9 Ways to Show Up for Your Fat Friends
By: Rachael Hope
Tags: Social Justice, Equality, Body, Body Image, Activism

9 Ways to Show Up for Your Fat Friends

Concrete steps to being here for it as an ally

Having allies is often the difference between defeat and perseverance. Moving through this world as a fat person can be mentally and physically exhausting. One of the best things you can do for your fat friends is to learn how to be a good ally. Belonging to a marginalized group can be isolating, and knowing that our straight-sized friends care is important. Here are some concrete steps you can make towards ending fat stigma and discrimination.

Don’t comment on people’s bodies.

Commenting on people’s bodies is a minefield of triggers for all kinds of reasons. Talk about weight gain and weight loss almost always comes with a value judgement, implying that our weights and our worth are in inverse proportion to one another.

When you say “You look great! Have you lost weight?” you’ve communicated that size is one of the first things you notice, and that a lower weight is more desirable. For someone who is fat, or has gained weight, hearing this can be devastating.

This also applies to talking about your own body. Words about how you’d like to be thinner, or how you wish you had someone else’s body because they’re thinner, contribute to the idea that small bodies are inherently better. When you say these things, fat people hear you loud and clear saying “Thank God I don’t have THEIR body.”

None of this is to say that your feelings about your body aren’t valid. We have all grown up in this diet-centric, body-hating environment, and it’s okay to have your feelings. When and with whom you share those feelings, however, must be intentional. Saying them to a therapist, a friend, or a small group of people focused on unpacking this stuff is great. Putting them into the world as general statements just contributes to the problem.

Learn how to listen.

I know, this is much easier said than done. In the past few years, I’ve learned a lot about race, white privilege, and cultural appropriation. I’ve been faced regularly with a choice between speaking when I was uncomfortable, and just listening. Making a choice to quiet my own thoughts and voice has led to so much more understanding.

Take responsibility for educating yourself.

Seek out information on how to be an ally, and how to make the world less hostile and more accepting for your fat friends. You’re here, now, reading this, and that’s a step in the right direction. Look for articles like this one:

Take responsibility for educating yourself. Read about the difference between body positivity, fat acceptance, and fat liberation. Know that the body positive movement isn’t a great fit for a lot of people in bigger bodies. Understanding fatphobia and why this movement exists in the first place means making an effort to understand the challenges that fat people face in this world.

Seek out information on how being fat and being unhealthy are not mutually exclusive, the barriers to receiving good healthcare, and how the fat shaming we face affects our health in real, negative ways. Listen to fat people’s voices when we talk about being a punchline or a gag, or about the challenges we face in the workplace and when job hunting.

Put your money where your mouth is.

Where do you buy your clothes? Are you able to walk into whatever store you’d like, knowing they’ll have your size? My shopping options as a size 24/26 are extremely limited, and for someone just a size up in a US 28? The options are dismal. Feeling cute, put together, or professional can be really hard when nowhere has your size, and the places that do are online only and two or three times more expensive.

One way to be an ally is to vote with your wallet. Give your support to stores and brands that are inclusive (see Universal Standard and Modcloth), or at the very least who don’t actively support fatphobia and stigma. When you see a store using a curvy model in their ads, but not carrying any plus sized clothing, let them know that’s not okay. Fat bodies don’t exist to help them make money off things we can’t even buy ourselves. Use your voice to encourage companies that only carry plus sizes online to carry them in their physical stores.

Outside of clothing, choose to give your money to businesses and activities that help reduce fat stigma. Watch movies like Isn’t It Romantic, and shows like Shrill and Dietland. Eat at restaurants that have inclusive seating, and attend events at venues that are accessible.

Use your social media presence for good.

When your fat friends share graphics and articles about how it feels to move through this world as a fat person, share those posts. Part of being an ally is promoting normalization. The more often we see something portrayed in a normal way, the more normal it starts to become.

On her blog at Body Liberation Photography, Lindley Ashline talks about fixing your internalized fatphobia and centering more diverse bodies.

I challenge you to find accounts run by people whose bodies make you uncomfortable. Follow them and support and share them until you no longer have that reaction. Center their bodies instead of your own. Comment on their posts, and push back on the trolls. And then keep following and sharing and supporting and buying their work, because if even you are uncomfortable with those bodies, imagine how much harder it is for the people living in those bodies to survive than it is for you.

When you get used to things, they become less threatening, less scary, and this can lead to less stigma around them. Sharing images of fat people living normal, healthy lives is a way to spread the word that we are normal.

If you are in the position to use stock images, which ones are you using? Be intentional with the images you choose to accompany articles and opinions. If you are a business owner, make conscious choices about what kinds of bodies are highlighted in your advertising and social media presence.

Watch your language.

As I have spoken more and more about my experiences as a fat woman, my language has changed. I use my words more intentionally, and I notice when other people use words in ways that promote fatphobia.

If you wear a clothing size smaller than a 12–14, stop calling yourself fat or plus sized.

