Being Heard and Seen

At the close of Childhood Obesity Awareness Month, two things are obvious: childhood obesity and adult obesity are two stages of the same problem; and the primary way in which anybody is heard or seen is via the media. Media and awareness are conjoined twins. One is seldom seen without the other.

One way to go about increasing awareness is by revealing incriminating insider information. A writer and editor known as Zuva, for instance, spills the beans about the fashion biz. Even though the average American woman wears a size 16 or 18, a designer will arrange a photoshoot for allegedly plus-size garments, and then cast a size 12 or 14 model and put her in size 12 or 14 clothes. This is not truth in advertising, or good for the careers of zaftig models.

But it isn’t all bad. Zuva admits that the industry has experienced (glacially slow) change. A few brands “take a more body-positive approach toward sizing and marketing,” portraying normal-looking people rather than impossibly perfect human specimens.

Some say the industry might have gone too far, employing models with rare birth defects or skin conditions to a degree reminiscent of the old-time traveling circus freak show. There might be issues of exploitation, including “fatsploitation,” and plus-size models want no part of that. At any rate, the author makes a very significant point:

We may be slowly getting models of different ethnicities and sizes, however, we still get the same shape… They may be bigger, yet, they still have the same look as other models. They are the same type.

Currently, the fashion industry doesn’t promote true diversity but tokenism.

In other words, it’s still an “hourglass figure” all the way. The hourglass may be rather stout, but the basic format is baked in. Zuva goes on to say,

I don’t have a proper woman’s shape… A shape only 8% of women naturally have…

I am top heavy with a big chest, a tummy, and slender legs, yet I have never seen someone who looks like me on the runway… [P]lus-size models have never made me feel seen…

As a philosopher once said, “The world doesn’t work unless it works for everyone.” Body type is a huge and hugely ignored issue. People have diverse basic shapes, and carry their fat in different areas. A woman might have an otherwise very pleasing figure, but grotesquely large upper arms. There is a very respectable home-based living to be made by shopping for, and doing alterations for, clients with atypical physiques who want their clothes to compensate for their problem parts.

Outspoken and courageous Aubrey Gordon, aka Your Fat Friend, mentioned certain shopping cart incidents, when a random stranger would critique her food choices relative to her physical appearance. Women have even reported having other customers remove items from their carts, assuring them, “You don’t need this.” Gordon says,

Unsolicited diet advice wasn’t help, it was an act of surveillance: I see your body, I notice that it is fat, and I need to tell you that I disapprove.

It helped to understand that the obnoxious behavior was more about them than about her. Still, such knowledge is a heavy burden to bear:

[T]he more I wrote, the more I realized that I had spent a lifetime haunted by a Greek chorus of strangers, eagerly foretelling my death, proudly insisting upon what they saw as my inevitable future illness, failure, loneliness.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Plus-Size Models Don’t Make Me Feel Seen,” Medium.com, 10/0419
Source: “Why can’t we recognize fat anger?,” Medium.com, 02/26/18
Source: “After Years of Writing Anonymously About Fatness, I’m Telling the World Who I Am,” Self.com 12/11/20
Image by Crispin Semmens (modified)/CC BY-SA 2.0

More Voices of Those Portrayed

It is interesting to look at examples of how interdependent the two factors of media and awareness are. (Awareness is a commodity, as shown by how many artists are invited to work for “exposure,” which means for free.) Media creates awareness, and awareness equally creates media.

Awareness means that the psychological ramifications around weight are all-pervasive, especially when people who grew up struggling with weight issues tell their own stories. There is a documentary called Fattitude, released a couple of years back. Available in DVD format to colleges, universities, and institutions for around $400, it is described by its creators, Lindsey Averill and Viridiana Lieberman, as “An eye-opening look at how popular media perpetuates fat hatred that results in cultural bias and discrimination.”

