On Being A Fat Chick

Someone asked me to write about “the female beauty standard.” Here is a poem I wrote many years ago on the theme:

Barbie

My mother never let me play with Barbie Dolls.
She’d already felt the pain stabbing her from those
torpedo tits topped on tiptoed impossibly tiny feet.
Put on her first diet at 12,
30 years later she still
slumps her shoulders and carries her arms
carefully tucked into her sides
as if apologizing for taking up
so much room.

She tried to save me from that, but
Charlie’s Angels lured me into longing
for velour dresses
and platform heels so at 11
I went on my first liquid diet.

Now as I read stories about
anorexic models and bulimic college girls
right next to stories about babies being malnourished
from being given skim milk,
I wear my flesh proudly.

But even as I walk,
breasts thrust forward,
shoulders straight
claiming my space

I still harbor secret coma fantasies…you know,
you’re in a terrible accident
and years later you wake up

thin.

________________________________________________

While I’ve felt fat as long as I can remember, it wasn’t really until my late teens that I actually became a Fat Chick. Since that time, as the poem illustrates, I’ve wavered strongly between feeling a sense of pride and a sense of shame.

In my partying days, I was often victim to what I used to call “drive-by mooings” where young men would shout things about my weight at me from cars. I would shout back, screaming things that led to another poem called “Why Fat Chicks Are Better in Bed” which I used to win poetry slams for a while. In the poem (I don’t have a copy anymore, sadly, or I’d just include it here) I talk about how fat girls usually have big tits and how they LOVE to put things in their mouths (and the almost always swallow).

Yes, I was a nasty girl back then.

Severe thinness as a beauty standard is, of course, the luxury of a wealthy society. Depriving yourself in a society of wealth somehow must give a person a feeling of superiority. Plus, if it’s only food you deprive yourself of, you don’t have to give up cool things like fancy cars or big houses. Sadly, we Americans have spread this unreasonable standard across the world, thanks to television. Trying to achieve this unreasonable standard of beauty is killing young people (but mostly women) around the world.

The odd thing about this is that super skinny is simply not beautiful. I don’t know any man that prefers a woman with a supermodel body. Most men I know like a woman with tits and an ass.

While thinness has been prized by American society for a hundred years or more, it wasn’t until the 60’s and 70’s that the beauty standard became nearly impossible to attain. Models became unreasonably tall, long legged and armed, and had square jaws. My mom’s friend Jan had a brilliant observation back in 1978; she said that most designers were now gay men, and they were designing clothes for the bodies of 17-year-old boys. If you think about it, it’s true—most models look like adolescent boys.

I’m 5’2” tall (have been since I was ten). I’ve heard all sorts of weights I need to be to be healthy. The lowest is 110lbs (that’s the 100 lbs to five feet, and five pounds for each additional inch after) and the highest is about 140 lbs (if you’re large boned).

Currently, my left leg weighs about 110 lbs. I’m not, no matter what DIET I go on, ever going to be in the weight range for my height. I’m someone who fits, quite nicely, into a size 14/16 when I’m still well over 200 lbs. Right now, I’d settle for that (although I dream of being a size 12).

I plan to stay, by American standards, a Fat Chick. I’ll always retain my ass, thighs, and tits. I have no desire to be a tiny girl.

But once I have this baby, I’m SOOOOO getting a tummy tuck. I want to rid myself of the “apron” of fat the women in my family all have. So I guess I have an unreasonable personal beauty standard after all, and am just as fucked up about it as the rest of the world. Sigh.

 

Comments

[Tamara]

"Coma fantasies." Awesome poem.

[j]

What a powerful poem! I'd like to read the "Why Fat Chicks Are Better in Bed" poem if you ever find a copy.

I've had such a strong reaction to each of your recent entries that I've been at a loss for words. It doesn't seem like enough to just keep posting "Exactly, exactly, exactly" over and over again.

I think I need to read The Beauty Myth again soon.

[Catherine]

Would anyone be surprised to know that Cec is a hell of a dancer? And when she walks, she does not lumber, she does not plod. She walks as she described in the poem, tits out, back straight, confidently moving forward.

I can tell you for sure that Cecily is much more physically confident living inside her body than I am. And I guess I'm closer to whatever the societal "ideal" is.

They did a study years back about how girls and boys sit at their desks in high school. Boys, you'll note, have their legs spread, usually jutting out in front of the desk. Their arms are sprawled or hanging off the sides, they are slouched down, shoving their legs out. They take up as much space as possible. Girls, on the other hand, sit with their legs crossed, or tucked under them, or twisted into some weird pretzel thing. Arms in, taking up as little space as possible. It is as you said, like they are ashamed to take up space.

