If you were on FB or Twitter this weekend, and are associated with academia, you probably caught a glimpse of a tweet from an evolutionary psychologist who suggested that “obese PhD applicants” should save themselves the trouble of applying for doctoral programs, since their obvious lack of willpower will keep them from being able to write a dissertation. I’m not going to link in any way to Geoffrey Miller’s work, but this Jezebel story will tell you most of what you need to know. Miller himself has progressed quickly through the life cycle of denial: he initially defended his statement, then deleted it, then apologized for it, then disavowed it, and finally, when pressed by his university, claimed that it was part of a “research project.” My guess is that Miller has managed to damage himself pretty seriously; it wouldn’t shock me to hear that his home institution will have nothing more to do with him.
Like a lot of people, my first response to that tweet was both outrage and rage. It was a shitty thing to say. The more I thought about it, though, the more layers I found. Some of them were prompted by others’ comments about Miller’s tweet, but I’ve been thinking a lot about my own embodied response as well. If you’ve never met me in person, then one thing you need to understand, first off, is that I’m obese, fat, overweight. That’s not something I talk about much, and I never write about it. I was a big kid growing up–my father played football and rugby, and I inherited his size. When I was a kid, I was pretty active: I played a lot of different sports, except the one (football) for which my body was probably best suited. All through college and into graduate school, I think that a lot of people assumed that I played football. Anyhow, as I got into college and grad school, my life became more sedentary (reading will do that for you), while my eating and exercise habits declined. While you might have charitably described me as “big” in high school, by the time I graduated from college, I was overweight. And that hasn’t really changed.
The odd thing about Miller’s remark isn’t that society treats an excess of body mass as a deficit of willpower or self-discipline; frankly, he’s saying out loud there what plenty of people believe. The odd thing is that he thinks that there’s just one kind of willpower, and that “evidence” of its absence is somehow universal. This was my experience: as a fat academic, I was thrilled to be in a field where (ostensibly) I would be judged for the quality of my mind rather than the “failures” of my body. With blind peer review, no one can see that you’re fat. And so, if I lacked self-discipline when it came to carbs, I could throw all of my effort into writing (I’m doing it right now) and be disciplined there. I wrote my 250-odd page dissertation in less than 3 months, and my lack of willpower regarding exercise and healthy eating had nothing to do it; if anything, my willingness to focus like a laser on writing, and not worry about my body at all, helped me. If we imagine that willpower, like attention, is a networked phenomenon, spread amongst a variety of objects, then there was/is a sense in which my lack of physical willpower helped to feed my intellectual willpower. I’m sure that it’s not that simple, of course, nor should my experience somehow be generalized to “disprove” Miller’s prejudice. My own experience, more than 20 years in academia, tells me that there’s no formula here–successful academics come in all shapes and sizes. To imagine otherwise, as Miller does, seems to me to be stupid.
When I say that Miller’s just saying out loud what many people already believe, I say this because I believe it too, at least on some level. The thing that folks who aren’t overweight don’t typically understand is that our experience of the world is different from theirs, in a range of ways. I rarely fly, in part because being above average in both height and width means that airplane seats don’t fit. When I was at my heaviest, they were physically painful to wedge myself into. And don’t get me started on the number of comedic scenes and/or commercials about being condemned to sit next to the fat person on the airplane–I feel that shame every time I walk onto one. I don’t fit into smaller cars, and there was a time where I had to suck in my stomach to get the seat belt to fasten, when I got a ride from someone else. For several years, I couldn’t sit at the molded desks in the classrooms where I taught. When I went home for holidays, I had to make sure to sit in chairs without armrests, because again, they were a tight fit at best. And even when I can fit on a chair, it might not be able to support my weight without creaking, or god forbid, breaking. I couldn’t walk past someone on a tight staircase without pressing against the wall. The floors in an old house are always a little more aware of my presence than they are of anyone else. The world around me tells me that I’m the wrong shape and size, that I don’t fit. Faced with a constant stream of small indications that there’s something wrong with my size, I am amazed and inspired by those who are better able than I am to accept themselves. If there’s a place where I feel my own lack of willpower, it’s there.
And if there are those among you who doubt the idea of non-human rhetorics, let me introduce you to the suasive force of the clothing industry. When you are the wrong size, as a man, there’s really only one place where you can buy clothes, the big-and-tall store, usually located in a strip-mall. For a long time, big-and-tall clothing was constructed according to the principle that there was only one true body shape, and that you were just taller or wider. Even when the clothes “fit,” they often didn’t. The ratios among my various measurements are not the same as those of a “normal” person, and so buying clothes to fit one part of my body often meant ignoring others. “Tall” clothes often assume basketball-player sized people, and thus a smaller waist, but dress shirts also often have additional length and an extra button, making them easier for a fat person to keep tucked in–so I often had to choose between shirts that were tight around my midsection or much too large for my shoulders/arms. Both options served as a constant reminder that I was malformed, though. And fat people aren’t allowed to care about fashion–”if they really cared about how they looked…”
Big and tall clothing has improved in recent years, but decades of shame over “trying on new clothes” is hard to overcome. And I think about all these things knowing that they’re not intentional. Although I do sometimes think that it was a room full of skinny assholes who came up with the idea of the television show The Biggest Loser (“no, they’re ‘losers’ because they’ll be losing weight–ha ha ha!”), I know that the world is the world. There are millions of people out there who suffer from prejudices far more intentional and pernicious. Partly, this is the shame talking, but I do have more control over my weight than many people have over their own embodied circumstances, and so I don’t tend to think publicly about my size. Compared to what many other people go through as a result of circumstances they can’t control, claiming or emphasizing my own struggles has always felt presumptuous.