Reviewer Kelsey Miller says that while Averill, the producer, “was barely even overweight as a teenager, she perceived herself as frighteningly fat.” Among other hard lessons, Averill learned that there are time-worn and inescapable tropes that lead fiction writers to portray obese people as belonging to certain categories, such as the Monster, the Joke, the Hypersexual, the Asexual, and the Sidekick. Here is a quotation:

There are 10 to 15 archetypes for fat characters. But, they tend to be problematic, meaning outside the normal sphere of culture. Fat characters don’t have average experiences or stories. They don’t have their own stories at all. They’re the subplot.

There is also a Medium publication called Fattitude. Its catalog is a good place to search for awareness, a quest that results, among other suggestions, in Christine Schoenwald’s “Let’s Stop with the Fatphobic Talk.”

This writer specializes in translation:

“You carry yourself well” means hooray for you for being able to walk about with all your extra weight. “You’ve got such a pretty face” means your face is acceptable by society’s beauty standards, but your body is not. Your body is wrong, unruly, and if you only had a little discipline, you could fix it.

Like Aubrey Gordon and so many others, Schoenwald has been interfered with by strangers in public places. Out riding her bike, which you’d think the fat-phobic public would approve of, she still gets negatives comments shouted at her. Strangers in a restaurant feel called upon to give their opinion on her food choices.

She also wrote, “I’m Not Afraid to Call Myself Fat,” from which this excerpt is quoted:

Still, I don’t assume that other fat people are okay with the word, nor do I want to cause them additional pain. If fluffy or overweight is more comfortable for them, then I will support them by using the word of their choice. I hope one day they can get to a place where fat isn’t emotionally dangerous.

If you’re fat, make the word your own, and keep discovering more words that describe you and make you feel good about yourself. Fat is only the first word towards self-acceptance.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “The Problem With Fat Monica,” Medium.com, 02/22/20
Source: “Let’s Stop With the Fatphobic Talk,” Medium.com, 08/30/20
Source: “I’m Not Afraid to Call Myself Fat,” Medium.com, 07/16/20
Image by Daniela/CC BY-ND 2.0

Voices of Those Portrayed

Most obese grownups started out as overweight children, and a discouragingly large number of overweight and obese children will never achieve a body that is considered within normal range. Childhood obesity and adult obesity are not two separate entities, and awareness of both stems from the media.

Much is written and said about people who carry extra pounds, and thanks to the wide-open nature of present-day media, there is ample opportunity for them to have their say in return. Frequently, they extend mutual aid by validating experiences, sharing feelings, passing along helpful tips, and cheering victories.

One example is “The Waistline Podcast,” a relatively new program from veteran podcaster Lee Syatt, who worked for eight years with comedian Joey Diaz. As host, Syatt talks with people who have lost weight and people still on their journey, which in this case actually includes those successful “losers,” because as they will undoubtedly admit, maintaining the loss over time is the hardest part. He also brings in experts. A typical guest is Dr. Tyler Manley, of whom Syatt says,

I previously had him on my What Was I Thinking podcast to answer all of the questions I was always too afraid to ask doctors. In this new episode Dr. Manley and I talk about the changes my body went through losing 100+ pounds and what to expect in the future.

A different mode

Even in the flood of media, discerning critics treasure certain scenes as gems. An episode of “Louie,” starring Sarah Baker, includes a talk between her and Louie C.K. that has been characterized as brutally honest, hard to watch, a healthy and brilliant dose of honesty, and a fat girl rant.

The setup is, Sarah had asked him out a few times and been turned down. Now they’re walking near water in New York City. She remarks on how difficult the dating scene is for a fat girl. Politely, he says “You’re not fat,” and she is crushed by disappointment. What she wants from this man is, at the very least, honesty. Louie himself is noticeably overweight, and she points out that, to a casual stranger, they would look like a well-matched couple.

