ASSIGNMENT:
Reclaim the word fat and do something amazing with it. Suggestions: make art, take photos of yourself with fat written on you, bake a cake with fat written in frosting, etc.
Seeing as I'm on a year-long art journalling project, I decided to
DISCUSSION:
What do you love most about the word fat? How has the word fat evolved for you?
Let's start with the negative and move towards the positive. From a very young age I got the impression that fat = bad, fat = different, fat = unattractive, fat = not good enough. It was something not to be talked about, something shameful. Perhaps if I ignore it, it will somehow miraculously go away. When I was at Uni and heard about fat activism, I was amazed. On the internet I read about the existence of a book called Fat! So?. (I was never actually able to get hold of a copy, but just its existence was amazing.) The fact that people were calling themselves 'fat', not in a shameful and denigrating way, but in a proud and defiant way, was wondrous to me. I was a bit of a fat faux-lesbian femmo at Uni, but once I left, got a job and started mixing with more mainstream people, I guess my attitudes aligned back with the mainstream again and my shame of being fat came back. It's still a struggle, but in the last few years I've started reading body-positive and plus-size fashion blogs, and this has boosted my self-esteem a lot. Knowing I'm not the only one on this path, faced with this struggle, has really helped me reclaim the word 'fat'. Viz - in Week 1 of the course, I described fat people as 'we', not 'they'. I paused for a second when I came to this word, and only after a very short hesistation did I type the word 'we'. Some people may say, "big deal, so what?" but for me, it's a step.
Having said that, I still don't like it when people are labelled or described as 'fat', but not for the reason you might think. I suppose it's just semantics, but it seems incorrect to call someone 'fat'. Everybody has fat, in fact everybody needs fat to survive. We need to have fat in the soles of our feet or we couldn't walk. The average woman should have 20% body fat and the average man 10-15% (I can't remember the exact percentage for men off the top of my head, sorry). So, everybody has fat, it's just that some people have more or less than others. What percentage of body fat does a person have to have before they will be called 'fat'? 40%? 50%? Should I do a pinch test? Should I ask the person what their BMI is? I have seen TV shows and movies, where a girl lamented that she was fat, and in my eyes she was thin. I've seen posts on Lolita Secret where a girl was derided for being fat, yet she had a body that I'd kill for. So what does it mean to be 'fat'? It seems to signify something different to everyone. I have a scientific, logical brain. I need something more concrete. I need facts and figures.
I don't know my exact body fat percentage, but I do know this - I'm only partly fat. I'm also partly muscle, partly brain, partly skin and partly intestines. I'm at least 50% pale-skinned, freckled, brown-haired, green-eyed, intelligent, creative, shy and sarcastic. So don't call me fat unless you also quote my location on a sliding scale of the fatness of the whole population, ThankYouVeryMuch.
Just Kidding! I know I've been playing with words here and deliberately taking them out of context, but sometimes that's fun. Next question!
The use of the word 'fat' I love the most is to mean 'abundance'. When a plump turkey is deliciously fattened up for Christmas; when a loaf of bread is fat and generously-sized enough to feed everyone at the table; when you receive a book you've ordered in the mail and it's really fat and you're looking forward to getting your teeth into it. I certainly wouldn't mind being called 'fat' if this was the meaning, and I don't mind being called 'curvy' for the same reason. I am fat = generous = curvy = abundant.