![\"not_headless\"](\"http:\/\/lisabrounstein.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/not_headless-251x300.jpg\")
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Why is it still okay to make fun of fat people?\u00a0 And, why am I shocked that it is still so prevalent?<\/p>\n
A father of a friend of mine, who happens to be a Facebook friend, posted a scathing article about flying next to a fat person.\u00a0 He then commented about the horror of sitting in your seat watching a fat person approach and that feeling of pleading that they don\u2019t sit next to him.\u00a0 It was a terrible article and an even nastier comment.\u00a0 Rather than call him out publicly, I sent him a private message.\u00a0 In that message, I explained that I am that person.\u00a0 I am the fat woman squeezing down the aisle of the plane.\u00a0 I am the person who is nervous that I am not going to have enough room and more importantly, I am the person who is concerned about disturbing someone else.\u00a0 I wanted to let him know that the person walking towards him has feelings and underneath their size has a heart that\u2019s breaking.\u00a0 I wanted to give the headless fat person a face.<\/p>\n
The other day, I was figuratively punched in the gut when, I was poking around Facebook.\u00a0 Someone had posted a video of a fat woman wriggling into a pair of jeans.\u00a0 She was, of course, headless and faceless (as most fat people are when they are being \u201cexposed\u201d like they are on the news or in the \u201cdon\u2019t\u201d section of fashion magazines.)\u00a0 As I watched the video a couple of things came to mind.\u00a0 First, I thought it was amazing how she was able to maneuver herself into pants that were clearly too small.\u00a0 Second, I thought, \u201cthat could almost be me\u2026but I think I may be larger\u2026\u201d\u00a0 Then, mistakenly, I read the comments.\u00a0 Why was I shocked at how heartless and cruel the comments were?\u00a0 The comments section, on most posts, is for people who don\u2019t have the courage to say things in life.\u00a0 The comment section tends to bring out the absolute worst in people.<\/p>\n So, here I am sitting in my house reading that my \u201cfriend\u201d finds this woman disgusting and is laughing about it and saying, \u201cEwwww.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 I am left with two questions, \u201cIs she disgusted by me? \u201c and \u201cWhy am I friends with this person?!\u201d<\/p>\n I personally have been oinked at while walking in a mall.\u00a0 I have had people yell pejoratives to me out of car windows.\u00a0 Often times, in stores and in restaurants I will find people staring at me and giving me the up and down look as if I can\u2019t see them.<\/p>\n Statistics show that of overweight teens (and I loathe the term overweight as it implies a correct weight and someone is over that weight\u2026) 24% of boys and 30% of girls are subject to some sort of bullying because of their size. \u00a0I have seen some statistics that show upwards of 60% of elementary school kids are more likely to be teased because of their size.\u00a0 There have also been an alarming number of childhood suicides because of this horrible practice.\u00a0 How many fat kids have to kill themselves before we stop?<\/p>\n Why do we continue to tell fat people that they need to change when we don\u2019t tell the bullies to?<\/p>\n Maybe instead of the War on Obesity we should have a War on Hate.\u00a0 Maybe we should just stop waging war altogether.<\/p>\n Unlike what the news portrays, people of size do have heads and faces and hearts.\u00a0 So, stop making fun of us.\u00a0 Stop judging us.\u00a0 Just stop it!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Why is it still okay to make fun of fat people?\u00a0 And, why am I shocked that it is still so prevalent? A father of a friend of mine, who happens to be a Facebook friend, posted a scathing article about flying next to a fat person.\u00a0 He then commented about the horror of sitting… Continue reading Not a Headless Fatty<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5,14,61,26,60,27,29,40,45,47,59,56],"class_list":["post-626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","hentry","category-life-in-los-angeles","tag-300-pounds","tag-bbw","tag-bullying","tag-fat","tag-fat-blog","tag-fat-girl","tag-fat-women","tag-lisa-brounstein","tag-obese","tag-oprah","tag-war-on-obesity","tag-weight","post_format-post-format-image","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lisabrounstein.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lisabrounstein.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lisabrounstein.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lisabrounstein.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lisabrounstein.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=626"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lisabrounstein.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":636,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lisabrounstein.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/626\/revisions\/636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lisabrounstein.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lisabrounstein.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lisabrounstein.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"me_pool\"](\"http:\/\/lisabrounstein.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/me_pool.jpg\")
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