Fat, But Not Like Me
28 Oct 2003 10:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
firecatThe fat-acceptance mailing lists have been discussing this TV special called "Fat Like Me" where a "popular" and thin high school girl puts on a fat suit that makes her look like she weighs 200 pounds. She goes to a new high school and records her experiences.
The show's message is that being a fat child is a social nightmare and therefore families should do everything they can to make their children thin. (Never mind changing society's attitudes toward fat, of course.)
One post mentioned that the girl experienced a loss of self-esteem even though she wasn't "really" fat, and went on to mention a similar phenomenon among people who take on the role of a homeless person (e.g., journalists or police who go undercover).
My post :
When I try something new, my esteem usually suffers temporarily. It usually gets over it.
A person who decides to play at being fat (or homeless, or whatever) is fundamentally different from someone for whom being fat is a daily fact of life. A person who has a real trait or circumstance that causes them to be perceived as outside mainstream society needs to develop ways of dealing with it. It takes a long time to develop some of these approaches. And some of them make the person better and stronger. (I certainly rather like my personality, and it's fundamentally tied up in my having been perceived as fat for most of my life and dealing with the consequences thereof.)
Why are these stories always about normal people struggling with the first day of a sudden change in how the world perceives them? Why don't they ask actual fat people what it's like to be fat all the time, or
actual homeless people what it's like to be homeless tomorrow as well as tonight?
The reason is that people want a nice fairy tale ending to the story - "and she took her fat suit off and became thin but wiser" or "and the reporter went home to his nice warm bed but wiser." People don't want to think about cost of what it might take to change a person's circumstances - especially if they themselves might have to bear those costs, by changing their attitudes toward fat people, or by giving up some money so that more services can be provided to homeless people.
Another thing I wonder: how does the knowledge that one can take off the fat suit, or go home to a warm bed any time if one *really* wanted to, change how a person approaches a situation?
When I read about how miserable Gwynyth Paltrow was walking into a hotel lobby in her fat suit that she wore for the movie Shallow Hal ("no one looked at me! no one should have to experience that horrible fate!"), I rolled my eyes - "if you think that it's a fundamental human right to be noticed and worshiped by strangers, you have a pretty skewed view of the world."
And if I were able to play at looking like Gwynyth Paltrow for a day, I think I'd be just as kerfluffled by the way I was treated as she was in the reverse situation. The notion of having people fussing over me and looking at me wherever I go and worshiping me gives me the screaming heebie jeebies. (I do like a little worship by worthwhile people, though. ;-)
The show's message is that being a fat child is a social nightmare and therefore families should do everything they can to make their children thin. (Never mind changing society's attitudes toward fat, of course.)
One post mentioned that the girl experienced a loss of self-esteem even though she wasn't "really" fat, and went on to mention a similar phenomenon among people who take on the role of a homeless person (e.g., journalists or police who go undercover).
My post :
When I try something new, my esteem usually suffers temporarily. It usually gets over it.
A person who decides to play at being fat (or homeless, or whatever) is fundamentally different from someone for whom being fat is a daily fact of life. A person who has a real trait or circumstance that causes them to be perceived as outside mainstream society needs to develop ways of dealing with it. It takes a long time to develop some of these approaches. And some of them make the person better and stronger. (I certainly rather like my personality, and it's fundamentally tied up in my having been perceived as fat for most of my life and dealing with the consequences thereof.)
Why are these stories always about normal people struggling with the first day of a sudden change in how the world perceives them? Why don't they ask actual fat people what it's like to be fat all the time, or
actual homeless people what it's like to be homeless tomorrow as well as tonight?
The reason is that people want a nice fairy tale ending to the story - "and she took her fat suit off and became thin but wiser" or "and the reporter went home to his nice warm bed but wiser." People don't want to think about cost of what it might take to change a person's circumstances - especially if they themselves might have to bear those costs, by changing their attitudes toward fat people, or by giving up some money so that more services can be provided to homeless people.
Another thing I wonder: how does the knowledge that one can take off the fat suit, or go home to a warm bed any time if one *really* wanted to, change how a person approaches a situation?
