Posted by JLx on September 5, 2007, at 15:32:15
Eleanor Roosevelt famously said, "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent". I know this is true, but find it hard not to consent to feeling inferior while being fat. Why is it so difficult?
I recall a concept from a long-ago sociology class called "the looking glass self": that we look to others to try to see ourselves as they see us and this image in some part becomes us. When we see love and acceptance mirrored by people who love us we view ourselves to be lovable and acceptable. Now consider the mirror that society reflects to the overweight. No need to spell that out is there?
So how do we feel good about ourselves "as is" when we are fat? If you haven't already seen this on YouTube, check out Joy Nash's "Fat Rant": http://www.youtube.com/user/joynash1 There are a lot of good thoughts in there, and isn't she splendid? :)
Or how about the video for Mika's "Big Girl, You Are Beautiful"? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcRiXOONqf0 Try watching that without smiling and tapping your toe!
In a live performance in a TV studio, one of the "talent" can't say the title without a nervous chuckle and then said something about Mika singing it to someone, and was quick to say "but nobody here", nervous chuckle, chuckle. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ew59jlj4ZVg&mode=related&search= No, Goddess forbid, there should be an on-camera fat person working at a television studio! Of course, if Mika wasn't a thin cutie himself, forget the TV appearance for him too.
We spend 35 BILLION $$$ on the weight loss industry each year, yet we get fatter. We seem to hate and fear fat and fat people as a society, yet we collectively get fatter.
There is no motivator like judgment and self-loathing of our fat selves....to stay or get fatter. If society wants us to get thinner, for our health and those health care COSTS, dontcha know, then it should try giving us one great big hug and loving reflection of okayness as human being, and worthiness to simply be alive. But that's not likely to happen any time soon on a grand scale. No pun intended! ;)
So we have to do it. We absolutely need to internalize that we are okay and worthy of the best in life ourselves even if fat.
Lately I have been reading fat acceptance blogs. I find they help balance all the fat-trashing we receive from the mass media. Joy Nash has one: http://fatrantblog.wordpress.com/ I cracked up when she referred to "coming out" as a fat person. But I'd actually started doing this the last few years - just matter of factly referring to myself as fat. And I never run myself down either publicly or in my own head with fat-crap talk, e.g. "I'm so fat, I'm horrible".
It was on a blog that I saw this slogan:
We're here, we're sphere, get used to it. :)
How do you deal with self-esteem issues related to fat?
JL
poster:JLx
thread:780987
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/esteem/20070330/msgs/780987.html