After I read that story, I have made an effort to claim the space I am entitled to as a living breathing human being. But it's an effort. It doesn't come naturally, taking up space. It's hard for me to believe I deserve it.

[Susan]

I have an apron myself. It's new since I started taking fertility drugs and gained 30 lbs. It bothers me more than the cottage thighs, more than the big butt, more than the rolls around my bra on the sides and the back, more than the flabby arms near my pitts, more than my double chin. I hate it.

Because you are right. Men LOVE a girl with tits and a nice round ass. But they want that package to have a tummy so taut you can bounce a quarter off it.

And you know what? I wouldn't mind having wide hips and big boobs if only my tummy were flat and tight.

You can betcher gorgeous bottom that I will be saving every single muthereffing penny I make (once I can stop saving for IVF that is) after I'm pregnant so that I can have a tummy tuck.

Sad, but true.

[DMouse]

I'm five foot two and a half (that half inch is v important to me) and am also a Fat Chick.

The Baron does not want me to go on a diet. He likes the fact I have a little spare flesh. Most of the time it doesn't bother me either - I am in proportion, even if those proportions would look better by society's standards on someone a couple of inches taller.

But sometimes (usually after clothes shopping) it does bother me. It does at the moment, since I can't get into my favourite purple cords (14), so I too am dieting.

I have the coma fantasy too. I would love to wake up thin (but keep my boobs - that is non negotiable). I'll never be thin or a size 8 (UK) but I'll be happy as a size 14 again.

[Jessica]

That's a wonderful poem. I wish I could write like that, but all my poetry (from my angsty days) makes me cringe in shame when I re-read it.

And I am so with you about the fat chick thing. I am tall(ish, at 5'9"), I do have long arms and legs (no square jaw though), but I also have really broad hipbones and about forty extra pounds radiating outward from my hips and thighs (plus the dreaded backfat, you know, that makes those folds under the bra area?). It really sucks to be compared unfavorably with those freaks in the Victoria's Secret catalogs (who are really grotesques, though people don't seem to see it, like those overbred dogs and cats who can barely function).

Except I'm never proud, only not-too-bad. I haven't felt really sexy since I was 18, when I went on birth control for the first time (after which I started packing on the pounds, despite an utter lack of lifestyle change--I don't recommend depo provera, for this reason, though I continue to use it myself). I miss being a size eight (eight! not so much to ask, surely); I'm straying into the 14 or even 16 territory, varies by clothing manufacturer. It's excruciatingly difficult for me to lose weight (hello, depo), no matter what I do. And no, it's no comfort that my blood pressure is perfect. None at all. Because no one else can see that.

Stupid culture, to make me feel like this. Stupid me, not to be able not to.

[Carrie]

Hello, I just wanted to tell you how much I enjoy reading your blog. I am struggling with the weight, (particularly the evil Thin Mints at the moment) too, and I enjoyed your view. You are so right, too! The one time I did lose a significant amount of weight, I looked so much older. That fat really does fill in the wrinkles. Anyways, I struggled to have a baby, too, and just recently brought home the baby we adopted from Guatemala. So, basically, I understand and good luck! You seem like a smart, strong woman, and I hope you will achieve everything you want! Take care, Carrie

[Orodemniades]

Oh, it's both good and bad being a Fat Chick. The good parts - if you can be proud of your character, if not necessarily your looks - I suspect tend to be on the side of confidence, and bearing, and being able to speak one's mind. The not-so-good parts? Well. Being the source of all that is evil and bad in the Universe.

Duh.

Right now, the good part of my being a Fat Chick is what's allowed me to speak my mind at the clinic. The bad part, being denied IVF because I'm...fat. My favorite part? How they've referred me to go on Metformin. Which I've been asking to be put on for 2.5 years. Ah, there's just nuthin' like a fat-phobic doctor...

[Carrie]

Me again. I laughed my ass off just reading about the "Why fat girls are better in bed." poem. I would love to read it if you find it!

[corvine]

Cecily, I love your poetry. You have a talent there, girl.

DMouse, I'm roughly your size and shape (5'3", UK 14). The smallest I have ever been was size 10 and that was before I went on the Pill and at a time I was pining for a boyfriend and not eating at all. And I looked gaunt and awful.

Jessica - I hear you. I gained two dress sizes on the depo. And the backfat. I'm back on the Pill now. Nothing's shifted!

Sometimes I feel fat and horrible, but I'm learning to love my skin. I'm becoming curvy and proud. I don't want to be thin. I feel more feminine than I ever have. And oh, the boobs! When I was thinner I was a 34B and desperate for more up top. Now - 34E :D (even if all the cute bras do only come in 34B...)

