Fatso by Cheryl Peck

My friend Annie and I were having lunch and we fell into a discussion of people of
size. She told me that she had gone to the fair with a friend of hers who is a young
man of substance, and while he was standing in the midway thinking about his
elephant ear, someone walked past him, said "You don't need to eat that," and kept
walking away. Gone before he could register what had been said, much less
formulate a stunning retort.

And that person was probably right: he did not need to eat that elephant ear. Given
what they are made of, the question then becomes: Who does need to eat? And to
what benefit? Are elephant ears inherently better for thin people than for fat ones?
Do we suppose that that one in particular elephant ear will somehow alter the
course of this man's life in some way that all elephant ears before it, or all of the
elephant ears to follow, might not? And last but not least, what qualifies any of us
for the mission of telling other people what they should or should not eat?

I have probably spent most of my life listening to other people tell me that as a
middle-class white person, I have no idea what it is like to be discriminated
against. I have never experienced the look that tells me I am not welcome, I have
never been treated rudely on a bus, I have never been reminded to keep my place, I
have never been laughed at, ridiculed, threatened, snubbed, not waited on, or
received a well-meaning service I would just as soon done without. I have never
had to choose which streets I will walk down and which streets to avoid. I have
never been told that my needs cannot be met in this store. I have never experienced
that lack of social status that can debilitate the soul.
My feelings were not hurt when I was twelve years old and the shoe salesman
measured my feet and said he had no women's shoes large enough for me, but
perhaps I could wear boxes.

I have never been called crude names, like "fatso" or "lardbucket" or "fatass." My
nickname on the school bus was never "Bismark," as in the famous battleship. No
one ever assumed that I was totally inept in all sports except those that involved
hitting things because - and everyone knows - the more weight you can put behind
it, the further you can kick or bat or just bully the ball.

I have never picked up a magazine with the photograph of a naked woman of

substance on the cover, to read, in the following issue, thirty letters to the editor
addressing size-ism, including the one that said, "She should be ashamed of
herself. She should go on a diet immediately and demonstrate some self-control.
She is going to develop diabetes, arthritis, hypertension, and stroke, she will die an
ugly death at an early age and she will take down an entire American Health
system with her." And that would, of course, be the only letter I remember. I would
not need some other calm voice to say, "You don't know that - and you don't know
that the same fate would not befall a thin woman."

No one has ever assumed I am lazy, undisciplined, prone to self-pity, and

emotionally unstable purely based on my size. No one has ever told me all I need is
a little self-discipline and I too could be thin, pretty, a knock-out, probably because
I have a "pretty face" - probably very popular because I have a "good personality."
My mother never told me boys would never pay any attention to me because I'm
fat.
I have never assumed that an admirer would never pay any attention to me because
I'm fat. I have never mishandled a sexual situation because I have been trained to
think of myself as asexual. Unattractive. Repugnant.

Total strangers have never walked up to me in the street and started to tell me about
weight loss programs their second cousin in Tulsa tried with incredible results, nor
would they ever do so with the manner or demeanor of someone doing me a nearly
unparalleled favor. I have never walked across a parking lot to have a herd of
young men break into song about loving women with big butts. When I walk down
the street or ride my bicycle, no one has ever hung out of the car window to yell
crude insults. When I walk into the house of a friend, I have never been directed to
the "safe" chairs as if I just woke up this morning this size and am incapable of
gauging for myself what will or will not hold me.

I have never internalized any of this nonexistent presumption of who I am or what

I feel. I would never discriminate against another woman of substance. I would
never look at a heavy person and think, "self-pitying, undisciplined tub of lard." I
would never admit that while I admire beautiful bodies, I rarely give the
inhabitants the same attention and respect I would a soul mate because I do not
expect they would ever become a soul mate. I would never tell you that I was
probably thirty years old before I realized that you really can be too small or too
thin, or that the condition causes real emotional pain.

I have never skipped a high school reunion until I "lose a few pounds." I have
never hesitated to reconnect with an old friend. I will appear anywhere in a bathing
suit. If my pants split, I assume - and I assume everyone else assumes - it was
caused by poor materials.
I have always understood why attractive women are offended when men whistle at
them.

I have never felt self-conscious standing next to my male friend who is five foot
ten and weighs 145 pounds.

I am not angry about any of this.