I was recently asked why we don’t weigh people like luggage to determine the cost of their airline ticket. Sure, particularly muscular and/or tall people would likely flip out since they would assume that this wasn’t meant for them but was rather was a punitive means of punishing fat people. And obviously you can’t tell whether or not someone will fit in a seat by their weight. But those aren’t the real reason that it’s not ok.
The real reason is that it’s not luggage. It’s my body.
It’s not a representation of greed or capitalism. It’s my body.
It’s not a picture without a head to accompany yet another OMGDEATHFAT article. It’s my body
It’s not a stand-in for my true health and well being. It’s my body.
It’s not for you to judge. It’s my body
Do you get it? It’s my body. So back off.
My body is far too valuable to be treated like a car whose worth is lowered because of some wear and tear. It’s far too astounding to be a metaphor or a political statement. It’s far too complicated to run on the same formula used to fuel a lawn mower. It is far too profound to be reduced to a ratio of weight and height. And it is far too amazing to be judged by anyone.
Because it’s my body.
Yes. Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes a million, billion, trillion, kagillion times YES! (Yeah, I think that Vicodin has hit me hard, lol.) It’s bad enough that random strangers feel that they have the right to judge others because of what they see, but to give them the opportunity to make snap judgments because of some arbitrary number? Hell to the no! Why is it ok to treat people like livestock or luggage?
Hi Karen R.,
I just wanted to echo: Yes. Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes a million, billion, trillion, kagillion times YES!
Well said, Ms. Karen, and well said, Ms. Ragen!
Thank you, Mary-Ellin. Glad to know that I can still be considered “eloquent” with a bagillion kidney stones and in a Vicodin induced haze.
Karen,
You are hardcore – reading and commenting even in a Vicodin haze. I’ve just made up a “hard core commenter” award so that I can give it to you!
~Ragen
Ragen,
If your internet/blog wife isn’t going to be here to support you, then who would?
I will proudly hang said award on my wall.
Been reading your blog for about a month now (turned on by my daughter-in-law) and, Dang! I like what you have to say! You are inspiring. Thank you. Peg
Thanks very much!
~Ragen
Amen. I’m so tired of this your-business-is-my-business attitude our country has adopted! We’re quite a judgmental nation at the moment. That’s not a good thing…
One of the most embarassing moments of my life, and one that has remained with me for all these years, is when I was weighed for a flight on Alaska Airlines, going from Juneau to Anchorage. It was not a large plane, but it held 12 people, and the weighing was UNNECESSARY, as it always is! If you see that I’m fat, do you really have to see HOW fat I am (and I wasn’t that fat, whatever that means)?
Now I look pretty normal with my clothes on–I’m 70 years old and I’m never going to be skinny, and I won’t take any airline that weighs me–ever. The way I figure it, if I can walk, I can ride, and you don’t get to damn weigh me unless you weigh everyone else on the plane, including the pilot. Weigh my luggage if you want to, but keep your hands and judgments off my body.
Hi Betsy,
I’m sorry that this happened to you but I love your response! I’ve never been weighed to get on a plane but if I was I’d certainly want to see everyone else in line.
~Ragen
I’ve been reading your blog for a month or so. I have been vaguely aware of Fat Acceptance but learned about HAES for the first time through your blog. It’s amazing.
But on topic…I read your first post about airline travel the other day and have been thinking about it since. I fit in an airline seat side-to-side, but have a 34″ inseam. If I am not on an aisle it is quite awful as the length of my legs do not quite fit in the forward space. I’m always miserable in air travel. I am even more miserable when someone, for any reason, is taking up any of “my” space, even be it by leaning their seat back.
I never quite knew what to think of the controversy over fat people flying. I am so very miserable when someone’s body is pushing against mine because I am already so tightly wedged in there – but I couldn’t afford two seats, and people are people no matter what they weigh so many of the solutions seem impractical or heartless.
You wrote about space – any anybody who took up too much space paying more for more space. The idea frustrated me – I can’t change how long my legs grew, how fair is that? But then, I realized, why should we ask anybody to change the shape of their body to travel? Many people can’t change their body shape and size (and shouldn’t be asked to even if they can). How fair is it to anyone?
And here is where value judgements come in. In our culture, it is not “wrong” to be tall, but it is “wrong” to be fat. People think it’s ok to ask someone to change their body shape or pay some kind of extra price for it, where they would never believe the same about height.
People come in all shapes, sizes, weights. If there is this much controversy – airline seats just aren’t big enough to accommodate a good slice of the population pie – the tall, the broad, the fat. Bigger seats/more space. Less profit.