I did want to make one more point, though. While I was gratified to see the speedy, collective outrage over Miller’s tweet, it made me think back a couple of weeks to a conversation that happened on Twitter about how academics should dress. Once upon a time, I was told (quietly) that if I expected to receive tenure, I would need to dress better. The thing is, when you’re overweight and wearing clothes that aren’t tailored to your body’s shape, your body puts different stresses on those clothes. Dress clothes in particular tend to assume the “norm,” and while it’s funny to watch Chris Farley split a jacket or the rear seam on a pair of pants, imagine doing it while you’re teaching a class bending over to retrieve a pen or a piece of chalk. And then imagine that the simple act of dressing one’s self every day carries with it that extra layer of anxiety over whether today will be the day that your body betrays and humiliates you. Most ties are manufactured with certain assumptions about the size of the neck around which they will be worn; for a fat person, a regular tie often doesn’t fit. Sports jackets often assume a particular shoulder to waist ratio. I normally teach in jeans, because for a variety of reasons, they tend to be manufactured to handle more stress and wear than dress pants. In this Twitter conversation, however, the idea of teaching in jeans was one of the things that was considered unprofessional among faculty of a certain age. I don’t mean to call anyone out about this, but I will say that I felt no less shame seeing this conversation than I did seeing Miller’s remarks. I didn’t see all the responses to the thread, but I’m pretty sure that most people didn’t think of it as fat-shaming, or respond to it with the same outrage. It probably didn’t register to them.
I guess my point is this: my wish would be to take a small piece of the outrage, and apply it to awareness. Try to be a little more conscious of the ways that our assumptions about the world, whether it’s dress codes or the way we arrange our spaces, subtly reinforce the fat-shaming that Miller was engaging in explicitly. Even if it’s something as simple as not assuming that everyone has the same relationship to clothing as you, or understanding that not every seat in the restaurant is equally comfortable for someone who’s overweight. It can be tricky to be more interventionist without also shaming, but it’s possible to invite someone for a walk rather than a cup of coffee, or to have them over for a healthier meal than you’re likely to find at a restaurant. It should probably go without saying that we should all, myself included, try harder to catch ourselves when we make assumptions about people based on their appearance (not just their size or shape), but it’s worth reminding ourselves precisely when stuff like this happens. My gut reaction was outrage, but my second thought was to ask myself if I’d been guilty of that prejudice myself.
***
There’s a lot more to say about this, I’m sure. I’ve alluded several times to the fact that I’m not as heavy as I used to be. Far from being a story about the triumph of the Collin will, the fact of the matter is that I came kind of close to dying a couple of years ago, partly for my unhealthy ways, and partly because my shame over it kept me from getting the help I needed to get more healthy. Neither of those things is easy to admit for me, and they’re what makes Miller’s tweet particularly cruel. Most of us don’t have the level of “control” over ourselves that his comment implied–I know I still don’t. It took major surgery and more than a year’s worth of recovery for me to break through even a part of my own complex of shame and guilt and habit to find a healthier place. I’m fortunate to be healthier now physically, although it’s something that I have to work at constantly.
The implication that “fat” is a problem easily solved through the application of willpower is laughable to me, though, and that’s the biggest part of what I find objectionable in that tweet. It takes a partial truth (we do have some control over our body’s health) and twists it to rationalize a prejudice that itself works against that truth through shame. And that’s pretty evil.
I think I’m done now. Time to go for a walk…
Collin Brooke (@cgbrooke)
June 4, 2013 5:03 pm“Fat-Shaming,” my thoughts on the Twitter debacle about fat PhD applicants: http://t.co/CX9YCZnefw
Nate Kreuter
June 4, 2013 5:25 pmCollin,
This is going to seem like a really stupid and petty question, and I don’t mean for it to undercut any of what you say here. Please take this as a question posed sincerely.
I’m curious about how the fashion industry could be considered a non-human rhetorical/suasive force. (As you know, I don’t play in the OOO sandbox.) But it seems to me that the fashion industry is very directly a human rhetoric/suasive force, in that all of the problems, dilemmas, and judgments you describe here exist in clothes and fashion precisely because that industry is a direct manifestation of the people who control/drive the industry (even if we might not always be able to trace that to an individual actor or group of actors).
I ask because I read this post as not only a statement about your perspective and experience, but because you’re always the rhetorician, and I genuinely don’t understand that twist of theory, which you explicitly allude to. Since a human designed the industry/object, isn’t the object just an extension of the human in this case? Shitty human judgment leads to the assumptions of the clothes, which enact the shaming functions of the people who designed those clothes, even when those people are not physically or even cognitively present at the big and tall store, right?
