Social Stigma and Weight Loss

For years I have been “working on” my weight. In large part this is because my favorite things in life are chocolate, television and not moving around very much. What are you going to do? 

Now when you are overweight, it becomes very important to not be seen doing things that fat people do. Much like I think that people who are broke are careful not to slip over the line and start doing things that poor people do. Get your first government cheese, and people start looking at you differently. 

So as an Overweight American, or as I prefer, Person of Extra Fluffiness, I have always been particularly sensitive to making sure that I am not positioning myself as a Fat Person. For years this desire has kept me from doing many things that I perceived as “things that fat people do.” Now, this list may now seem insane, but it has haunted me since my youth. 

A man after my own heart.

1)      Fat people exercise. When I was a kid, I thought that exercise was for fat people. Okay, so this one was pretty quickly broken, and you might say, “Where did you get that crazy idea little 10-year- old Jennifer?” Why from television of course. Where on television do you see people exercising? (and this was particularly true in the 80s and 90s) On bow flex commercials. Exercise was for fat people to lose weight (usually in just 8 minutes a day), not for thin people to stay thin. You might see thin people on TV jumping around in a leotard or having a smoothy, but really that's just so that they can wear a leotard. They're already thin. But if lazy, fat people would only get on some Suzanne Somers treadmill of death, they would have this problem no longer. 

      I remember being shocked when I saw a thin, pretty girl my age weight lifting at the YMCA in middle school. That was the first time that I realized that people who have phenomenal bodies also exercise. It honestly had never occurred to me before that point. I really thought that exercise was for fat people. 

2)      Fat people drink diet coke. This one took me years to get over. Now, if you are thin and you have a diet soda, that means that you are health conscious. If you are overweight with a diet soda, this means that you are trying to fix your sad life. This is truth. Actions are not just what they are, they are how people perceive them. The meaning that people put on your actions. 

3)      Fat people join weight watchers. So two weeks ago, I joined weight watchers. My mom has been bugging me to do this for YEARS, and I have avoided this day because I honestly did not want to deal with the social stigma that this evokes in my mind.

Now I have done some extreme things to “get healthy” (how non-fat people say lose weight). I have done yoga in a 108 degree room. I have run a half marathon. I have eaten a clean diet with only nuts and veggies and lean protein (see the week I went literally insane for chocolate). My next step was going to be a juice cleanse. A juice cleanse, people.  I considered purposefully drinking my food, my chunky green food through an extra-large straw, before I even considered joining weight watchers. And why?  Because skinny people juice cleanse too.

But you know what I found out at my first weight watchers meeting? There are some skinny bitches up in that joint. What? Who knew people who are trying to lose like 5 pounds are doing this stuff too. Just another example of the man trying to keep me down.

So, reader beware. I love it. I have taken a big, long, cooling drink of the (sugar free) kool-aid, and you are going to be hearing all about it.