Your Fat Friends Hear the Way You Talk About Gaining Weight During the Pandemic

How could we not be hurt? How could we not be heartbroken?
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Morgan Johnson

Content note: contains discussion of eating disorders, weight gain, and weight loss.

Fearing your body is tough. And it’s even tougher during COVID-19 quarantine.

More and more memes are popping up online about gaining the “quarantine 15,” the “COVID 19,” or “fattening the curve.” More and more of us are publicly expressing our anxieties about how being in self-isolation will change our bodies. For some, that fear of a change in our bodies is borne of eating disorders or body dysmorphic disorder. For others, it is the simple fear of losing a sense of control over our own bodies.

Yes, many of us are afraid to gain weight. But many of us are also already fat, and we hear the way you talk about our bodies.

I know what it’s like to fear gaining weight, but I also know what it’s like to be fat. I know what it’s like to read texts and posts from thin people who insist they’ll come out of quarantine “weighing 300 pounds”—well below my own weight. I know the sting of hearing thinner folks bemoan the size of their bodies, unwilling to confront what they’re implying about bodies like mine. I know the anxiety-riddled jokes about appearing on My 600-Lb Life from people who have never faced the discrimination and ridicule that many very fat people face every day.

As someone who struggles with recovery from my own eating disorder, I know the pain of needing to process an eating disorder or a changing body. I also know that processing that publicly or with people without knowing if they’re in the headspace to hear about it at worst helps trigger others’ eating disorders and at best leads them back to intrusive and shameful thoughts they’ve long tried to escape. And, often unintentionally, the ways in which we share those insecurities can send powerful messages about which bodies are worth having, whose bodies are worth loving, and what becomes of people who are fat. In these cases, “I’m going to end up fat” isn’t a simple statement of fact; it’s a warning of a terrible, impending fate. It’s a quiet and vicious punishment, not only to the person saying it, but to everyone within earshot who is fatter.

Yes, each of us should have space to process our changing bodies. But that can’t come without considering someone else’s mental health, their eating disorder recovery, or of their basic dignity. And waxing poetic about how disgusting it would be to become fat isn’t processing. It is an overt and cruel judgment about what becomes of us when we become fat. It is a sweeping statement of worth that reinforces an age-old tradition of shaming and mocking fat people. Whether each of us is making fun of ourselves or of someone else for gaining weight, the message is the same: You are simply worth less if you weigh more.

And these conversations aren’t just happening one-on-one; they’re happening in public. Even celebrities are making jokes about how fat they’ll get. Taika Waititi tweeted a cautionary note to his followers: “Now is the perfect opportunity to get motivated, workout, and come out of this absolutely shredded. Sadly we’re human and will probably come out of it looking like the people from Wall-E.” On Instagram, rapper Fedez posted a series of photos of himself, his child, and his wife, influencer Chiara Ferragni, photoshopped to look fat.

On their faces, their posts could be about processing anxiety around weight gain or as just another fat joke. But to me, and to many others, they send a powerful message about fat bodies. After all, if we see body size as a truly neutral characteristic, what is there to be anxious about or make fun of? And why do these conversations need to happen publicly, on platforms with millions of followers, where fat folks and people with eating disorders are invariably among those watching, reading, listening?

Publicly proclaiming our anxiety about or discontent with weight gain can contribute to a culture that demonizes and scapegoats fatness wherever it finds it. And when you say those things, your fat friends—and your fat followers—hear you. We see you. And whether or not you’re ready to acknowledge it, we know you’re talking about how terrible it would be to look like us. When we hear you talk about your revulsion at bodies that look like ours, how could we not be hurt? How could we not be heartbroken?

Of course, all of us should have supportive spaces to process our changing feelings and bodies in isolation and beyond. But that doesn’t nullify our duty not to harm others in the process, either by triggering their eating disorder or body dysmorphia, or by insulting their body, implicitly or explicitly.

There are simple steps that each of us can take to care for ourselves and for the people we love. When you want to talk to friends and family about your changing body, ask for consent first. Because most of us don’t know who in our lives is in recovery for an eating disorder, for body dysmorphia, or even just where they’re at with their own relationship to their bodies. Our individual comfort, our processing, and our mental health can’t come at the cost of someone else’s.

And remember that when you joke about becoming unthinkably, impossibly fat, when you process that fear publicly, there is always someone listening who is fatter than you. There is always someone who is living in the body that you describe as a nightmare as a matter of course. Fat people are listening. I am listening. The cartoonish body you’re imagining as a nightmare scenario is someone else’s reality. While you think you’re healing yourself, you may also hurt them.

For more information on eating disorders as well as resources that can help, visit the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA). The NEDA helpline can be reached at 1-800-931-2237. For 24/7 crisis support, text “NEDA” to 741741.

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