With his consent, she designates Louie to represent all the guys the entire overweight sisterhood has been rejected by, and asks, “Why do you hate us so much?” Among other things, she explains to him a very perceptive psychological point. She flirts all the time with men who would be considered out of her league. But…

The high-caliber studs flirt right back, because they know their status will never be questioned. But guys like you never flirt with me, because you get scared that maybe you should be with a girl like me.

In other words, an observer with a basic mindset would see a hot guy hitting on her and think, “He’s just having fun, leading her on, because they both know he could never care about a fat girl.” On the other hand, if a corpulent fellow like Louie showed interest in a Sarah, the other guys would think “OMG he’s serious!” and make him an object of ridicule. They would rather see him remain single and miserable than hook up with a thick chick.

Anyway, once her emotion has been vented, Sarah says, “All I want is to hold hands with a nice guy, and walk, and talk.” Louie takes her hand, and they walk. And talk.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “The Waistline Podcast #026,” undated
Source: “Sarah Baker on ‘Louie’,” undated
Image by fromcolettewithlove/CC BY-SA 2.0

From Anonymity to Awareness

When discussing the type of awareness offered by the entertainment industry where choices are made by producers, advertisers, writers, and stars, it never hurts to listen to the people who are directly affected. There are plenty of opportunities to consult them for their opinions. One of the most prominent and eloquent voices belongs to a woman who for many years published only under the pseudonym Your Fat Friend.

Readers of the most recent Childhood Obesity News posts will not be surprised to learn that this author once penned a piece titled, “To the writers of ‘Insatiable’” What was the media scene like in her teen years and early adulthood?

Often, the only fat people in movies or on TV were those caricatured by thin actors in meticulously crafted fat suits… These narratives were borne not of experience, but of sheer imagination. Every last one was a thin person’s fantasy, in which fat bodies were simply plot devices, a convenient shorthand to prop up the virtue of thinness.

Such entertainment conveyed awareness, all right, but that word can encompass a lot of different meanings. Describing the quality of awareness generated by the notorious TV series “The Biggest Loser,” she warned that it had a troubling impact on viewers because, among other reasons, it “normalized staggering verbal abuse aimed at fat people, based solely on their appearance.” Researchers found that…

Just one hour of watching the show left thinner people with an even greater personal dislike of fat people… The Biggest Loser appeared to be fanning the flames of an emerging epidemic of weight bias.

Another awareness in Your Fat Friend’s mind was that because of her weight, she faced the future as a social pariah — probably unlovable, certainly undesirable, and possibly even repulsive. It would not matter how well she dressed or what she accomplished in life. It appeared that thinness was the only road to redemption, and even to legitimate personhood.

Memories are made of this

Imagine having a stranger remove an item from your shopping cart and lecture you about why you shouldn’t eat it. Your Fat Friend experienced this and much worse.

A professional who travels extensively for work, she was once in a bar, in conversation with a man who asked for her number. How romantic, right? But what came next?

When he returned to his friends, he was greeted with cheers and laughter. They stared at me openly. One high-fived him.
I had been a bet.

When it happened, I felt the ground fall away beneath me. I was dizzied by the realization that I had been a living punchline to someone else’s joke, that their delight was solely derived from my humiliation. The shame I felt was so deep, so pervasive that it saturated every inch of my body.

When Your Fat Friend posted her first opinion piece, within a week 40,000 people read it. Some responded by apologizing to her, in place of all the obese people they had ever offended. Some joined the troll army and became even more offensive:

Some sought to take away my self-respect. Others sought to take away my life. There were threats of physical assault, sexual assault, even murder. My anonymity moved from a simple preference to an urgent need.

