Double standards, that is. I’m watching the show Friday Night Lights and there is an episode where one of the tall thin beautiful female characters decides that she is hungry, she asks her boyfriend for a long list of junk food from the convenience store, reminding him that she is eating all of it. You can see this repeated all over the place in pop culture. This is iconic – she is a hot chick who is “one of the guys”, she can eat her body weight in wings, she orders beer and not wine, she orders her hot dog with chili and extra cheese and in the event of a break-up she eats a gallon of mint chocolate chip punctuated with sprays of whipped topping directly from the can into her mouth. She looks like a model but eats like a linebacker. She’s “every man’s dream”.
But what about this girl: She’s fat, she can eat her body weight in wings, she orders beer and not wine, she orders her hot dog with chili and extra cheese and in the event of a break-up she eats a gallon of mint chocolate chip punctuated with sprays of whipped topping directly from the can into her mouth. She is a fat woman who eats like a linebacker. She is the subject of shame, stigma, humiliation and ridicule by everyone from random strangers on the internet to her doctor.
Why if someone is thin are these behaviors considered hot, but if she’s fat the exact same behaviors are irresponsible, disgusting, causing her diseases that she “deserves”, costing every tax dollars etc.?
And here is another layer of effed-upedness: I eat healthy most of the time, and yet I’m accused of those behaviors. So let me get this straight: If I were thin, my actual behaviors would be considered boring and uptight, but the behaviors that I’m accused of would be considered hot. Because I’m fat, the behaviors that I’m being accused of are considered irresponsible and disgusting and my actual behaviors are considered impossible. Feel free to read that sentence a couple more times if you need to.
The answer isn’t to stop “condoning” these behaviors in thin women or to start “condoning” them in fat women. The answer is for each of us to mind our own damn business. Each of us has the right to punch, but that right ends at the tip of someone else’s nose. Probably not coincidentally our right to judge others works exactly the same way. We are allowed to have all kinds of opinions, but nobody else has an obligation to care how we think they should live their lives. If we start with that, then we’ll soon find that this slope is just too slippery - whose behavior do we get to choose and who gets to choose our behavior for us? It’s a lot less fun when someone gets to tell us how to live. While we’re at it, let’s stop making assumptions. Let’s not assume that the way someone is eating tonight out at dinner is the way that they eat all the time. Let’s not assume that we can look at someone and know what they eat. Let’s not assume that it’s any of our business what people eat. Let’s stop creating a culture of guilt and shame around food, and we can also stop creating a culture of guilt and shame around bodies, mind our own business, make our own choices, and live happier ever after.
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Hav I told you recently how much I freaking love you? Because this? is so. perfect.
Mari, you’re SO right.
This may be my favorite column yet. You nailed the double standard right to the wall.
Seconded.
This is a really good post. I can tell you that I have always wondered why some people – often women – go rampant and start screaming when I either eat “too much” of something or that I even eat it at all. One of the reasons I enjoy my local BBW group brunch is that no one is staring at each others’ plates, watching how much everyone else eats. It is a pleasure to be able to sit and eat, not worrying about the response of the people you’re eating with. I became much happier years ago, when I stopped worrying about “how fat” everyone else was. It’s really their life, their business and their choice, as you say.
I think, in some cases, it’s because they feel the pressure so acutely, themselves. They figure they have to play by the “rules”, so why shouldn’t you?
I think this misconception has a lot to do with why women like that have a hard time understanding how a fat woman can be happy and confident and feel sexy and beautiful. They’ve been told their whole lives that these feelings are the rewards for following the “rules”, and therefore are angry and resentful that someone who hasn’t “earned” self-esteem in that way can be experiencing it. It’s sad.
Now I want a chili dog
Oh woe is poor broke me!
This column is pretty much perfect. And the base concept can apply to SO many things… like, everything that doesn’t actually affect someone in any meaningful way. And no, being annoyed because one sees something they don’t like is NOT something affecting them in a meaningful way!
