say it out loud to me, your inner voice is like, "Oh, she's fat, AND she has thin hair, and she has lots of freckles.” Fat is merely a body descriptor.
Tips For Finding Body Neutrality
Your journey to finding body neutrality starts with an understanding of your current narrative about your body. We all have a narrative about our bodies that includes how we were socialized to believe what bodies should look like. Mine was deeply rooted in diet culture, which is the oppressive systemic belief that idealizes the thin ideal.
I like to ask my clients these questions when we begin this exploration:
Why do you have a body?
If I could wave a magic wand and all of your current negative thoughts about your body could vanish, how might you feel?
What is stopping you from getting rid of your negative body thoughts?
Your Body Is Not A Fad
The weird thing is that fattening up women was actually a thing only about 150 years ago, and so it's time for the pendulum to stop swinging and for us as a society to start accepting people for who they are.
Check out this ad from about that far back.
Body size was made into a fad in the 20s, 70s, and 90s, and some might argue in every generation.
I’m not saying that advertising ‘fattening ladies up’ is something to aspire to. What I'm merely saying is that YOU - it starts with you - can stop focusing on bodies. That the health care, beauty, and diet industries profit big time from this ethos is a problem.
But it only takes ONE person to make a change. YOU are that person.
Fat doesn't solely make me who I am. I am so many other things. But you might feel that thinness is incredibly important because, in this part of the world, diet culture is real, loud, and rooted in ass-holey fatphobia.
By embracing the word "fat" and using it with respect and neutrality, we can start to change the narrative around body size. It’s a small but significant step towards a world where people are not judged by their appearance but by their character and actions.
We live in a world where stigmatizing language is, unfortunately, the norm in many situations, and as parents, we want to build a better future for our kids.
So, call me fat. Say it with kindness, without hesitation, and without judgment. Together, we can make "fat" just another word—a simple descriptor of a human body.
My hope is that you might examine your internalized fatphobia and start developing your own body neutrality. If you’re looking for a coach to guide you through that journey so you can create a body-neutral, anti-diet environment for your kids, book a one-hour free food freedom call with me to find out how I can help you get there.
I can get you to a place where your body size is meaningless.
It’s a tough pursuit, but I’m really fucking good at getting you to see that your body is merely that - a body in which to enjoy life, to experience life, and your body is not on this earth for the purpose of entertaining others.
For more FREE support from me, come join me and a group of parents for my monthly Masterclass. Click the link to learn more and sign up!
