A Happy Medium

Okay, let’s just start by saying that “fat” is not a bad word. As one of my chemistry-major friends in college used to scream into the void, “your brain is made of mostly fat! We should love fat more!”

A human body might accumulate fat of all kinds, in all kinds of places. A human body might be “a fat body” - but “fat” and “beautiful” are not mutually exclusive, anymore than “brunette” or “blond” are mutually exclusive with being beautiful. 

I was recently introduced to the idea that I am a medium-sized person.

Shocker, right? I’m 5’7”, my waist measures at about 35-38 inches (largely depending on my recent pizza consumption) and I wear a pants size of 16-18 most of the time, skipping over the fact that sizing is not standardized and I might actually wear anything from a size 12 to a size 20. To sum up, I’m slightly taller than the average woman in the US, but not tall enough to really be tall. My waist size is deeply average, and I wear one of the most common pants sizes sold in the United States of America.

And yet, I have always thought of myself (pulling no punches) as “fat”. Huge. Large. Heavy. Pick your own adjective. Big.

A simple google search on the topic reveals a cacophony of click-bait scare titles. I’ve read through myriad riffs on “Is the average waist size of Americans increasing?” and “Are you above average?” -- There’s even a decent selection of “What celebrity is the same size as you?” (spoiler: if you’re above a size 4, it’s Ashley Graham. Which honestly is disrespectful to us OG Christina Hendrix fans). And, while many of these articles are written in good faith and many provide current and useful statistics, even more of them link to diet plans, advertisements, or some version of the message that you should be smaller than you are. And, of course, these articles/creators can help you achieve that smallness for the low low price of….

*I’d like to take this moment to remind you that the person profiting from diet culture is the person who is selling you diet culture, not you. It’s never you.

I’ve always been big for my age, which is definitely a starter pack for thinking that I’m big in general. I grew faster and taller than the kids around me, adults tended to assume I was at least a couple years older than I was at any given time, and in general I experienced looking downward at the tops of my friends’ heads. And then, of course, I stopped growing at a slightly-tall-but-average height...but that feeling of bigness never really went away.

But the truth is, “big” can mean so many things. It can mean tall, or it can mean (like me) that your shoulders are just too broad to fit into commercially marketed “women’s jackets”. It could mean that your bust is so large you always have to buy up a size or two. It could mean your torso is long, so you have to buy shirts that are too big to make sure they cover your belly.

It can also mean fat.

There’s a billion or so reasons that a person might be fat, or have fat, or have a lot of fat. Unless it’s your own fatness you’re talking/thinking about, every single one of those reasons is (none of your business). But the social, personal and health-related effects of anti-fat bias is something that we should all be thinking about.

Let’s take the example of a teenage kid (me) who is naturally built with some curve to her figure, and naturally developed a more “mature” body type more quickly than many others her age. She thinks, I’m not as lithe and willow-shaped as other girls my age who are at a different point in their hormonal/physical development. She thinks, I wear a size 6 but I still feel too big. She thinks, maybe, if I can’t be physically small, it’s better to be small in other ways - like being very quiet, holding myself tightly so I don’t take up too much space, trying not to make waves.

She thinks, I’m big. And when people talk about bigness, they never sound excited or proud. The best tone of voice they ever use is pitying.

Now let’s fast forward to a 30-year-old (also me) who weighs in the low 200lbs, has finally grown in a bust that balances those hips, and does upper body building instead of cardio.

70-ish pounds later, I actually am the size and look the way I always thought I did back then.

Well, partly that’s because reality is a construct - but let’s be honest here. In the world of beauty that so many of us were media’d or socialized or trained to understand, there isn’t really pretty or ugly. There’s thin (pretty) and then there’s fat.

And “fat” here, as we learned from Cosmo and Glamour and Instagram and a thousand thousand other sources…..fat, my friends, is anything less than perfect. “Fat” could be a BMI of anywhere from 28 to 45. “Fat” could be an extra pound, or an extra ten, or an extra hundred. The range of “pretty/thin” is limited, exclusive; the range of “fat/not pretty” is just….everyone else.

“Fat” is this thirty-year-old garment maker who is actually deeply, powerfully, statistically average. The point of the “pretty/thin” standard isn’t to actually achieve pretty/thin-ness. It’s the idea that there’s an exclusive club where pretty people go, and if you work hard enough and exercise enough and starve enough and get enough surgeries, and download enough filter apps, someday the doors of that club might swing open for you.

But, up until that day, ten thousand thousand advertisements would love to sell you the possibility of someday joining that club for the low low cost of $10.99/month, and your peace of mind, and two hours a day at the gym outside of your full time job, and a bland meal plan you’ll only be able to stick to for a month, and…..

The point was never that we were supposed to achieve it. The point is that we’re supposed to want to achieve it. We’re supposed to want it enough that we’ll pay for help getting there, that we’ll admire to the point of worship those few who have achieved it (by hard work or by nature, or even just by virtue of youth).

And, if we’re miserable enough that we throw some cash at comfort food, or overpriced cosmetics, or give a click once in a while to a bogus “erase the cellulite” cream ad, hey...more power to them.

And less power to us.

Don’t get me wrong. There’s a power to beauty, and there’s a power to human bodies that we all have every right to celebrate and take advantage of. The objectification that means a good photo of my breasts in a corset might get more likes on social media (and more new followers, which small businesses need) is the same objectification that in some ways allows me a measure of privilege as I walk through my life, and most blessings are also curses. And vice versa, to some extent.

But we don’t profit from the curated misery of living in less-than-perfect bodies. We don’t profit from watching our favorite content creator’s makeup routine and suddenly find that mysteriously we feel more self-conscious than ever about our butts, our waists, our under-eye bags. Someone does - whoever happens to be offering the product that promises to cure that misery - but it’s never us.

We never profit from suddenly becoming aware of yet one more flaw we didn’t know about yesterday.

We never profit from the nebulous idea that someday, if we work hard enough, and spend enough money, we too might reap the glory of leading a flawless life from inside a flawless skin.

We don’t even profit from someone like Tyra Banks coining a term like “flawsome” (“your flaws are awesome!”) on syndicated TV. Or trends that celebrate us, like the full-eyebrow fashion that’s in right now but will be out in a few years (remember, kids, you can’t just have full eyebrows, you have to fill them with a pencil; and shape them with tweezers; and…..)

And, and, and, and….

It’s never enough to be pretty, you have to be thin and pretty. It’s never enough to be thin, you have to be pretty and thin. It’s never enough to be thin and pretty, you have to have the right butt-to-waist, the right makeup technique, the right online presence….

And, and, and…

And once in a while, someone who looks like you finally makes it big (RawBeautyKristi I would die for you) and you get a little taste of that elusive feeling….a little whiff of maybe I’m beautiful too.

And there’s always some jerk lurking around the next corner, in the next advertisement, ready to tell you that you could be even prettier if (whatever the fuck he thinks, wants, likes, or is selling).

And whatever the armor we build to resist that messaging, the hits just keep on coming.

And they sound so sensible, so rational, so compassionate.

They’re just here to help, after all.

Don’t you want to feel beautiful?