-Nate
Collin
June 4, 2013 5:54 pmNot at all, Nate–that was one of the things I thought about as I was writing this. I’m not really a frequent player in that sandbox either. 🙂
I don’t know that I can give an answer that will satisfy you (or me!) exactly, but I tend to think of these assumptions as distributed among the human and nonhuman when it’s something as complicated as this. I don’t know that there really is a way to trace it all back to a single human actor (or group). On the one hand, there is something silly about blaming a shirt–it wasn’t made to make me feel ashamed, certainly. It’s only in the interaction between me, the company, the physical store, the cultural (and biological) norms, the situation where I wear the shirt, etc.–this big complicated assemblage of objects and forces–where this rhetorical effect (and affect) happens.
So I’m not suggesting that this means we attribute it solely to a shirt or pants, or an abstraction like the “fashion industry,” or even that there’s some sort of intention-to-shame that’s built into the shirt (although it may sound above like that’s my argument, I think) by a human actor. I think I’m suggesting that the shirt shares agency in the rhetorical effect that the assemblage produces?
Like I said, I’m not sure if that’s satisfying as an answer. But I do take the question sincerely–I’m just working through it myself still as someone on the edges of those conversations…
c
Thomas Wright
June 5, 2013 12:22 pmI used this post as a springboard for discussion in a rhetoric class today, and the first comment from a student involved A&F CEO Mike Jeffries. Jeffries has quite clearly stated that fat people don’t belong in his company’s clothes. So in this case, we can in fact trace it to a single human actor. It is not silly to feel that you are left out of the A&F clothing line (or, for that matter, several other clothing lines).
Tracey
June 4, 2013 5:31 pmCollin: I commend your act of courage in putting this out there. Shame itself has the power to keep those of us who experience the world in similar ways from bringing up a topic that has, for me, been an issue more than just a few times in my teaching career. I was nodding like a bobblehead through your post, and I mean it sincerely when I say thank you for giving a voice to the silence of shame.
Collin
June 4, 2013 7:14 pmI still feel anxious about having put this out there, for those same silencing reasons.
If nothing else, though, I think going through the surgery helped me figure out how to own my experience in a way that kept it from infecting everything else. I don’t know if that makes sense; it was kind of a “this is the worst possible thing, so nothing else can be this bad, including some of the things (going to the doctor) that shamed me before” deal.
Writing about it in a way that tries to be honest is proving a whole other step, though 🙂
c
@katrinafee
June 4, 2013 6:04 pm“@cgbrooke: “Fat-Shaming,” my thoughts on the Twitter debacle about fat PhD applicants: http://t.co/nbXo0uzqpt”
Traci Gardner
June 4, 2013 6:11 pmYou have more courage than I do. I can never publish what I write about my body. When I read Miller’s post, I first thought, dear God, if only it were as simple as just will power. Then I traveled through all the other hateful things I say to myself about myself. There are so few mean things the world can say to me about my body that I haven’t already got running through my head on a continuous loop. Like you, I know I am guilty of prejudice myself. I say all the wrong things, out loud and in my head, to myself and to others, and I know these ways of talking and thinking are deeply ingrained. Before I knew about Miller’s posts, I read How to Talk to Little Girls (via someone on Facebook), and that post seems neatly tied to this one. It’s so much more than just a question of will power. I wish I knew the answer. For that matter, I wish I knew that there even was an answer.
Andrea
June 7, 2013 3:32 pmI’m the same way. I have been on both sides, from a size 18-20 to my current 8, but no matter what my weight, i will always be the “fat girl” in my head because of all the comments received and hurt experienced all those years of being overweight. The state of my body now….well, it’s been through a war, but I have decided to wear a bikini in public this year because I too have realized: Say whatever mean, low, derogatory thing about me you want to, but trust me, I’ve been 100x meaner to myself already.
Collin
June 4, 2013 6:19 pmA quick comment: I know that there are folks out there who have read this, and know the Twitter convo to which I’m referring. Please understand that I’m not looking to reverse-shame the people involved, or to suggest in any way that that conversation was anything close to Miller’s tweet.
In this case, I was pretty specific about my language: to say that I “felt shame” is not to say that they were shaming in any way. Because they weren’t. My point here isn’t to hold them (or myself) to an impossible standard of sensitivity, especially on social media–I’d fail that standard far too often myself.
It was one of those situations where the consequences of our language exceed our intentions, that’s all, and it had something to do with my own personal reaction to the more explicit tweet, so I included it. I really really don’t mean to call anyone out or snipe at them here.
cgb
@transcinematic
June 4, 2013 6:36 pmAcademia should be by its very nature a space of anti-prejudice. Just stumbled upon @cgbrooke’s post on when it’s not http://t.co/ASnUCMPXqZ
Estee Beck
June 4, 2013 7:46 pmCollin: I just wanted to say thank you for writing and sharing this with people. Not only is this beautifully written and profound, but this topic is one that resonates with me personally.
One area of fat shame that I constantly cope with is the shame I put upon myself and how complicit I am in such a process, but it colors nearly every aspect of my life and in ways that I don’t publically speak about, and only dare so privately with close friends and colleagues. And here I post about it . . . (sigh).