In a perfect world right? I don’t see that happening soon, but what I did get out of thinking about the issue is that the anger towards fat people is misplaced. It’s the airlines not providing the correct accommodations in the interest of profit, and our societal views that fat is wrong, bad and should be shamed away that are truly to blame.
Nik,
Thank you for this beautiful comment. I absolutely agree with you. I also think that the airline that is able to properly accommodate people of all weights and heights will be extremely successful. My suggestion that everyone who takes up more than one seat be charged is intended to help people come to the exact conclusion that you did. The policy just doesn’t work, and currently lots of people aren’t comfortable in planes (either because they are tall or they have long legs, broad shoulders, a wide torso etc.) but t’s currently only fat people who are punished for the discomfort. Thanks again for a really well thought out comment!
Nik,
I just want to say how incredibly happy your comment made me. Seriously, your willingness to reevaluate your thought process just makes me giddy. Thank you! And not only thank you for being willing to rethink things, but thank you for being brave enough to publicly talk about your previous misconceptions and your new found respect for all bodies.
~Karen
I love the value, care, appreciation and love expressed for your body in this post. We get what more of we focus on, right? Love, love, love that you are focusing on the love you have for your body, not the judgmental jerks of the world!
This may not be the appropriate place to ask, but here goes:
In a lot of your posts you talk about your practising of healthy behaviours. Unless you’ve already done so and I’ve missed it (I had a quick look) would you be interested in writing a blog post where you detail these healthy behaviours? Your diet, fitness (achievements included) and so on.
Hi Eric,
Nope. Health at Every Size is all about listening to your own body which means that my healthy habits aren’t necessarily other people’s healthy habits (especially since I train as a professional dancer and not just for health) so it wouldn’t help anyone to see what I do. The only other reason would be under the guise of submitting them for outside “judgment/approval” which I don’t care about.. See the following posts for further explanation:
http://danceswithfat.wordpress.com/2011/06/17/the-trouble-with-proving-it/
http://danceswithfat.wordpress.com/2011/07/24/what-is-a-fat-activist/
Thanks!
~Ragen
Hello! I’ve been reading for a while but not commenting, just wanted to say that I do love this post. There is one exception I can think of, and that is light aircraft, and it’s not about not being able to fit people into the plane, it’s just about making sure the weight is distributed sensibly. I’ve only flown on one of these planes (I guess two, since I had to fly back? It was enormously fun), and they handled the weighing very privately and sensitively. Then they put the enormously muscled 6’3″ fellow right up the front, possibly a give away. The body is amazing, I agree, and in the vast majority of aircraft the very small amount of variance between passengers isn’t an issue. I think where it does become necessary, it needs to be handled well, and I was pleased to see that in this case it was dealt with a practical, efficient and non-dramatic manner.
And I think asking people to “pay more” because they have more mass – however it’s distributed – is ridiculous. And commenting on people; also ridiculous. Practical implications? Unavoidable, but we can manage these without being patronising, paternalistic and/or offensive, I’m sure of it!
Hopefully this is not too off-topic, but on the practical implications front, I SCUBA dive a lot, and the fat/muscle ratio, size etc. has a massive impact on one’s buoyancy. If I’m going to the gym more (i.e. more muscle), I’m less bouyant, so I need to walk around with less lead. If I’m being a bit slack re: gym (as happens from time to time), I need more lead (ow). I have had a friend who put on a large amount of weight in a short space of times for various personal reasons, and she had a horribly anxious time when she went diving. People were picking on her because she was just too bouyant to sink relative to what she was used to. They thought it was in good humour, but she hated that they were drawing attention to something that (a) she didn’t like and (b) wasn’t their business. Friendly and professional people would have just handed over a few more kilos of lead.
It comes down to the fact that sure, we have physical characteristics that lead to some practical differences, but there’s no reason to be (as above) ridiculous about it.
So again: I do love this post. It has a good diving correlate, which I always like.
Nice – the light-aircraft or diving-buoyancy examples make it that much more obvious how “weight” is NOT important in virtually any of the REST of the things we do!
Once when a friend of mine said she was “overweight,” I did say “For what, are you going in a helicopter?” (She laughed.)
Ditto to the above about reading but not commenting, but this post really struck a chord with me. Our bodies are amazing vehicles for communication, power, change, and more, but at their core they are our bodies – beautiful and strong just due to their essence. Thanks for all of your wisdom.