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Jun 8

Why Is Fat The Last Taboo For So Many Of Us? – British Vogue

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I often find myself grasping for words to describe my own body. This happens more frequently than I would like to admit. Just the other day, I was trying to tell a friend a thin friend with a lanky body that can be poured into a bias-cut dress as easily as a poufy one why I would never buy a wrap dress.

They just dont look good on people like me, who are... I resorted to waving my hands over my midsection. My friend knew what I was saying, I knew what I was saying, but I couldnt bring myself to actually say the word. Fat.

Its a clich to call something the new F-word, but isnt fat, for so many of us, the last taboo? It stings the tongue; its hard for me even to say out loud.

At the same time, I hate every euphemism, and I know them all: plus-size, plump, chubby, heavy. Dont get me started on the scourge that is curvy. I once dated a guy who said I was carrying extra weight, and I somehow convinced myself that was sweet because it sounded so temporary.

Youre a goddess, my friend said finally, landing on yet another polite, vaguely empowering synonym to fill the conversational void. You are bodacious. I tried not to roll my eyes. I tell her to remind me of that when I have to choose my body type on an online dating profile.

The truth is I am fat, at least by the standards of New York City, where I have spent almost my entire adult life. Fatness is also something I have spent that whole time trying to get rid of. I am a chronic yo-yo dieter and am usually in the midst of eating (or not eating) my way between a size 16 and a 20.

Dieting has been a lifelong project. I cant remember the first person who called me fat. Nor can I remember the moment when it dawned on me that my body was fat and that fat was undesirable. I dont know how I got fat. I have always been fat; its the only reality I can remember.

I use the word fat not as a cheerful reclamation or political statement but as a no-frills description. Do I want to hear other people use it to describe me, let alone use it to describe myself? No. It still feels like an insult that makes me wince.

Fat acceptance is an idea I support intellectually, though I dont actually feel comfortable counting myself among body-positivity types. Ive tried for years to wear my heaviness with pride. I flirted with fat acceptance, tried to believe that weight should not define a person and that beauty comes in different packages. But is that even possible unless you live alone without Wi-Fi in a yurt in a remote mountain range?

My fantasy is for no one to call me fat because no one would consider me fat at all. That would mean changing the body Ive lived in my whole life. Anyone who has struggled on a diet for a week can tell you how difficult a proposition that is.

A fan of Jean Nidetch, who invented Weight Watchers in the 1960s, once wrote her a letter asking whether fat could ever be acceptable. Her response was unequivocal: I dont think fat is beautiful, and I dont think many other people think so, either. I spent three years writing a biography of her, and can hear her no-nonsense, adenoidal Brooklyn-accented voice in my head, telling me that. Fat is anything but beautiful the word itself is unattractive.

I was drawn to her because I thought she had a kind of Cinderella story: a woman who lost 80lbs right before turning 40, started a billion-dollar empire and never regained the weight. What I ended up finding was that her life, while marked by fame, money and invention, wasnt a fairy tale with a perfectly neat ending. Losing weight didnt solve all her problems. In fact, it just made room for others.

As I was writing, I tried to lose weight, too, following in her footsteps and committing to Weight Watchers for a year. I wish I could say that I lost as much weight as Nidetch did, but the truth is something I cant hide from its plastered all across my body. I lost some weight, but not so much that I have a new word for my body type. I remain tongue-tied.

This disconnection between our actions and our words is everywhere in our culture. None of us want to say the wrong thing. The problem is we end up saying things that dont mean anything. We dont even really diet these days, instead we tell our partners and co-workers who look at our carb-free lunches and say that were going on a cleanse or eating clean. I have heard people call getting Botox self-care. Some of my favourite designers now offer extended sizing options.

We may be doing the work to change beauty standards and things have changed for the better in the past decade or so but we are using language to give complicated issues, such as weight or ageing or vanity, vague euphemisms. Being coy about our problems does none of us any favours.

So how do I want to talk about myself? I want to use language thats clear, thats rooted in reality, that doesnt feel as if Im trying to fool anyone.

As I wrote about Nidetch, I found that she was constantly in pursuit of a kind of lust for life. Even when she gave up her preferred marshmallow biscuits for good, she was still the kind of woman who impulse bought mink coats. I came to think of her as a woman of appetite.

And I am, too. I have begun to call things big. Jean Nidetch wanted a big life, Molly Goddard makes a big dress, and I have a big body. These things are different and none of them is bad. Big is a word that is not faux-positive and lacks coyness. I could settle for its imperfection.

This Is Big: How The Founder Of Weight Watchers Changed The World And Me by Marisa Meltzer is available now through Chatto & Windus.

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Why Is Fat The Last Taboo For So Many Of Us? - British Vogue

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