Recently I realized that there is a certain invisibility that surrounds people of “size,” and arguably in our Western culture, women of size, through various suasive rhetorics. That invisibility renders people of size as othered externally, yet gets internalized by negotiating the reality of how people and objects interact with those of “size.” Your post has made me realize that even though I carry my own shame from daily micro-moments of squeezing between too-tight chairs or seeing the gazing eye of a passerby, that I need to begin acknowledging my own body in visible and positive ways.
Thank you for your post.
Bill Wolff (@billwolff)
June 4, 2013 7:52 pmPlease read this important and thought-provoking post by @cgbrooke: “Fat-Shaming” http://t.co/POMQFRTcBX via @dawn_armfield
K.J. Rawson
June 4, 2013 8:44 pmAnother lovely piece, Collin. Thank you for writing this, for sharing this, and for energizing your blog again.
AbsentNone
June 4, 2013 8:53 pmBeautiful and brave.
Is the implication is that it would take willpower to reject the feeling of shame of being a bigger person in a small world? I have both fat and suggest “willpower” is one of those traits people associate with me. I’m one of those hardcore health-fats who can rarely back down from any challenge mental or physical. Willpower, feh. I have come to accept myself as not a paradox of nature & most of my worst agony of not making sense has evaporated … even although I’m not deaf and can hear society roll its eyes and mutter “self-delusion” to my description here.
Yet I have not fully learned the trick of being shame free when confronted with the ease that being thinner would offer. But I think that willpower isn’t totally relevant. Unless we’re actively anti-social, the social cues of society will always be intertwined with our feelings of shame. I don’t think it’s willpower at all; it’s just conversation. Society’s shame & our response to it.
@RCMeg
June 4, 2013 8:57 pmThank you, @cgbrooke: Fat-Shaming | Collin Gifford Brooke http://t.co/83VZdbC6sO via @cgbrooke
@middlemiddlek
June 4, 2013 9:26 pmHere’s @cgbrooke ‘s revealing and reminding take on embodiment in the wake of the “academic fat-shaming” debacle: http://t.co/IU4KUzzZGu
Amanda
June 4, 2013 9:44 pmColin,
I must confirm your suspicion that being hyper-aware of your body can in fact distract those of us who the world considers fit from our academic tasks. I am addicted to working out in a way that means I must get up from reading/writing/coding to run/lift/yoga for about 2 hours a day to feel mentally and physically normal. On days I don’t work out I can’t focus or sleep. As I begin my dissertation I worry deeply about this distraction. While I am hoping to write 400 pages in 2 years, not 250 in 3 months, if you count the hours spent away in order to exercise this dents my time to completion considerably. Your accomplishments are inspiring.
Melissa Smith
June 4, 2013 10:32 pmThis is beautifully written. Like you, I have been morbidly obese. I was morbidly obese when I wrote my dissertation and when I defended it. The backhanded comments made to female grad students–about our dress, our chances at being hired when fat, etc. are similar to the comments you talk about here.
Thanks for being brave enough to write this. It meant a lot to me on a personal, and professional, level.
Heide
June 4, 2013 10:40 pmWow. This is a powerful piece of writing, and a courageous one, and a powerful one. Thank you for hitting “publish.”
NewYorkerInPhilly
June 5, 2013 12:34 amI’ve had students comment on my weight in student evaluations. And this semester, one class reviewed something with Rebel Wilson and a student wrote about how she was disgusting to look at.
From what I know, shame has never made anyone lose weight. In fact, it sends them into the opposite spiral.
And personally, I’d love to see my classrooms filled with regular tables and chairs and not this molded stuff. I have several students who are larger and can’t fit in them.
I’m a size 18 and struggle to fit – and that’s only 2 sizes above the national average.
Then again, I just have my master’s and not my Ph.D. so CLEARLY what do I know;)
Thank you for your column..
@sgoggins
June 5, 2013 4:52 amNice commentary On one profs ignorance and hate. Imho, Social media use runs along a continuum between banal,… http://t.co/HJ6KXuFHWc
@GeorgeOnline
June 5, 2013 6:17 amThank you. RT @cgbrooke: “Fat-Shaming,” my thoughts on the Twitter debacle about fat PhD applicants: http://t.co/7BX4BhCtPS
@jenebbeler
June 5, 2013 8:45 amthoughtful response to fat-shaming http://t.co/jwQv9gdmoJ
@danielliddle
June 5, 2013 9:56 amCollin Gifford Brooke on fat shaming and the recent Geoffrey Miller incident. http://t.co/toC3X2XWfN via @cgbrooke
Seth Long
June 5, 2013 10:55 amThanks, Collin. This is a great reminder that how bodies get read neither begins nor ends with race and gender. Not that those aren’t important, too—they are—but I’m glad to see attention paid to this issue, as well.
(As for Miller . . . well, I like evo-psych, so I’m ticked that he’s given people another reason to ignore it out of hand.)
Collin
June 5, 2013 2:17 pm[x-posted from FB]
Just a quick note to thank everyone for the kind words, comments, retweets, shares, likes, and private notes in the wake of my post yesterday. In less than 24 hours, I think more people have read it than anything else I’ve ever written, which is both gratifying and a little scary to me.
As I’ve mentioned to a few of you, this post has left me feeling far more exposed than anything else I’ve ever written–I’m very accustomed to hiding behind baggy clothes, words on pages and screens, etc., anything to keep people from looking at me. So this has been a very different experience for me, a little bit frightening and a little bit exciting.