I love this one!
Who doesn’t have (or are themselves) that friend who can eat whatever they want and not gain a single pound? And who doesn’t have (or are themselves) that friend who will gain five pounds from thinking about ice cream? (Okay those are obviously exaggerations but you know what I mean…)
To add onto that and what you said: Why do people find it so easy to believe that some people have fast metabolisms that keep them nice and thin but refuse to believe that others have slow metabolisms that keep them above the “acceptable” weight limit no matter what?
And sadly, that hot girl who can eat and drink “like a man” (is there some law that they’re are certain foods and drinks only men should eat. drink or something?) will age, and that fast metabolism will probably slow down and she will likely gain weight. And if she is with a guy who likes her only because she is hot and thin, then I’m afraid they won’t have a very happy ending.
Is it just my dirty mind, or does that hot dog pic look slightly obscene…?
Excellent column, BTW. What other people eat or don’t eat is their own damn business!
Hot dog pics always look obscene. There’s no way around it. And the chilli-cheese pubes don’t help.
*snork*
I’m glad it wasn’t just me! LOL
Imagine me, standing and starting a slow clap.
Very well said.
Spot on. As usual.
This thin body has consumed a lot of junk food. Not quite as extreme as the women you described, but my diet has always been lots of frozen meals, greasy and salty foods, lots of chips, chocolate, and candy. My mom cooked healthy meals for us kids, but other than that, she let us eat more junk food than she probably should have, and it was mainly because we begged her. And when I moved out at 21 and had to buy and fix my own meals, it was mainly all crap because I hate to take time to cook.
I have always managed to stay below 100 lbs, but I wouldn’t say that eating this way hasn’t taken a toll on my body in other ways because I believe it has, and I am only 27. I Lots of family and friends have witnessed what I eat. I get mixed reactions. Some of them are like, “Yeah! Eat up, you could use the extra meat on your bones” Others, like my grandma, have always lectured me…”Keep eating like that and you won’t be skinny for long. If you don’t become fat, you will become diabetic or and your arteries will be clogged.”
I think that you are right that men see skinny chicks eating a lot and they think it is hot, but I know some men get nervous about their skinny girlfriends eating that way because they fear they will become fat in the future.
Random question…Are you on hoop city? I ask because I just saw someone that shared your name who has taken up hooping?
Yeah that was me! Lol
I have been on dates when I was younger where the man would tell me he did not want to take me to dinner and see me eat a salad. More than one time. They wanted me to order a steak, chicken, etc. There are men who are uncomfortable with women constantly foused on their weight, what they eat, and what everyone else eats. I have read that one aspect of this is, the man is subconsciously aware of your health because his instincts are to prefer a healthy female for childbearing purposes. We are governed by a lot of things we are not usually aware of, and I think this is one of them. (I found this information in a book on Victorian women – Victorian men preferred “plump” females).
This, exactly. If judging makes you [hypothetical you, not you, Regan] happy, you can do that, but don’t think people are under some obligation to give a fat rat’s tail about your “rules” for their life, or if they decide you’re a jerk.
agree with we just need to mind our own business.
I’m a thin girl and I still get judged. personally i think it’s only fictional characters who can act that way with food without judgement. Maybe people pick up on my own feeling of guilt.. which has been partly caused by their judgement of me… round we go in a big endless cycle. But whatever, people need to pull their noses out of my beeswax and let everyone eat what they want.
We can only judge in another what we find lacking in ourselves. So, if someone is judging me for my eating, the subtext can be read as that person being uncomfortable with food or their own body. I have found that people who judge a lot are really uncomfortable with themselves — they don’t like themselves much.
Want to see someone squirm? Respond to comments like “are you going to eat that?” with “so, do you have problems with food?” “Do you have issues with your body?” or “Are you scared of getting fat?” Turn it around. At the least, they’ll shut up — judgers are seldom willing to look at themselves. At the best, they’ll get it and start looking at their own judgements (it can happen, not often, but it can happen).
