Sunday 11 January 2009

Is it true that Fat people almost never find love?

I was watching an episode of Cold case , the story is about a man found dead, he shot himself and he had just been watching a video of this chick(fat I guess you can say). Almost immediately all the investigators dismissed that it could be love. It was so hard for them to believe that this guy a hottie could fall for this fat girl. In the end they discover that this guy is a small time crook who steals from these ladies BUT it is this lady who started him on killing them as well.

That is not the point though because in the end it seems like he did love her, the point is throughout they spoke of these ladies as if they have some “don’t touch me” disease.

This reminds me of an incident in varsity. I was going out with this guy, I liked him a lot and he seemed to like me. Infact I would go as far as to say he loved me, ok maybe for a while anyway. So a friend of mine sees him at some lecture and is told that he is my boyfriend and next time she sees me she tells me, “He is so cute, you better watch out. Skinnies will steal him away. You better watch out”. I mean is my ability to keep a man satisfied diminished just because I am not a size 32. Anyway he was “stolen away” to use her language, not by a skinny girl though.

But it’s this mentality in society that makes people to doubt themselves. If you don’t look a certain way you cannot possibly be loved, if you don’t talk a certain way. I mean come on or to be.

Don’t get me wrong it is important that we be healthy, that we exercise but body size and shape is different for everybody. I am born with a certain set of genes that controls what structure my body will take, how tall I will be and how my features are arranged on my face.

I know the media mostly reflects what society is but if this gets perpetuated and acceptable in all realms of society imagine the damage it can do.

This is not the first time this stereotype is portrayed on our screens.

Remember how Shallow Hal had to be under some spell to love that chick. What I hate as well is that we find it hard to believe that a man could actually love a fat woman, sometimes I find myself with that mindset in the past years wondering what is wrong with this guy. I never use to, in my teens I had this super duper boyfriend who truly loved me (but I went to varsity and wanted to try out some jerks) and I always thought “If this man is asking me out, he must truly love me, cause I don’t have a beautiful body”. Notice how I say beautiful body cause back then (this was mid nineties) beautiful wasn’t skinny, it was average size. Infact skinny girls were made fun of just a much.

No wonder there is such an outrage from fat people, basically we are being rejected, society is saying we cannot be lovable. No wonder there is so much fat appreciation/acceptance sites and blogs(beautiful definition here). These are some of my favourites:



A part of me think this is good that we stand up against this abuse as next thing you know we will regress to the point of rejecting narrow faced people or large forehead people.

Don't get me wrong I am not saying people should disregard what they put in their bodies but they must to a degree disregard what they look like. If you are eating healthy and you are active why should there be so much pressure to be a certain size.

This health/fat love dilemma has been in me since I was maybe 13. I got into a debate with my parents and ended up shouting "What is so wrong with being fat anyway?" and that is the first time I remember my father saying "What is wrong with it is your health"(here is a great counter to that argument). But I was healthy, that started me on this road, the one of fighting my size and wishing to be something I am not. Instead of the focus being on exercise, getting out there and playing more instead of watching TV, it was on you should look like this. You should eat less, when really I might not have been eating that much differently from other kids.

No this is not me bowing out of the fatloss road, this is me saying I should be whatever size my body wants me to be. This is me saying the focus from now on is on being strong, flexible and able to run(cause I love running).

1 comment:

Miss E said...

This post is very insightful. You know, movies like Shallow Hal anger me, a lot. Because really, what do they communicate to people? I wonder what goes through the minds of guys or people in general whose partners are overweight, do they possibly rethink their position? Have such movies led to the end of some relationships? I think it's possible judging by the way people can be influenced by mainstream ideas.

I'm angered more though, when I find myself doubting my relationships, even with my girlfriends, and wondering if they're with me because they feel sorry me. I manage to calm myself down, because why should they feel sorry for me, I have other great qualities that they like, my body size is not everything and does not define me. But the fact that those moments occur, I don't like.