So, again, thanks.
cgb
clothdragon
June 5, 2013 2:46 pmNot entirely on topic, but I’ve always looked at the profs wearing jeans as more in touch with the modern generation than the suit-wearing version. Like their words are more likely to be true for todays world, their education actually up-to-date rather than overstuffed with decades old information half of which has been proven inaccurate or incomplete. It may be my own version of prejudice, but I assure you I’m not the only one finding your clothing choice a positive rather than a negative. But I’m from Florida and I rarely see a suited up prof. We do cargo shorts and hawaiians around here 🙂
Caitlin St. John
June 6, 2013 12:31 pmOne of my most inspiring professors in undergraduate years was a ruggedly handsome old guy who always wore an Oxford cloth shirt, a tweed jacket and jeans while teaching his class in “Politics and the American Novel.” This was in the late 1980s in southern California, and I never detected the slightest feeling that anyone thought that he was wrong to dress as he did.
@dylanbiles
June 5, 2013 2:55 pmGreat post by @cgbrooke “Fat-Shaming” http://t.co/1X83zq9yJA
Salil
June 5, 2013 3:43 pmCollin,
thank you for writing this piece. I’d like to add my own thoughts, and I hope you can see through how I say what I say next to why I say it.
First off, I was overweight by about 30 lbs not too long ago myself. While I never faced the same sorts of “shaming” that others including yourself have, I did feel a pretty definite degradation of my own sense of self-worth and self-confidence.
The reasons for my own physical decline were similar to yours: my professional life as a traveling consultant meant I spent a lot of time sitting on planes and eating crappy food. I was never “naturally” athletic, though I loved personal challenges growing up (martial arts, rock climbing, and the like). And when I lost those, my body suffered for it.
But I think it’s a mistake to characterize obesity as a failure of *willpower.* It most emphatically is not, and that’s why so many people feel so shitty about it. The variety of forces arrayed against you having a normal weight is staggering, literally.
That doesn’t mean you’re powerless, though. Without getting into nutrition or the like, one of the biggest factors available to anyone–to everyone, really–is exercise. Most people have not the faintest idea about how to get started with that, because most of us are conditioned to associate “athleticism” with particular sports and body types.
I would strongly suggest you find a “natural movement”-type gym around you. The community and the philosophy can literally change your life and how you see the world. I say this without hyperbole.
Full disclosure: I own a gym (link in my sig). But I own a gym because I changed my life. I left my crappy IT consulting job, and I lost that 30 pounds. I discovered a way of moving that fills me with joy. It has its own price to pay and its own drawbacks, but I would not go back to who and where I was just a few years ago for all the money in the world.
I hope you can find the same sort of success (though not necessarily with leaving your job and turning your world on its head…that path most assuredly isn’t for everyone). Thank you again for writing this post.
Rebecca
June 6, 2013 1:43 amYou’ve made an assumption in your post that I can’t let stand. I qualify as morbidly obese. I have for pretty much all of my adult life, including the entire time I was working on my PhD. (One time I dropped down to “just” obese and threw a party. However the “diet” I was following landed me in the hospital, so it was hardly a success.) Anyway, while morbidly obese I have done countless sprint triathlons, 4 olympic distance triathlons, a half marathon and a half iron man triathlon. I ride my bike to work these days (9 miles, each way, in arizona, even during the summer). I’m working up to a century (100 miles on the bike).
I am still morbidly obese. I am, however, in excellent cardio-vascular health and have none of the symptoms of imminent death that one would normally assume with someone of my weight. Rather, at 47, I am healthy and strong and fat. Last year I even started a fashion blog (grownupplus.com) because I was tired of being invisible and internalizing the dominant narrative so much that I had stopped caring for my own appearance.
My point is that exercise helps but it alone is not enough. Weight is a far more complex topic than the current national discourse acknowledges. The narrative is that it’s about willpower, calories in vs calories out (regardless of what those calories are) and some form of moral failure. In contrast, I have exceptional willpower, have counted calories and ensured a deficit with still no weight loss, and am, in general, a good and kind person.
We do not fully understand the system that regulates weight in humans, and the over-generalizations and constant shaming don’t do anyone any good. No one has ever been shamed into losing weight. (Many have been shamed into eating an entire pint of haagen daaz, however.) And over-generalizations result in a lack of research into the true root causes.
So let me leave you with one thought. Fat does not CAUSE any diseases. Fat is a co-occurring condition that often, but not always, is seen along side other actual diseases. Correlation does not equal causation. My undergrad stats students know that by the end of week 1. And exercise does not automatically cause weight loss. I am happy that you found your happiness in exercise, but it should not be assumed to be a solution to a problem with a far more complicated profile.
Julie Million
June 18, 2013 9:56 amRebecca, right on! The concept that someone can look at you or any other person who doesn’t fit their visual concept of healthy is absolutely ridiculous! Your cardio health is far and above any national average, and regardless of what # is on the scale, or what size clothing you wear, or what category the statisticians would like to put you in… You go girl!