These days, I am pretty gentle with most people, but I can still judge the judgers and be intolerant of the intolerant!
I am so guilty of this. We end up judging someone negatively, thin or fat and make assumptions based on their weight. I have found that the more uncomfortable I am in my own skin, the more critical I become of others’ bodies.
You describe the phenomenon spot on. It’s called symbolic violence (Bourdieu), and in many ways it is as harmful as physical violence to bodies, especially because its victims (both thin and fat alike) cannot recognize what is happening to them, what false and destructive beliefs about self/other are being internalized, and what behaviors are being socially normalized. Our cultures construct–symbolically–hate, self loathing, prejudice, discrimination, social status, and so forth. Until we learn to see the forms of symbolic violence–through careful rhetorical/culture analysis as you have done beautifully here–we cannot stop its ugly results: a world of people turned against one another in fear and hate. Brava for your courage, today and always.
I love, love, love this post! So true on the double standard! Preach it sistah!
Because we have a “food as sin” culture, where we use fat as some sort of “punishment” for not eating well as seen by the glee shown when Paula Deen was diagnosed with an illness. That’s her PUNISHMENT for not eating right.
We talk about being disciplined with our eating. “Do you really need that?” It’s almost religious how we treat our food choices, that some choices are more “moral” than others. It’s why people shame those who don’t comfort to society’s standards, because they have publicly sinned and refused to be ashamed.
We have all sorts of words for it.
“I’ve been so good, I only ate carrot sticks.”
“I’m so bad, I love cheesecake.”
But a thin person who can eat in an unhealthy way and not show it is someone who can sin but won’t be ravaged by the wages of sin, it’s to be admired. It’s someone who can beat the system.
It’s my birthday tomorrow and one of my goals is not waste a year of my life hating myself and comforming to a religion of food. I am going to love myself.
I am with you! I have been told that a thin person drinking a Mocha “knows what she is doing.” A fat person, “that’s why they’re fat.” I know exactly what you are talking about.
All of this. So much. The “food as vice/food as virtue” thing really, really grinds my gears. And it’s also disturbing, as someone who has had an actual religious experience where there was a lot of emphasis on fasting, especially among teenage girls.
someone who can sin but won’t be ravaged by the wages of sin…
Spot on. It’s interesting to note that in an actual religious context, the original meaning of Gluttony as a ‘deadly sin’ was any over-preoccupation with food – and that included stuff like insisting on ‘only the very best’, or being particular about the way you liked things cooked. The modern world sees Gluttony as simply overindulgence – or not even that; just what’s seen as the appearance of having overindulged, without any consideration of whether someone’s actually done so.
(Not that I personally think ‘sin’ is a useful way of looking at human behaviour in moral terms, but as a geek around history/literature/theology, I find this sort of thing fascinating. I have more to write about this, and I have a shiny new blog waiting, but I’m trying to decide whether food, sin, fat hate and Dante’s Inferno is too arcane to write a first post about.)
This reminds me a lot of Shallow Hal- the scene where he meets Paltrow and takes her to lunch- she, thin and gorgeous to him, orders a giant meal.. which he thinks is just awesome- he says how much he hates when girls just order a salad and loves a woman who can eat! But the audience sees that she’s actually very fat and, therefore, the fact that she’s ordering all of this food is actually hilarious- you know, because she’s fat. Then the chair breaks and the audience has a good laugh at the fat girl who’s only on a date because he doesn’t know she’s fat. I wrote about the same topic a while ago.. it just comes up so often there are so many examples!
Yeah that movie makes me see red– they took all the fatty stereotypes and ramped them up a notch. Yeah, of course she doesn’t order a small milkshake, she gets the half gallon sized one and sucks it down in thirty seconds, because she’s fat and that’s what Fat People Do! Then they had the balls to cover it with a thin veneer of fat acceptance when he reunites with her at the end, knowing she’s fat. As if that negated the previous hour of fat-hating jokes that all the humor is built on. The nutty professor movies are almost as bad. Bleah!