In the matter of awareness, one thing the world did not need was awareness of her personal identity. And so it remained for many years, until finally when publishing her first book, What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat, she found the courage to come out, and wrote:

So it’s time to tell you who I am. I’m Aubrey Gordon, I’m 37 years old, and I weigh 350 pounds. I’ve been waiting to meet you.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “To the writers of “Insatiable”,” Medium.com, 07/23/18
Source: “‘The Biggest Loser’ Is One of the Most Harmful Reality Shows on Television,” Medium.com, 01/12/2020
Source: “After Years of Writing Anonymously About Fatness, I’m Telling the World Who I Am,” Self.com 12/11/20
Image by Aubrey Gordon

“Insatiable” Revisited, Revisited

Following on from the previous post, we look at more of the objections against the series “Insatiable.” As described by NPR’s Linda Holmes, the show goes far beyond the baseline of crazy and obnoxious. It is an equal-opportunity offender, not limited to the stereotyping and insulting of obese people. No, it branches out into multiple areas of incorrectness, portraying…

[…] an awkward and unsexy Asian-American boy, a magical sassy godmother who is fat and black and a lesbian who exists only to educate thin white girls on how to live their best lives…

Don’t hold back, Ms. Holmes. Tell us how you really feel! And she does. It is not only the sloppy story management, a shortcoming that can be attributed to a lot of entertainment programming, that disturbs the critic. Certainly, a hip audience does not want every detail of a plot spelled out for them, but when the supporting players change without explanation or motivation, viewers sometimes feel abandoned or cheated. As for the series star, when it comes to maintaining character consistency, apparently she could learn from the most junior member of an improv troupe.

Another county heard from

Not surprisingly, reviewer Ben Travers struck the same chords. His piece in its very title refers to “12 irreparable problems” attributed to the series, mainly related to incompetent and insensitive scripting. It seems to him that everything — sexual harassment, pedophilia, same-sex attraction, murder — is treated as a joke, but with none of the intelligent points that genuine satire is expected and obligated to make.

There is no real exploration of the struggle that obese teens face, or a clear communication of the pain anyone perceived as overweight deals with. No one watching “Insatiable” will come away with more compassion for the people coping with these issues, or a better understanding of what it really means to be healthy. Travers says this “disastrous hodgepodge of mistakes is an absolute mess, and it marks the worst Netflix original series yet to be released.”

A-what-ness?

So, to return to the theme of awareness. In terms of educating the public about obesity, in children, teens, or adults, what does “Insatiable” bring to the table? Not a heck of a lot. By its haters, the show is hated sincerely, and Linda Holmes zeroes in on one scene that seems to distill the essence of why. The lead character temporarily feels bad about her beauty-queen body. A friend cheers her up, not by saying any of the things that a therapist or a truly empathetic person would say. Holmes voices the objection:

Nothing here is challenging what categories of people deserve love; only whether Patty can learn to accept that she’s been in the good category ever since they wired her jaw shut.

Series creator Lauren Gussis and some of the members of the cast have claimed that the show is about revealing the negative effects of bullying and fat-shaming, which may well have been the good-faith intent at one time, but which is nowhere in the final product.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “‘Insatiable’ Is Lazy And Dull, But At Least It’s Insulting,” NPR.org, 08/09/18
Source: “‘Insatiable’ Review: 12 Irreparable Problems,” IndieWire.com, 08/10/18
Image by Lee Coursey/CC BY 2.0

“Insatiable” Revisited

In this month of childhood obesity awareness, it becomes crystal clear that the number one source of awareness is media, and also that the information channels are increasingly monolithic and interchangeable, as material that starts out online shows up on television and vice versa. Additionally, audiences are left to increasingly wonder: Of what, exactly, are they meant to experience increased awareness?

“Insatiable” is a Netflix series billed as a dark comedy-drama or even, according to its creators, a satire, that ran for two seasons, or 22 episodes. Basically, a high-school girl has her jaws wired shut for a few weeks, loses 70 pounds, and dedicates her subsequent life to enacting revenge against those who slighted her when she was obese. The picture on this page is star Debby Ryan.