@beaamaya
June 5, 2013 3:50 pmFat-Shaming | Collin Gifford Brooke http://t.co/MhYLicAWjw via @cgbrooke
Eileen Schell
June 5, 2013 4:17 pmI love what you wrote, Collin. Eloquent, thoughtful, measured, and wise. I especially like what you wrote about shame, lived experience, and weight. What you wrote here connects so well to work that feminists engage around the gendered body and shame. You hit this one out of the park! Thank you.
Harriet Brown
June 5, 2013 5:26 pmGreetings from a colleague at SU–I teach magazine journalism at Newhouse, including a class on body diversity and the media. I’ve been researching and writing about weight stigma, fat studies, eating disorders, and a whole slew of related topics for several years now. Thank you for this thoughtful deconstruction of your own reaction to the Twitter brouhaha. I agree with you whole-heartedly that what we need is more awareness of the fact that people come in different shapes and sizes, and push back against the ever-narrowing cultural ideals for what bodies are “supposed” to look like.
There are other like-minded people on campus; maybe we could have a get together?
Matt
June 5, 2013 5:51 pmHey Colin,
You were able to induce more than just a bit of shock in me, concerning the intensity of the social dialogue that is at play with regard to this issue.
Thank you for such an enlightening piece. I know that it will help me to be that much more sensitive going forward.
Cheers,
Matt
Spike Matthews
June 5, 2013 7:29 pmAgreed, I am short and fat. I have been reduced to wearing sweatpants all the time. I have been signed off work on a long-term basis for anxiety and depression. Because I have not felt up to meeting people, I have avoided going out, and have resorted to comfort eating. Since I am not receiving sick pay, I can’t afford to buy clothes, and in any case, I would have to go to a High and Mighty or Big and Tall branch.
Did I mention I am short?
What is with this ‘and’?
Collin wrote that he had to resort to surgery, something my wife has also done (roux-en-y stomach by-pass). It’s now getting to the point I will have to do the same.
The thing is, people just look at me and see a useless lump. I am branded as being hard on the eyes (rich coming from people that seem to think that anorexia, multiple body piercings, fake tans REAL tans from sunbeds, etc, etc).
Some people can eat fried food for every meal and not gain a pound. Others glance at a glass of water and suddenly need to let out their belts a notch or two. While I will admit to liking more naughty food than is good for me, I know I’m still a healthier eater than so many other folk.
I’m ranting, can you tell?
My point is that everyone is different, despite the apparent need for everyone to have labels and slot neatly into certain categories. My taste in music varies wildly and is different to that of other people. Why then should the rest of my personal characteristics have to be straightjacketed by allegedly ‘normal’ people in the rest of society?
Donna
June 5, 2013 8:28 pmI think the saying goes something like, “there are lies, damn lies and statistics.” As regards body size/shape there are lies, e. g., “One size fits all.” Self-explanatory. Damn lies: “a slender body is a healthy body.” This is a damn lie because it worms its way into the collective psyche to be accepted as gospel. So that when a slender person (who stays slender by smoking) advises his/her stout friend to lose weight “for your health” we overlook the fact that an obese person can very easily be medically and physically healthier than his slim chum.
The final assault on fat folks hangs on a clothes hanger. Clothing sizes are determined according statistical averages that have less to do with the actual shapes of human beings than they do with the cheapest way to manufacture apparel. Likewise furniture, airplane and theater seats, restaurant banquets, etc.. Commerce runs on serving the greatest statistical norm possible with the smallest possible investment, and all who fail to fit that norm (most likely 80% or more of a heterogeneous population) just have to deal with it.
But that we heftier humans have accepted shaming from dress shirts to health nazis is infuriating and most likely the cause of more neurotic ice cream binges than a Ben&Jerry’s half-price sale. The truth is that fat people are not any more wholesale unhealthy, unhappy, neurotic or unhip than our more slender peers. Indeed, once I think we can shed the shackles of shame imposed upon us via schadenfreude we can be probably healthier, happier, etc..
Carol Goodson
June 5, 2013 10:13 pmThank you so much for writing this. I have been fat nearly all of my life, except for a brief period in the early 1970s when I had a job that required a lot of running up and down stairs 🙂 Everything about daily life requires extreme effort (and strenuous work to conceal that effort from others) for a fat person. I often look at “normal” people and wonder what it feels like to have a body they can just ignore. If I could afford it, I would definitely have bariatric surgery; someday it will be covered by health insurance like any other life-threatening condition. Since the day I could not get my seatbelt around me in an airplane, and had to hold the end in my hand throughout the flight so the attendant wouldn’t notice and throw me off the plane, I have never gone to another distant conference. Life is hell for fat people, and the hate doesn’t help.
abro
June 5, 2013 10:53 pmCollin, you mention healthcare and doctors’ appointments in passing. That’s a theme I’d like to pick up on. I love how people assume that obese folks are more expensive to HMOs. That made me laugh, seeing as there was no way I would even dream of going to a doctor when I was at my fattest. I didn’t cost them a penny for over 10 years. Then I had a car crash and was diagnosed with epilepsy. Now it’s routine visits to neuro, my GP, and GYN – an assortment of doctors for someone who never had to deal with them previously. It’s wonderful to put on a paper gown at my GP and have it rip in the back, and have the nurse say “oh – let me get you a sheet.” Thanks a lot, lady.
