Why do we hate fat people?

What does fat mean to you? It’s a very loaded term but one we deploy with frequency so it must have some collective definition; some meaning that makes sense to most us. That meaning, of course, is not usually a nice one. When we call someone fat we are not paying them a compliment but generally mean to wound.So what makes us so angry with people who are overweight? Why do we feel the need to shame them and point out what we see as their shortcomings? Likely the answer lies in a combination of historical representation, collective social response, and our experience of ourselves and those closest to us.Four hundred years ago, Rubens was happily representing women in a diversity of sizes and shapes. As art has turned to photography to represent the ideal, those represented have got thinner and thinner until we reach the now infamous Size Zero. Gluttony is often cited as a sin, a weakness, an inordinate desire to consume more than we need. Dig a little deeper, though and the sin is more withholding food from the needy and could be interpreted more as selfishness than simple greed. So the historical link is not as clear as it might seemThere are good health reasons for watching our weight with doctors linking specific conditions, such as Type 2 Diabetes, with a high BMI. Anything that supports our health saves money for the health service, and ultimately our taxes, and it keeps us alive for longer. Regardless though it does not explain why society wants to wade in and point a critical finger at those who appear to ignore the danger in which they are placing themselves.Society seems fairly fixed on its view. Fat people are funny, they are the butt of a plethora of gags. Gags we accept in a way that racism and sexism increasingly, and encouragingly, is not. Perhaps it the last safe bastion of cruel humour, an outlet for the final vestiges of our nastier sides.Or perhaps they represent something of ourselves that we do not want to admit. An underlying and occasional urge to eat until we can eat no longer. To sit in front of table groaning under the weight of food and just pig out. That feeling of indulgence can be the ultimate small act of selfishness. A joy in the doing and the source of such guilt when it is done. The pure greediness of it, of eating so much more than adults ever let us eat as children, is a pleasure that only hindsight can spoil.Considering these influential elements in isolation or combination perhaps goes some way to explain our loathing of fat people. However, in amongst all this projected guilt, misinterpreted teaching and archaic humour is a misunderstanding of why many people eat too much. So many of those we class as fat, those we scowl at as they tuck into a packet of crisps in front of us or ‘flaunt’ their size as they sail past us on motorised scooters, are not eating out of greed. They eat as a form of self-medication and self-soothing due to low self-esteem or any number of behavioural issues. They may do this because of traumatic events in their lives or damaged and cruel childhoods to name only two. They are not filling their faces; they are filling voids and re-enacting learned responses. So often what we hate, we misunderstand or fear in ourselves. 

Maybe consider these thoughts the next time you feel that hate welling up inside:

People are so much more than their weight

We can all punish ourselves but cope in our own way

Try seeing past the size to experience the person

Understanding is harder than condemning but so much more rewarding

This blog was first published in Gallery Magazine Jersey