Few expressions make me bristle more than someone saying they or someone else “turned to food for comfort” as the “reason” why a person is overweight. This has become a way to say that someone is fat because there’s something wrong with them and that wrong thing is their inability to control themselves around food because they’re depressed, apparently every time they eat. Reality TV especially likes to point to some trauma or painful experience in a person’s past to claim that’s the “reason” the person got fat. I see this as fat bias once again distracting attention away from the real issue and putting the focus on fat shaming and character judgment.
I was reading earlier today about a woman who has gained 120lbs in the 12 years since her son was tragically killed. I’m sure a lot of people think of this woman as having gotten fat because her son died and she did nothing but eat. But I can guess what really happened is that she stopped doing things that used to make her happy. She started sleeping more. She became more sedentary. She didn’t go out with friends and do things anymore. And she didn’t have a child to keep her busy and active anymore. She also didn’t have to think about making healthy meals for a growing boy anymore so she could keep whatever was convenient in the house.
I don’t have to know this woman to know that after a loss of that magnitude, her entire life would be impacted. Her days probably became nothing like what they had been before. Food would be just one aspect of it but when a person becomes very overweight, fat bias puts all the focus on food, weight, and eating. It is unfair, inaccurate, and utterly specious to say this woman “turned to food for comfort.” What really happened was this woman went into a depression that dramatically altered her lifestyle. New habits and routines she developed became her new normal.
I had a cousin who was killed when he was a teenager. I was just a kid at the time. I saw what his death did to my aunt and how their family fell apart. As it happened, my aunt became extremely thin through this time that her life came to a standstill and she was deeply depressed. I can remember the concerns that were expressed were focused on her depression and its overall effects. Had she become fat instead I wonder if what I would have heard might have been focused on her weight and how she needed to stop getting so fat.
In our culture, when a person is fat we immediately put all the focus on what we perceive and assume their choices are. We make value judgments about their character. We allow this to define the person to a great degree. Consider how many people insist that obesity is ENTIRELY an emotionally-driven behavior issue but we don’t say America has an “emotional issues epidemic” or a “dysfunctional behavior epidemic.” Why don’t we? If that’s what so many people want to believe is really the cause?
We put all the focus on THE FAT because what our culture truly despises is FAT PEOPLE and their perceived and presumed character flaws and weaknesses.
