The 'Fat Stigma' And Our Disillusionment

Today, in class, amongst the chatter of ‘fat stigmas’, perceptions of what constitutes fatness and how we, as a society, define fat, something struck me: That we’ve become disillusioned. As I spoke about Dr. Oz and the (eventual) 1,800 lb. woman, I haphazardly argued that they were disillusioned. That Dr. Oz’s attempt to coax this fat woman out of her destructive eating habits was a vain effort to intrigue viewers, and that the woman’s reluctance to listen to any of his advice was due to her own insanity. And then I was forced to ask myself, who is in the right?

But obviously, both Dr. Oz and the woman that believes that she is the epitome of health in the United States are two very extreme examples of fat and our own perceptions of fatness within society. They, as I noted, stand on two completely different sides of the spectrum. The woman, in this example, stands to make a spectacle out of and, even further, glorify the often repulsive nature of fatness. Dr. Oz, on the other hand, wants to purge that from us. He wants us to indulge in our vanity, suck down on diet pills and ultimately appear physically healthy. In some sense, Dr. Oz aims to eradicate fatness – and the spectacle that it provides – from the world, and instead present us with a more sanitary society that sparkles with beauty.

And then it further dawned on me that maybe, just maybe, neither of these two are right; that, instead, both of them are completely fucking batshit insane. I realized that, in their shameless self-promotion, that neither of them are necessarily promoting a worthy cause and that we ultimately shouldn’t care, but still do.

And then I sort of began to realize why, maybe, we have become so disillusioned as a society. Why we accept that slim and built is the model of health, all the while simultaneously trying to digest the ¾ lb. cheeseburger we just ate from Wendy’s: There is rarely ever a middle ground. In a society that is so frequently drawn in and influenced by advertisements, cultural stigmas and constructions, we are constantly divided by two entirely separate messages. Messages that tell us that fat is bad, but others that convincingly persuade us to eat $5 footlongs and drink shitty beer.

Now, it’s all beginning to make sense. I understand now why many Americans are overweight (but, if most Americans are overweight, maybe that scale should be adjusted…) and why others are forcing themselves to stay within a certain, positively unhealthy weight ranges. At the same time, the rest of us are just waddling around in the middle, unsure of which direction we are headed and which way to yield.

And the reason is, mostly, because we’ve been getting mixed messages. We’ve been asked to sit and enjoy the sometimes freak-like spectacle of fatness, while being constantly encouraged to avoid that same stigma. In essence, we are spectators of our own creation.

But maybe that’s giving media and society far too much credit. Maybe we’re not disillusioned so much as we are unrestrained. Maybe because of our seemingly limitless freedom we have enabled ourselves to become far too indulgent and reliant upon the messages that other people purvey towards us.

Maybe we’ve just jumped the shark. And maybe we just don’t even care.