Now it’s time to think about surgery, which to me seems so defeatist and makes me feel like I’ve failed. But then I started thinking about it more, and if I can afford surgery, and it makes my overall health better, then it’s not a fail to admit that I need it and to do it. And talk about willpower – I work nonstop and squeeze myself into airplanes because my job involves 50% travel. I took care of my mom til she died and am taking care of my dad now. I’m a motivated person. I went to the best school in the US. I’m not illiterate or indigent, but I’m obese. And then I think about Chris Christie. He’s certainly motivated, but he admitted to himself it was becoming a problem and took care of it. And so maybe it’s not a bad and last option to take care of the problem mechanically with surgery instead of feeling like I should have more “willpower” and take care of it on my own, solely with better diet and exercise.
In any event, thanks so much for writing this. I really appreciate having the opportunity to read it.
Millicent
June 6, 2013 1:12 amThank you for writing this. I also struggle against my own body in all the ways you describe. Anybody who thinks segregation is dead has never looked at a clothing store! And while most members of society have little to no knowledge of medicine or psychology, everybody seems to think they know why someone is heavy. My story is simple: I ate too much. I was an average-sized eleven-year-old till a neighbor tried to kidnap me, stating he wanted to rape me. The police did nothing about this. A few months later, he broke into the home of another neighbor (she was 82) and brutally murdered her. Anxiety overwhelmed me. I lost control, and I ate too much . . . for several years. The ’80’s was a decade of anorexia and bulimia . . . Beautiful girls valiantly sacrificing themselves to the higher good of the fashion industry. Tragic, yet chic. Then there was me, eating till I hurt, then hoping my body would eliminate food so I could eat even more. My clothes didn’t fit. My friends decided that I didn’t fit either, and pushed me away. I had no dates, and my parents called me thief for stealing all the food. I hated myself and wanted to die, but I didn’t. I ate.
To this date, professionals quibble over semantics. Is it an eating disorder or an addiction? Do we really want to pathologize second helpings? All this banter has denied people something we need: An insurance-approved means of treatment. No, I’m not talking about the treatment where we’re surgically eviscerated.
Millicent
June 6, 2013 1:19 am(That sent too soon.) I’m talking about treatment that restores what we lost: our humanity. Our ability to determine a safe and healthy course of action, and to follow through with course. Our ability to soothe the terror in our souls, with something aside from the tangy distraction of a rhubarb crisp.
We can’t control all the events we encounter, which is why we sometimes need a treatment to restore the only thing we can control. We need to restore ourselves.
Heidi
June 6, 2013 12:12 pmI agree, Millicent. I feel that often times, our weight is a symptom, not the diagnosis. I, too, struggle and have had traumatic experiences in my past.
In my everyday life, I am assertive, persistent, accomplished, etc. – and even well loved! What is it about this one thing – food – that derails me every time? It’s a psychological issue, not a physical issue.
This article also reminded me of a recent experience I had. I was shopping for exercise equipment for my home. All of the equipment stated a weight limit of 250 lbs. What kind of message is that? Lose weight, but you’re too big for exercise equipment? Not helping.
Thanks for this post (Collin), thank you for the touching and powerful comment (Millicent), and here’s hoping we can all heal.
Sydha
June 6, 2013 8:09 amControlling one’s weight does involve will power. In my case, I have decided to use that will power to be the best mom and best teacher possible and so there is no will power left to have the best body possible. We all have only so much will power and we decide what to use it on. As simple as that.
Thanks for the thoughts
Gabriel Rupp
June 6, 2013 5:06 pmDear Colin:
thank you–that piece was truly eloquent, in the sense of a good person speaking well(full disclousre: my background is in CRL, although now I teach psychology, including, ironically, evolutionary psychology).
I am at the other end of the spectrum, the one they called skeletor. Yep–for years, most of my life, in fact, I could not gain weight. I tried everything–read labels looking for high fat, ate weightgain by the bushel, and carb loaded to the point of nausea.
Now, in my 50s, I have a small pot belly, but my ribs still show. For so many years, I was ashamed of my skinnieness. Lifted weights, tried to gain, and instead lost any kind of sense that my mortal coils were anyghing but a burden, a burden of smallness.
People have accused me of bulimia, anorexia, meth use, and so on. Admittedly, women have never found me particularly attractive either, preferring, as several told me, a “normal” man. Big folks, though, have generally been kind to me, and the larger, the kinder, and have not minimized my own body despair, and accept that my difference, one they admit to having dreamed about, is still difference, is still painful.
Now, I really don’t give a fuck. Instead, I look for those of us who are on the edges of the “normal” distribution, and just, simply, try to give love and compassion.
And you know what? I’d love to have you as a teacher, not despite but because of your size, seeing in it a man who has struggled with his sense of self, of others, and his relationship to the world.I had hoped that the acdemey would have been different, but in my experience, it isn’t. So the best I can do is look for a safe teacher out there to whom I can send all my not-quite-normal folk.
I’ll say this: the next time I have a student interested in rhetoric, with talent and a mite o’ difference, I will tell him or her: check out Dr. Brooke. he’s eloquent, and large… of mind, heart, and body. He’ll take care of you. And I’ll also tell them, big, small, or normie–stay away from “Dr.” Miller. He wants to breed nazis, and is not worthy of you.