In a previous mention of the show, we noted that some critics disliked the use of a “fat suit” for scenes that took place in the lead character’s past. Others hated the underlying theme that losing weight is the sole and only road to a happy life. Before the show even hit the airwaves, well over 200,000 people had already signed a Change.org protest petition.

An embarrassing question

The search engine’s “People also ask” feature begins with the query, “Why is Insatiable so bad?” Let’s figure it out!

Writer Joe Berkowitz titled a piece, “Netflix’s ‘Insatiable’ Isn’t a Fat-Shaming Show: It’s Much Worse,” saying…

The world of Insatiable diverges with reality from the start. It takes place in an alternative universe where everybody is openly contemptuous of the obese all the time.

But hey, it’s TV; it’s fiction. A totally hostile universe might be just what a dark comedy-drama needs — if only it had been handled with some intelligence and finesse. In the definite minus column, the slimming process is made to look all too easy, just a matter of three months on a liquid diet. And “with all of the pounds coming from exactly where she’d want them to, as if cut by a topiary artist, and with nary a stretch mark left behind.”

In real life, every person who has achieved significant weight loss warns maintaining it is the hardest part. But this character’s weight “magically stays evaporated, for reasons we never quite find out.” Those are not, however, Berkowitz’s only objections. He perceives, especially when a lawyer joins the cast, not only a plethora of mixed messages, but some that are downright unethical and ugly. He writes,

[I]t seems like the show’s conception of “revenge” is restricted mostly to “becoming a beauty queen.” Even if Patty wanted something other than to prove the extent of her hotness in a competitive setting, the show offers an irresponsible, dangerous depiction of her too-easy physical transformation, the seamless results of it, and their miraculous sustainability.

NPR’s Linda Holmes elaborated on this theme:

[O]ther than at a couple of highly emotional moments when she binge-eats in scenes portrayed as grotesque, her weight and her eating habits are never an issue again. This, it should go without saying, is generally not how it goes.

Holmes called the series “lazy and dull,” and goes on to work up a head of steam citing such incidental offenses as “tone-deaf deployment of sexual assault and abuse as comedy […] racist tropes […] portrayals of people with Southern accents as dumb hicks…” The trouble for the lead character all started when she punched a homeless man who tried to steal her candy bar, a plot device that causes Holmes to comment:

[N]o matter how bad you have heard that Insatiable is, no matter how bad the petitions have concluded that it is, it is worse.

(To be continued…)

Your responses and feedback are welcome!
Source: “Netflix’s ‘Insatiable’ Isn’t a Fat-Shaming Show: It’s Much Worse,” Medium.com, 08/08/18
Source: “‘Insatiable’ Is Lazy And Dull, But At Least It’s Insulting,” NPR.org, 08/09/18
Image by Red Carpet Report/CC BY-SA 2.0

Awareness Equals Media

Regarding the discussion of Childhood Obesity Awareness Month and the edutainment-fatsploitation spectrum, it must be acknowledged that Daniel Lambert was not a very good example of fatsploitation. On the contrary, he managed his career with as much dedication as any rapacious agent could have done.

Combining a likable personality, knowledge of topics appreciated by the wealthy elite class, media savvy, self-taught psychological insight, and business experience, Lambert was captain of his own ship and an influencer. But others have not been so resilient. Media awareness does not bless everyone equally. Sometimes it leads to ruthless exploitation by second, third, and fourth parties with bad intentions.

More typical was Barry Austin, a young man who was, intentionally or unwittingly, misused and exploited by other members of his society. Journalist Nick Harding brought up that case 10 years ago, and also discussed the issue of a British minor child, Connor McCreaddie.

When Connor was eight years old, he weighed over 200 pounds, a circumstance which the local authorities believed must result from neglect. They wanted to remove him from his mother’s custody and place him in foster care. There was a TV show about it, and Connor ended up staying with his mother, who agreed to keep him on a strict diet.

