The Limiting Beliefs That Come With Anti-Fatness
Or, how fat people learn to preemptively exclude themself.
We are taught that being fat means more than just the fat cells on your body. It means you are less attractive, you aren’t romantically desirable, you’re likely to die early, you can’t be trusted around food, you’re lazy, and on and on and on. In every section of our lives, we have been taught that being fat means doom and gloom. Nothing is possible for us while we are fat, and our lives will only open up when we lose weight- that’s the promise that we are sold with every diet and exercise plan out there.
For those of us who are fat, the environment and lack of access to the world tells us this even more- that we’re not welcome in this space, that our size isn’t offered, that we aren’t allowed a medical procedure, that our bodies are prohibited from participating. This means things like researching weight limits and size ranges before showing up to an event. It means going to a concert and being in pain the whole time because the seats are too narrow. It means being asked to be a bridesmaid and dreading all the dress decisions. And, of course, it means being denied medical care because of BMI, being discriminated against by employers and teachers, being kicked off planes when our seat neighbor complains, and so much more.
The world hates fat people. And subsequently, we are taught as fat people to hate ourselves. Or at least, we are taught that the world is not open to us. We are limited, sometimes truly limited, by what we can participate in. And so we internalize that. We internalize that we are not welcome, that our bodies prohibit our engagement in life. It’s this complicated mixture of legit barriers and rejection that we then take on ourselves. If we stop ourselves from even trying, then we don’t have to deal with being painfully denied access.
I see this showing up a few ways with clients. It can show up in preemptively disengaging from opportunities or seeking out what we want. This comes up with dating, applying for new jobs, trying out new hobbies, attending cultural events- you name it. I’ve even seen clients give up on wanting kids, way before trying to conceive or seeing one medical provider about it. They just assume it’s not an option for them because of their weight.
We cut ourselves off from our deepest longings because of anti fatness.
It’s important to feel the pain and grief of this. It’s important to feel the anger of the world blocking us from participating, but then feel even deeper into the ways we block ourselves. That’s a particular form of grief. Our anger at the injustice of an antifat world can propel us to action and that’s awesome and needed. The grief of what we’ve cut ourselves off from and the parts of ourselves we’ve denied can direct our compassion and love. It can soften us towards our soft bodies. It’s where the deeper healing work happens. I am not equating the harm we do to ourselves to the harm done to us by biased systems. But I am saying, in order to battle the external fight, we have to heal the internal one. This can also fuel our external activism, but it helps us advocate in small ways too. It can help us ask for accessible seating at our friend’s house, or can help us set food boundaries with family. It can help us engage in self care tasks and help us believe that we deserve gentle, loving care in our relationships.
Reckoning with the limitations we’ve adopted without question is no easy task. Just like seeing internalized misogyny or homophobia or racism, it takes real courage and humility. It takes softening towards ourselves while getting angrier with the external systems and structures that perpetuate these limitations. And then holding ourselves accountable to ourselves. We actively chose the path of unlearning.
This process is one of my favorite things I get to do with clients. It feels sacred! Like what powerful work this is. To dismantle internalized systems of oppression and shame in order to truly pursue what we long for in life- like isn’t that what we all are here for?? To be compassionate to ourselves while fighting for better treatment and access for all people- isn’t that what’s being asked of us right now?
