There is no drug to reduce Fat Phobia and could there be?
Comment by Deanne Jade, on an article in the i-newspaper by Kate Lister
Kate Lister, Sex historian, writing in the i, suggests that the GLP-1 agonists have “laid bare how much we, as a culture, truly, viscerally hate fat people”. She also suggests that “we want fat people to struggle and suffer” I don’t agree. The drugs have laid bare how much SOME people in larger bodies don’t personally like being in larger bodies and want to be in smaller bodies, despite all the recent body-positive movement and Dove adverts. It doesn’t say anything about “visceral hate”, the visceral emotion that SOME of us experience when we see a 600 lb individual is closer to “disgust or pity” – but hate? I don’t think so. People in moderately larger bodies who are otherwise functional have discovered, like Kate Lister herself has, that diets don’t work; that diets make things worse and that life is somehow kinder when you are “not observably fat.”
If a person has been teased or bullied about their weight, they already know about stigma and they don’t need the rush to GLP-1 drugs to confirm it. Nor does the availability of these drugs add to stigma. How does this add-up? In one sense, there is a risk that if you choose not to join the queue for the GLP-1 drugs, do people think you are failing to take care of yourself? Double the stigma? This isn’t by the way, my personal view.
I’m very sorry for the many people who have been abused for their weight; I was once and I’m not going to make myself guilty for my current “thin privilege”, just as I am not going to feel guilty about being born in the prosperous UK instead of, say, the Somalia; or that I didn’t die of cancer when I was 30, like my friend. Life was never fair and we all carry the responsibility to do what we can with the burdens we have inherited or acquired. If something comes along that gives us a leg-up, like winning the lottery, it’s just good luck. Science has plonked on our doorstep a leg-up for some people; their chance to be different. I have never wished to blame people for choosing bariatric surgery and I say “good luck to you!”, to people who want to reach out for something that just might work for them and make them happier. There’s no shame in that at all.
As an eating disorder specialist, I am always told to be a naysayer to these drugs because people with eating disorders will abuse them, or already thin celebrities with more money than sense will micro-dose for the rest of their lives. People with eating disorders will always find novel ways to harm themselves with stuff that is good for other people (like food.)
If you just give attention to influencers and health journalists, you could be forgiven for thinking controlling weight with willpower is the only way to get brownie points. But there are so many people in the real world struggling to manage their weight, that few people believe in willpower anymore. As a psychologist, I know that the route to weight change is complex and lengthy. No one pretends that fat-shaming ever had its roots in concerns for a persons’ health, but it does include our hidden (sometimes misplaced) beliefs about physical harm. And if think (sometimes wrongly) that a person is doing harm to themselves we either shrink from it or try to get them to “see the error of their ways”.
I wish though, that Kate Lister’s opinion piece had been less angry, more forgiving toward the myriads of people who had lost hope of change. The GLP-1 rush might turn out in the end to be a chimera – another failure adding to the list of all the other weight-change strategies out there. It looks very probable as Kate has found out, given all the side effects, there is no such thing as an expensive lunch. I am unsure whether the article is suggesting that GLP-1 drugs are a bad thing or that they are adding to the psychological burden of people reaching out for help. Shifting fat-stigma is never going to happen, drugs or no drugs. We can only help a person to deal with their issues, one soul at a time.
No one is ashamed any more of publicising their troubles, people are talking openly about their mental health, their drug and booze addictions, their autism and ADHD, their anorexia, their purging, their anxiety and their depression. We even have a whole raft of clubs where fat-activists find solidarity and comfort. Its no shaming matter to talk about your body and the things you are doing to make it something you would like to call home. As I said before, if you want to try “Ozempic”, good luck to you; and despite all the personal struggles you have encountered, be happy for them, Kate.