The child himself seems, as Harding phrased it, to have “faded back into obscurity,” but the publicity that temporarily surrounded his family kicked off a whole new genre of edutainment that soon morphed into fatsploitation. Britain’s National Obesity Forum spokesperson Tam Fry told the press,

What his story did was to start the debate on whether obesity is a safeguarding issue. The legacy of Connor’s story is that just as we worry greatly about very thin children and place them in care and residential clinics to build them up, people are now debating whether there is a difference between the dangerously thin and the other side of the coin, where a child is overtly neglected by his or her family in being allowed to eat whatever comes to hand. To that degree, the publicity surrounding him was of value.

The producers of the TV show about Connor may have only been trying to help, and they did. But the knock-on effect was detrimental. An executive at a sensationalistic publication, what Americans call a tabloid paper, bluntly said, “It was a feeding frenzy, everyone was hunting for a fatter kid.” Awareness, it appears, comes with a price. Harding also quoted eating disorders specialist Dr. Peter Rowan:

Obese people live with a feeling that they are seen as being highly undesirable and as being abnormal. The media isn’t responsible for that but it does support it, prolong it and accentuate it.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Unhealthy appetite: Is ‘Fatsploitation’ fuelling the obesity crisis?,” Independent.co.uk, 10/23/11
Image by Mike Licht/CC BY 2.0

The Edutainment — Fatsploitation Spectrum

Why, during Childhood Obesity Awareness Month, has there been so much talk of adults? Because it has been clearly shown that children who are overweight or obese will probably battle with size issues all their lives or, even worse, just give up and embrace the “there’s more of me to love” philosophy. Many obese adults are former obese children themselves. And they are likely to become the parents of obese children, modeling and enabling harmful eating patterns and food relationships for the next generation of kids.

So, child obesity and adult obesity are pretty much the same issue, a distinction without a difference. Or maybe more like a case of, “Which came first? The chicken or the egg?”

Another question that has been asked before is, at what point does edutainment ooze across the line into fatsploitation?

In 2011, The Independent reporter Nick Harding wrote:

Open a TV guide or flick through a magazine, and you will find a measure of our culture and an indication of where we are as a society. With shows like Half Ton Mom, Fix My Fat Head, Supersize Teens: Can’t Stop Eating and Fat Teens in Love…

He also mentioned the small but devoted fetishistic subculture that has grown up around very large women. Increasingly common is what some call societal fat phobia, which is said to be more readily tolerated and encouraged than other brands of prejudice. Harding says,

Fat phobia is fuelled by the way the overweight are characterised on screen.

So again, the interaction between awareness and media might reasonably be blamed for mischief. Still, entertainment can be educational, and educational materials can be entertaining, and what’s the harm? Or at least, that is one school of thought.

Temporal contrast

An interesting thing about a piece written a decade ago is that the reader can see how any predictions played out, and enjoy other timeline-related thoughts. Harding wrote of a popular TV show,

Drop Dead Diva took the controversial step of casting a US size 16 (UK size 18) actress in the lead role… Although Drop Dead Diva goes some way to redressing the fat phobia balance, it still employs stereotypes to explain Jane’s obesity.

However, it did last for six seasons (78 episodes). At the time, Childhood Obesity News said this:

Although Jane is the main character, very few of the episodes touch on her weight issue at all, and she is certainly not shown to be agonizing over it. And although plenty of other factors conspire to keep the lovers from reconciling, Grayson apparently has no problem, conceptually, with squiring a hefty lady.

The show’s creators did their public service duty of spreading awareness. For instance, a character revealed the number of women’s clothing labels that made items larger than size 14, that total being only 20 out of 900. Thanks to some forward-looking attitudes, the well-regarded series collected a goodly amount of thoughtful commentary and respect.

Your responses and feedback are welcome!

Source: “Unhealthy appetite: Is ‘Fatsploitation’ fuelling the obesity crisis?,” Independent.co.uk, 10/23/11
Image by sammydavis53/CC BY 2.0