Again, thanks, Colin. Words have consquences beyond their moment of speaking and writing. Yours are good, fill the walls with humanity and compassion. As for Dr. Miller… he better not meet this skinny ol’ rhetoritician in a dark alley or a well lit lecture hall.
I’ll make sure he never breeds again, either ideas or “normal” children.
kbryna
June 6, 2013 7:41 pmexcellent response to Miller’s disturbing tweet. I would love to see us all (and by “us” I mean academics, and the whole of society) engage more significantly with the Fat Studies/Fat positive work being done now by any number of very smart people (Lesley Kinzel may be my favorite, but Marilyn Wann’s foreward to The Fat Studies Reader is perhaps the single best statement of how Fat prejudice works). Wann makes two points that I feel bear repeating: if societal anti-fat sentiment is really about concern for health, it would exist in an entirely different, and far more caring and sympathetic, register. Second, and as far as I’m concerned the best statement on virtually all kinds of prejudice: “The only thing you can tell by looking at a Fat person is your own level of bias.” You can replace “Fat” with virtually any adjective and it still works. Fat Studies scholars also work against the kind of language you and your commenters (and most of us, really) still use: “normal” and “overweight” – what is “normal”? what weight are we over? who decides what numbers these are? Fat Studies and Fat politics are places where language matters enormously, and it’s a place where we can, I think, make some significant inroads on altering widespread perception or discourse.
Deirdre D
June 7, 2013 12:08 amFurther proof of society’s prejudices can be seen in the way the words “fat” “lazy” and “slob” are often used together. Because if you don’t (choose to) control your weight, then you obviously are a person who’s not willing to put effort into things, and don’t care about your appearance…
Matt Cornell
June 7, 2013 1:35 amI appreciate this thoughtful post, though I think it’s important to emphasize that the science on weight and health is not nearly as settled as the diet industry would have us believe. And the fact remains that most people (including those who undergo surgeries) are likely to be fat for most of their lives.
Also, this passage:
“It can be tricky to be more interventionist without also shaming, but it’s possible to invite someone for a walk rather than a cup of coffee, or to have them over for a healthier meal than you’re likely to find at a restaurant.”
Please don’t do this. It’s concern trolling. And fat people know that you’re doing it. Me and a friend did a pair of videos addressing this phenomenon awhile back. I encourage everyone who wants to be an ally to fat people to think about the attitudes informing their “helpful” remarks.
http://youtu.be/CYTT9zS-Aao
@twitexperiment
June 7, 2013 6:47 amFat-Shaming | Collin Gifford Brooke – http://t.co/oeREW6fnof
@CrissLCox
June 7, 2013 9:25 amFat-Shaming | Collin Gifford Brooke http://t.co/5UvECdLD6W
Patience
June 7, 2013 10:41 amI belong to a 12 step program, Overeaters Anonymous. It is based on Alcoholics Anonymous, but a bit harder to do since you can’t just not eat.
We were just studying Step One (We admitted we were powerless over food, that our lives had become unmanageable.) last night and there is a paragraph in there which might interest you:
“In OA we learn the a lack of willpower isn’t what makes us compulsive overeaters. In fact, compulsive overeaters often exhibit an exceptional amount of willpower. [My thought when I read this, Yeah, just try to get between me and the food before I got into OA, and you’ll be dead…] But compulsive overeating is an illness that cannot be controlled by willpower. None of us decided to have this disorder, any more than we would have decided to have any other disease. We can now cease blaming ourselves or others for our compulsive eating.”
Another very gentle sentence from that first step, “Whatever the cause, today we are not like normal people when it comes to eating.” No blame, no shame, just people who know what it is like.
http://www.oa.org. Face to face meetings and online and telephone meetings too.
Working the steps is what changes addictive bahavior. Dieting doesn’t. I used to be hungry all day and eat all day. Now I only think about food at meal times and it is not that important. The obsession has been lifted for now.
I blog on PTSD and have a website of writings on it. http://www.patiencepress.com.
Thanks for your writings.
@c4shay
June 7, 2013 12:05 pmFat-Shaming | Collin Gifford Brooke http://t.co/4gwifZ4463
@Fengxii
June 7, 2013 8:31 pmI really appreciate this post on fat-shaming, even if there are hints of shame in the post itself http://t.co/B34PDH9OeE
@CatTrestini
June 8, 2013 12:05 amFat-Shaming | Collin Gifford Brooke http://t.co/krvjjN9C57 via @cgbrooke
@islamoyankee
June 9, 2013 7:10 amFat-Shaming | Collin Gifford Brooke http://t.co/jCDhnc6Osb via @cgbrooke
Rabbi Rachel Barenblat
June 9, 2013 7:16 amI’m a new reader – a friend posted a link to this essay on twitter, and having read it, I’m looking forward to continuing to read your work.
Just wanted to say thank you for putting this out there.
@geekyshopaholic
June 9, 2013 8:19 pmReading: Fat-Shaming | Collin Gifford Brooke http://t.co/Zhg1rAazYg via @cgbrooke
@dustin82
June 10, 2013 1:45 amAs someone who has experienced this sort of shaming in academia, this piece rang especially true: http://t.co/OXyHN02edG