I’m glad I’m not the only one who hated the entire premise of that movie. In my book Shallow Hal might have deepened, but the folks who put the thing together are just as shallow as he started out.
For some reason, I think this is about me, and I will happily agree with you that it is an insulting and inappropriate scene in this film. I cannot stand that they want to limit thin women to a chicken ceasar salad and castigate anyone who wants something more. I also don’t agree with making fun of people like this. Most people cannot, and may not even want to, have the exercise and diet of Paltrow or other Hollywood types. It is unfortunate that she got kicks out of putting down others.
I wish I could submit this to my school newspaper, but I can’t! Amazing!!!
I *so* agree. People need to realize that it’s not their business what someone else is eating. I make poor food choices and I make good food choices. And I weight ___ pounds. See? It doesn’t really matter how much I weigh.
That being said, if I am close to someone in my life that is consistently making very poor and destructive food choices (which includes anorexia and bulimia), there is likely something else going on and I need to step in and find out what is really eating at them (pun intended) before they hurt themselves. Not in a “stop eating like that kind of way” but in a caring, “I’m hear for you, let’s talk about what’s bothering you” kind of way.
And now that I re-read what I wrote in haste, I apologize for the poor grammar and misspellings. I will now go read the Oxford dictionary as penance.
A woman having a hearty appetite for food is a turn on for a lot of guys because the assumption is that she will have a hearty appetite for other things. It’s related to the “joke” about fat girls giving the best head because they’re always hungry. *sigh*
It really seems like so much of the female directed fat hate is based on attractiveness (or assumed attractiveness) to the opposite sex.
Rather an odd attitude – look, would YOU put a sensitive part of your anatomy into the mouth of a hungry person?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!
I love all of your posts, and this one is my new favorite. I try very hard not to do this to other people, but at the end of the day, I don’t really care what other people do until and unless it actually affects me.
I was in a meeting yesterday where someone brought mini-chocolate chip cookies and put them in the middle of the table. I was at the end, so nowhere near them. No one ate any. No one passed them. And I had to fight with myself for an hour before I finally spoke up and asked someone to pass them, because I was the fat girl asking for a damn cookie. And then I got so mad at myself for letting myself not ask for what I wanted that I ate two.
Isn’t that awful? That has happened to me during the holidays, as I love stuffing and, at times, mashed potatoes.
I have a weirdly similar problem – someone always brings donuts to my Sunday School class, and honestly, I don’t often want one. Then everybody starts the knowing nods and say, ‘Jane’s being GOOD today’. And I have to tell them ‘there’s no GOOD or BAD about it! I simply don’t feel like eating a donut right now! Just because I’m FAT doesn’t mean that I have to eat everything in sight all the time!’. They just don’t get it.
(Note: there are times when I *do* want a donut, and I eat one (or two), and nobody says a word then)
Remarks like that would make me immediately reach for a doughnut and then ostentatiously enjoy it in front of them, just on principle.
Y’know, when I was thin, I never got that whole “eating junk is hot” thing from guys. I went out on dates where guys looked askance at me if I ordered anything that wasn’t low cal, low fat, and dainty. One guy actually said to me “I hope you’re not gonna do anything unsexy, like eat!” and laughed. I laughed too, excused myself to the bathroom, and left, hating myself for not telling him off then and there.
OMG Thank you!!! I was watching old episodes of the Gilmore Girls while on break from school. The two main characters are very thin, and yet it is a running joke in the show about how much “junk” they eat. Both that they have ENORMOUS appetites and also its seen as an “adorable quirk” that they HATE HATE HATE anything that could possibly be construed as “healthy”. All the while they pepper the show with other bits of fat shaming. It was surreal to watch.