bigfatscience:

bigfatscience:

I started using the phrase “weight-based abuse” to describe many of the terrible things that are done to fat people in the name of “health” or “acceptance” or “love” because I believe that language matters so much when it  comes to the politics of resistance and the process of recovery.

I read so many scientific and media articles that talk about “weight stigma” or “fat shaming,” and then I think about all of trauma that is revealed to me on this blog and in my own lived experiences, and those words seem too weak and ineffectual to describe the actual experience of growing up fat in a fat-hating society.

Being forced to diet at a young age; being sent away to camps to starve and overexercise; being shamed and emotionally berated for eating; being taught to mistrust your own body’s hunger and satiety cues; being punished for eating; being told over and over and over again that you need to starve to be acceptable – that you literally deserve to starve; being harassed or assaulted by strangers and loved ones because of your size; being denied love or companionship; denied clothing that fits; denied space to exist comfortably. Being denied healthcare. 

These experiences can cause psychological trauma that lasts a lifetime. These experiences can cause suffering. These experiences can make us sick. 

These experiences are weight-based abuse.

A number of people, both fat and thin, have written in the notes or sent me a message saying that the experiences I described above are the reason they developed an eating disorder.

I hear you. And though the causes of eating disorders are complex, there is little doubt that for people with certain neurotypes, weight-based abuse can trigger an eating disorder, and for many others, it can cause disordered eating. That is one of the most well-validated observations in the scientific literature, and it is just one of the many reasons why I believe that the types of experiences I described above are abusive.