If you live in a straight-sized body, do the work to change the words you use about how you’re feeling and your self-perception. Stop saying “I feel fat,” when what you really mean is that you feel bloated, or full, or lack confidence about your body. Stop calling folds of skin “fat rolls” and thighs that barely touch “thick.”

If you wear a clothing size smaller than a 12–14, stop calling yourself fat or plus sized. Your feelings about your body are not inherently wrong, but it’s important to differentiate how you feel about your body and how our culture as a whole perceives and responds to your body.

Think about how you talk about food, and stop assigning false morality to eating. If you are changing how you eat, or examining your relationship with your body, with food and eating, or with your physical fitness, be aware of how you talk about it and to whom.

Understand the difference between fat and Fat.

Fat is a thing. Fat is also an identity, and one that is deeply ingrained in those of us who move through the world in bodies that it wasn’t made for. In her piece about mistakes she made as a thin ally to fat acceptance movements, Melissa Fabello explains:

And that would have been all good and well if I had considered that fat as a thing on your body and Fat as an identity and marginalized experience are two different things. And by asking folks to normalize the former, I’d inadvertently marginalized the latter. I failed to take into consideration that the difference in these experiences matters and that centering (potentially) non-fat people in a conversation about fat is by no means revolutionary. It reifies the status quo — which is exactly the problem. Does that mean that we, as thin people, can never talk about the fat on our bodies and how we’re brainwashed to hate it? No. But it does mean that we have to remember that this spoon-fed guilt and shame is a symptom of a larger fatphobic culture, wherein people who are actually fat (not people who “feel” fat) receive the brunt of the oppression. We have to note the differences between lowercase “fat” and uppercase “Fat” and question which we’re centering our conversations around and how we’re understanding our experiences in relation to them. Think of it this way: It’s the difference between using the #ThickThighsSaveLives hashtag and one that reads #NoThighGapNoProblem instead. It seems like a small difference, but it’s not.

The majority of people have fat on their bodies, but there is a huge difference between life with 5 ‘extra’ pounds and life with 150 ‘extra’ pounds. Being in a size 10 when you used to be an 8 might be a struggle bathed in emotion, but being in a size 30+ is a completely different ballgame. Recognize that those differences are real and important.

Call people out for promoting harmful ideas.

We recently went out to dinner with friends, and when we got home the kids were watching Dodgeball with their Grandmother. Not having seen it in many years, I didn’t remember the repugnant moments of Ben Stiller in a fat suit, slovenly and unhappy, singing Milkshake and juggling his fake man-boobs.

My mother and I stared at each other, unamused, as I flatly asked, “Isn’t it funny how they put Ben Stiller in a fat suit to make us all laugh because fat people are a joke?” No matter how many times I see it, being confronted with fat people as punchlines is always so disappointing.

As an ally, refuse to laugh at fat jokes. It’s lazy comedy, filler used to get a laugh when a smarter writer could have come up with something funnier. It promotes the idea that fat people are here to be laughed at, and most of the time reinforces stereotypes that fat people are dirty, gross, lazy, and unlovable.

Speaking up when co-workers, family, or friends say things you know are harmful can take a lot of courage. It’s certainly easier to stay silent. But easier isn’t always better. Your voice means something, and having you stand beside us and use your voice when we can’t is meaningful. Refusing to tolerate jokes, insults, and misinformation based on body size is important.

Notice and speak up about shared spaces.

There was a time when I had a hard time shopping at most stores, but didn’t have too much trouble navigating the world. At my current size, I am constantly aware of the ways in which the world is too small for me. I go to restaurants and have to ask not to be seated in a booth. If I’m with friends, vocalizing that I’d prefer a table feels hard without giving an explanation, and having to say out loud in public that I’m too fat to fit in a booth when we’re out having a good time is a mood-dampener.

Smaller bodied people have the privilege of taking it for granted that they will fit. One huge step you can take is to advocate for people of all abilities and sizes to be able to safely and comfortably use the same spaces you do.

At work, do your waiting rooms or meeting rooms only have chairs with arms? Does your doctor’s waiting room provide benches, or only single chairs? Is the furniture sturdy? How wide are the bathroom stalls, and is an option available for people who need more space? If you’re planning an event, notice the types of seating that are being offered.

Support fat activists.

Exposure is one of the best ways to normalize. You can share the words of people who know what it’s like to live in a fat body, acting as a megaphone for our messages and feelings. Read, retweet, repost, and share on Facebook. Follow the Instagram accounts of people who are doing the work to destigmatize fat bodies, like Amanda Martinez Beck, Anna O’Brien, and Jes Baker.

If you’re in a position to do so, buy their books and merch. Donate to fundraising campaigns, buy stock photos from sites like Representation Matters, or support the Patreons of the people working to make the world a better place for fat people of all sizes.

As a human with certain privileges, I try to use my voice to be an ally whenever I can. I recognize that while I face oppression and discrimination in some areas, I also have the privilege of being white and educated. You can be a fat ally no matter the size of your body.

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