When a friend or family member tells you “I feel fat”, is your first response to jump in with “You’re not fat, you’re beautiful!”? You want to reassure your loved one and make them feel better, and I understand that you mean well. Something you might not have thought about before is that your response may be doing more harm than good. Here are some things to consider:
(1) Being fat and being beautiful aren’t mutually exclusive. Bodies can be both!
(2) All bodies are deserving of respect, even if they don’t conform to traditional beauty standards.
(3) If someone says “I feel fat” they need their feelings and worth validated, not their appearance.
How can you respond instead, in a way that doesn’t perpetuate weight stigma? Try to work out what the person is actually communicating to you when they say that they feel fat. If you’re not sure, ask them. Something like “I can see that you’re upset at the moment, what’s going on?” or “Oh, what do you mean by that?” invites the person to share with you how they’re feeling. Responding in this way shows them that you’re there to listen to them, not solve their problems or tell them what to do.
When someone says that they feel fat, what they might be trying to express is:
– I feel ashamed of my body
– I wish my body looked different
– I don’t feel comfortable in my body right now
– I feel anxious about how others see my body
– I’m worried about being judged for my body size
– I’m having a hard time dealing with diet culture at the moment
– I feel a lot of pressure to lose weight
Weight stigma causes stress for a lot of people, and can have negative consequences for both physical and mental health. You can read this article from the National Eating Disorders Association to learn more. If you experience weight stigma yourself, it’s ok to seek support from trusted loved ones or fat-positive health professionals to help you cope.
As a fat-positive non-diet dietitian, I support my clients to have a healthier relationship with food and their body, without guilt or shame attached to how they look. I take a weight-neutral approach and treat all my clients with respect. If you’d like to learn more about my approach, click the button below.