Let those who never stopped in front of their fat friend throw the first kilo and emphasized that they were terrified of being like her
Dear skinny person, today my text is for you. Yes, you yourself who, at some point in your life, stopped beside your fat friend and in front of the mirror, held your non-existent belly and said: “ah, I really need to lose weight, I look terrible”. Yes, you yourself said at some point: “I need to stop eating, my biggest fear is getting fat”.
Is it serious that you, at no point, thought that this could be violent with your fat friend? Do you swear that you believed it was okay to say (in)directly that she is hideous because of her physical shape? Are you sure you thought it was OK to tell your fat friend that your biggest fear was, lo and behold, being like her?
In addition to being insensitive, of course, this type of speech/sentence/attitude is fatphobia. And fatphobia not only hurts, it can kill. And I'm not the one saying this. A survey by Sciense Mag discusses the topic at length. You can read it here.
And fatphobia not only hurts, it can kill.
You see, it's 2022 and it's no longer possible to say that gordophobia is mimimi or that it's a type of bullying that "never killed anyone". It is urgent that you, skinny person, take sides in the discussion and stop covering the sun with a sieve , justifying prejudice through possible compulsions, pretending that this does not happen or continuing at the height of privilege, following your own life and consciously reproducing an oppression.
I know I know. It's always been easy to criticize the country singer for being 'overweight', or tell your best friend, who's always there for you, that you're terrified of becoming like her or that she wouldn't pose a romantic threat to anyone, since that no one would be interested in her.
It's always been convenient to have someone validate the unhappiness you feel every time you hit the gym or feel compelled to count the calories on your low-carb plate.
It just doesn't work anymore.
Thin people need to take responsibility for their destructive and violent behavior towards fat people. Either you bank your fatphobia, assuming it and having the full conviction that you are destroying your self-esteem, causing inconvenience and ending some lives around you, or you stop immediately with it.
Thin people need to take responsibility for their destructive and violent behavior towards fat people.
And it's no use using fat people like 'fatpedia' demanding information on how you should behave in order not to be an oppressive person or a scumbag. The topic has been on the agenda and debate for many years. I myself often write about it and on #putablog there are several of my texts on the subject. You just have to be willing to search. We cannot have, in 2022, in a pandemic world, this responsibility to educate skinny people about their destructive behaviors with our existence.
Another urgent point is: it is no longer possible to justify their oppressive behavior with the discourse of health. Fact is: no one is concerned about other people's health. If we were, we would wear a mask in the pandemic, donate blood, bone marrow and not bestialize fat bodies and celebrate thin bodies - even if they are not so healthy, but they seem to be, since they please the scales and standards.
it is no longer possible to justify their oppressive behavior with the discourse of health. Fact is: no one is concerned about other people's health.
At some point you will ask yourself/me: so does that mean you can no longer want to be thin?
Before accusing you of intellectual dishonesty, of course you can. The person can be whatever they want, obviously. What you can't do is have thinness as the only possible meaning of life. Definitely not anymore.
But since we touch on the subject of freedom, we can use the rhetoric and ask: does this mean that no one can be fat anymore?
For my part, I hope that you can be, in this year 2022, everything you want, including fat. And please be more empathetic and less fatphobic.
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Jessica Balbino is a journalist and cultural producer. He writes about out-of-the-hype literature and dissident bodies. Study psychoanalysis. Curator of literary events across the country. Author of the books "Hip-Hop - A Cultura Marginal", "Traficando Conhecimento" and "Gasoline & phosphorus - my body in flames" (in press). Psychoanalyst in training.