When I read about how miserable Gwynyth Paltrow was walking into a hotel lobby in her fat suit that she wore for the movie Shallow Hal ("no one looked at me! no one should have to experience that horrible fate!"), I rolled my eyes - "if you think that it's a fundamental human right to be noticed and worshiped by strangers, you have a pretty skewed view of the world."
And if I were able to play at looking like Gwynyth Paltrow for a day, I think I'd be just as kerfluffled by the way I was treated as she was in the reverse situation. The notion of having people fussing over me and looking at me wherever I go and worshiping me gives me the screaming heebie jeebies. (I do like a little worship by worthwhile people, though. ;-)
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no subject
Date: 28 Oct 2003 12:08 pm (UTC)Whereas someone who goes from not-X to X in a short time can more clearly contrast the two. It's not always a bad thing, though it's also not always done well. I remember as a child reading about Nelly Bly's investigation of the women's asylum, where she pretended to be insane in order to see what it was like inside. She was there for at least a week, if I recall.
no subject
Date: 28 Oct 2003 01:33 pm (UTC)I learned some very interesting things from the time I went out and tried to talk to a stranger when I had a face full of novocaine and the stranger thought I was retarded, and from when I cut my hair to an inch long and people began to cross the street to avoid me because a tall frowning woman with no hair and a biker jacket can look kind of scary.
Since both took me very much by surprise--I hadn't planned for these reactions--I may have gotten more out of it than a girl deliberately wearing a fat suit might have done.
no subject
Date: 28 Oct 2003 04:21 pm (UTC)I lost nearly 100 lbs when I started taking an anti-seizure medication for migraine prevention. The other side effects of the drug were anxiety, depression, sleep disturbance, and hair loss...I was feeling awful, and only continued taking the stuff because it was the only treatment I'd found that helped at all to reduce the intensity of my continuous migraines. It was very unsettling to realize how differently people treated me when my body changed from extra-large to medium. Not just strangers, but family, and (appallingly) medical professionals. They were far more respectful in general. They insisted "you must be feeling better, you look so much better." (When I was too weak to stand up and my hair was coming out in handfuls.) They took my complaints of pain much more seriously than they had when I was fat. Thanks to careful choice of friends, my friends did not treat me very differently.
I know someone who had something like the opposite experience. After a terrible car accident, she was bedridden and in a wheelchair for a long time, and gained a lot of weight. People treated her very, very, differently after that...assuming she had become stupid or morally weak.
I know both of us are pretty atypical. Most people gain weight slowly, and don't lose it. But if you want realistic perspectives, I think it would be better to advertise for people who have gained or lost a lot of weight in the last year (or in the year before moving to a new city or starting a new school or job, to replicate the conditions of the article) and then interview them about their experiences.
no subject
Date: 28 Oct 2003 05:18 pm (UTC)I didn't say that.
I did say that, done well, placing someone in a context they would not normally be in can be informative/educational, and also that artificially giving people traits they normally lack can be one way to control the other variables involved. It is not the only way, and it is often not done well.
no subject
Date: 28 Oct 2003 04:23 pm (UTC)I lost nearly 100 lbs when I started taking an anti-seizure medication for migraine prevention. The other side effects of the drug were anxiety, depression, sleep disturbance, and hair loss...I was feeling awful, and only continued taking the stuff because it was the only treatment I'd found that helped at all to reduce the intensity of my continuous migraines. It was very unsettling to realize how differently people treated me when my body changed from extra-large to medium. Not just strangers, but family, and (appallingly) medical professionals. They were far more respectful in general. They insisted "you must be feeling better, you look so much better." (When I was too weak to stand up and my hair was coming out in handfuls.) They took my complaints of pain much more seriously than they had when I was fat. Thanks to careful choice of friends, my friends did not treat me very differently.
I know someone who had something like the opposite experience. After a terrible car accident, she was bedridden and in a wheelchair for a long time, and gained a lot of weight. People treated her very, very, differently after that...assuming she had become stupid or morally weak.
