Greenhouse Gases and Fatphobia.
There’s a lot of talking points out there about how individual efforts actually make no difference in stopping the high-speed train that is climate change and global warming. If you find yourself discouraged by these facts (because they are facts) then I encourage you to listen to the latest episode of How To Save A Planet where they do give the math that proves this point…but they also explain how individual actions do still have power in changing a wider mindset and in encouraging policy changes. Their point: Yes, to make big strides towards the planet we need big systemic and structural changes. BUT. A lot of that won’t happen unless individuals show those powers it’s important by making their own lifestyle changes.
All of this got me thinking about another BIG systemic problem: Fatphobia. I’ve heard a lot of parents my age and older express embarrassment or shame over perpetuating toxic attitudes about fatness in their children. Conversations around toxic diet culture and fatphobia didn’t become mainstream until 5-10 years ago. Before that, it was very common for parents to shame their kids for gaining weight or force diets on young girls even before the age of puberty. Moms definitely talked derogatorily about their own bodies in front of their kids, or were constantly seen going on diets or counting calories or boycotting entire food groups for the sake of weightloss.
Let me stop and say: I know a lot of this is still going on now. This still is happening in many households. But overall, I feel like there is a mind shift around how we talk about fatness and weightloss to the point where I’ve been privy to many conversations from women my age and older who express regret over how they approached these things around their daughters. I heard one woman put it simply: “I worry all of her insecurities are my fault.”
This is the point I want to get to. I do hear a lot of regret from parents who suddenly see their own influence as detrimental to their growing children and regret any impact that may have had on their perspectives on their own bodies.
To counter this I want to point out two simple facts:
1) My Dad never perpetuated any toxic ideas around diet culture or fatness. He would get angry at me when I would talk down about my appearance or my body. Now, he didn’t know the scripts of Radical Self Love that I know today…but he definitely did not do anything that other parents did in my generation. There was no encouraging of diets or calorie counting or weightloss. He encouraged one thing around health and fitness: Finding things you like to do that keep you active and doing them. AND YET…I still struggled with a Binge Eating Disorder and Body Dysmorphia.
2) I made a point to never talk about diet or weightloss around my daughter. I never spoke down about my body. In the last 5 years I’ve really developed a great language around self-love and there is not one ounce of fatphobia anywhere in this house. We do all of the right things in this house AND YET…My daughter struggles with thoughts about her body.
This is where I connect this to climate change discussion. The truth of the matter is? The industries of diet culture and cosmetics and beauty and in some ways, fashion…make most of their profits if we are on a constant mission to change our appearance. These are HUGE industries that profit over our self-hatred. Their marketing materials are in every corner of our lives telling us that our fat rolls are gross and our wrinkles are ugly. There is no escaping all of that programming.
And then you have Hollywood. With every TV show and Movie we watch our brains are defining “beautiful” and even “normal” based on the bodies we see on these screens. You want to know why so many actresses get plastic surgery? Because no one who looks 40+ gets hired anymore. Not unless they need an actress to play a 60-year old. They either hire 40-year olds to play grandparents or they hire 40-year olds who have no wrinkles and look 30 to play a 40-something. The percentage of fat bodies we see on television is totally distorted from reality. As is the racial makeup of our most popular movies and TV shows. Without knowing it, we all subconsciously believe that you only deserve to be on camera if you are thin and white and young.
Diet culture, the beauty industry, and Hollywood are doing so much damage to ourselves and our children that NO ONE should feel guilty about the things they might should have done differently in their messaging in their homes. That’s not to say we should continue to shame our daughters into dieting if they are not thin. Obviously the things we do in our house do matter. But when it comes to feeling guilt? We should let ourselves off the hook and just work on doing better from this day forward.
And just like with regards to individual actions in climate change, we need the big industries who do have the power to know how we feel. We should shop with brands that plaster all shapes and sizes and colors of bodies on their marketing materials. We should not by products that market fatphobia by making consumers believe being fat is something terrible. We should watch shows and movies who cast fat actresses…but maybe not the multiple comedies where the entire gimmick is Laugh At The Fat Lady Doing Things That Is Funny To Watch Fat People Do. Just like Black consumers are asking for films with Black People just existing and not spotlighting racial trauma…fat people want movies where Being Fat is not a Plot Point.
There are many big systems that need changing and we should use our individual power to make sure the world knows that’s what we want. We should not direct that anger inward to guilt and shame and instead we should give ourselves grace and recognize we were shaped by the same toxic systems. The big Greenhouse Gas industries should feel guilt and shame about climate change. And the big Diet Industries and Beauty Industries should feel guilt and shame about toxic fatphobia.
Let’s use our voices and our actions to do what we can individually, but also keep yelling loudly to remind those industries that we want change. They should carry the guilt and regret…not us.