I know both of us are pretty atypical. Most people gain weight slowly, and don't lose it. But if you want realistic perspectives, I think it would be better to advertise for people who have gained or lost a lot of weight in the last year (or in the year before moving to a new city or starting a new school or job, to replicate the conditions of the article) and then interview them about their experiences.
no subject
Date: 28 Oct 2003 04:23 pm (UTC)I lost nearly 100 lbs when I started taking an anti-seizure medication for migraine prevention. The other side effects of the drug were anxiety, depression, sleep disturbance, and hair loss...I was feeling awful, and only continued taking the stuff because it was the only treatment I'd found that helped at all to reduce the intensity of my continuous migraines. It was very unsettling to realize how differently people treated me when my body changed from extra-large to medium. Not just strangers, but family, and (appallingly) medical professionals. They were far more respectful in general. They insisted "you must be feeling better, you look so much better." (When I was too weak to stand up and my hair was coming out in handfuls.) They took my complaints of pain much more seriously than they had when I was fat. Thanks to careful choice of friends, my friends did not treat me very differently.
I know someone who had something like the opposite experience. After a terrible car accident, she was bedridden and in a wheelchair for a long time, and gained a lot of weight. People treated her very, very, differently after that...assuming she had become stupid or morally weak.
I know both of us are pretty atypical. Most people gain weight slowly, and don't lose it. But if you want realistic perspectives, I think it would be better to advertise for people who have gained or lost a lot of weight in the last year (or in the year before moving to a new city or starting a new school or job, to replicate the conditions of the article) and then interview them about their experiences.
no subject
Date: 28 Oct 2003 04:35 pm (UTC)I lost nearly 100 lbs when I started taking an anti-seizure medication for migraine prevention. The other side effects of the drug were anxiety, depression, sleep disturbance, and hair loss...I was feeling awful, and only continued taking the stuff because it was the only treatment I'd found that helped at all to reduce the intensity of my continuous migraines. It was very unsettling to realize how differently people treated me when my body changed from extra-large to medium. Not just strangers, but family, and (appallingly) medical professionals. They were far more respectful in general. They insisted "you must be feeling better, you look so much better." (When I was too weak to stand up and my hair was coming out in handfuls.) They took my complaints of pain much more seriously than they had when I was fat. Thanks to careful choice of friends, my friends did not treat me very differently.
I know someone who had something like the opposite experience. After a terrible car accident, she was bedridden and in a wheelchair for a long time, and gained a lot of weight. People treated her very, very, differently after that...assuming she had become stupid or morally weak.
I know both of us are pretty atypical. Most people gain weight slowly, and don't lose it. But if you want realistic perspectives, I think it would be better to advertise for people who have gained or lost a lot of weight in the last year (or in the year before moving to a new city or starting a new school or job, to replicate the conditions of the article) and then interview them about their experiences.
no subject
Date: 28 Oct 2003 04:36 pm (UTC)I lost nearly 100 lbs when I started taking an anti-seizure medication for migraine prevention. The other side effects of the drug were anxiety, depression, sleep disturbance, and hair loss...I was feeling awful, and only continued taking the stuff because it was the only treatment I'd found that helped at all to reduce the intensity of my continuous migraines. It was very unsettling to realize how differently people treated me when my body changed from extra-large to medium. Not just strangers, but family, and (appallingly) medical professionals. They were far more respectful in general. They insisted "you must be feeling better, you look so much better." (When I was too weak to stand up and my hair was coming out in handfuls.) They took my complaints of pain much more seriously than they had when I was fat. Thanks to careful choice of friends, my friends did not treat me very differently.
I know someone who had something like the opposite experience. After a terrible car accident, she was bedridden and in a wheelchair for a long time, and gained a lot of weight. People treated her very, very, differently after that...assuming she had become stupid or morally weak.
I know both of us are pretty atypical. Most people gain weight slowly, and don't lose it. But if you want realistic perspectives, I think it would be better to advertise for people who have gained or lost a lot of weight in the last year (or in the year before moving to a new city or starting a new school or job, to replicate the conditions of the article) and then interview them about their experiences.
no subject
Date: 28 Oct 2003 07:34 pm (UTC)I agree it's not always a bad thing. (I read the Nelly Bly thing too.) The problems as I see them are (1) there's rarely an acknowledgement that the experiences of someone pretending to be X can't possibly be the same as the experiences of someone who is X all the time; and (2) this type of story seems to be more common than stories about people who actually are X all the time.