And I'd have a tummy tuck if it got much bigger. I don't want to lose weight, I'm terrified of losing my boobs. But for now, I've discovered the joys of 'firm shape control' knickers :-)

[Amyesq]

Cec,

What a great post! I, too, am 5'2 (and a half). I started this damn infertility crap at size ten. Then size 12, 14 and now 16. Ugh. The thing for me is that I was a "regular" sized kid and I am hoping I can get back to a ten. I will never, EVER weigh under 145 or 150. But I also have the kind of bosy that would be in a size 8 bottom and size 6 top at those weights. Blessed with lots of heavy legs and butt muscles under all the fat :) Anyway... not sure what the point of that ramble was expect to say thank you for posting this and it is good to share and to read everyone else's situations. Good luck with your DIET. I hope it is going well.

[Roxanne]

Amen, sister! I LOVE the poem. I went to fat camp for two summers when I was a teenager. It was pure bliss. Nobody was skinny! It's funny. I obsessed about my weight all through my pregnancy. I wouldn't drink water the mornings before my appts. because I was convinced the doctor would yell at me. But isn't that so silly? In the grand scheme of things, who really gives a shit? Yes, there is the matter of health. But I certainly can't say that my weight obsession has anything to do with health...it's always been about looks and self-esteem. During my next pregnancy I am going to forbid my new doctor to even tell me my weight and I'm getting rid of the scale. There are soooo many more important things in life and there's enough hatred and pain out there without hating your own body.

[Anne]

But even as I walk,
breasts thrust forward,
shoulders straight
claiming my space

I love that part and it’s just how I’ve always envisioned you.

Jessica I hear you I’m 5’8 and a half (important b/c I’m just a tad bit shorter than my mom and she never lets me forget it) I don’t have the hips you talk about but I’ve got a butt to rival JLo’s (who said white chicks don’t have big butts?) but in everything else I hear you; got at least an extra 40, back fat, the thighs are a bit outta control, and I seem to have inherited my mom's high BP. I’ve somehow managed to drop 20 lbs so that I fit comfortably back into my size 12’s (Cecily don’t hate me) and I actually feel okay most days BUT I live in the land of palm trees and bathing suits. I live in a place where all the girls (well a lot of them at any rate) seriously look the girls from the movie Blue Crush, not supper model skinny, but tan and fit, and usually a size 4-6 (at my absolute thinist I coudl fit into a 6 but that was when I was 17 and on the swim team and workign out like crazy!). Many of the other girls around here are these petite Asian girls and when I was growing up I would have practically sold my soul to be petite with long beautiful straight black hair. My 2 best friends are Chinese and part Korean and there were times when I was so jealous of their size 4 jeans and their tiny feet (I wear size 10 shoe) but on the up side they always tell me how jealous they are of my height and curly blonde hair. I suppose it’s all about wanting what you don’t have.

[Jessica]

Anne--you and I should start a white girls with big butts club or something. And I feel your pain--I live in California, and went to a fancy women's college here. Now, my college had a wide variety of body types, but a disproportionate, um, proportion of them were supermodel walking sticks (not *literally* models, for the most part, though there were some of those). Of course, ahem, the bathroom near the cafeteria always did smell a little funny, and there was a hell of a year-round stomach bug for some people, if you catch my drift. At least I'm a little sane about my weight, even if I don't like it.

And I grew up (well, for half of my growing-up) in Hawaii, so I can also sympathoze with the petite-Asian envy. Lots of girls there have the cutest little feet, compared to my 9.5s, and their hair--wow, I wish I could grow hair like some of those girls, rather than my own super-fine brown stuff. And the tiny little Bongo-brand shorts they could wear--with the almost universally unflattering high waists--the shorts that count on the wearer not having more than an inch of difference between waist and hip. The ones that accentuate even the slightest uterine bulge--what Karen at the Naked Ovary referred to as the fupa (which is where I keep my hardest-to-lose fat, I had that when I was my full height and weighed 120). No low-riders for me when those replaced the bongos.

Envy, envy, envy, shame. Ugh. Enough of that.

[Anne]

Oh yes I remember those Bongo shorts. Now it's all about the Roxy surf shorts and low, low-rise jeans. I work at the university so I see more female butt crack on young freshman than is necessary. What is up those jeans anyway? Unless you actually are a wafer thin model or and anorexic move starlet I think you should just stay away from the low-rise.

[Erin]

Awesome poem!

Hollywood and the media suck. You know, it just killed me the way everyone made a big deal about Renee Zellweger gaining all that weight for Bridget Jones, then losing it, then gaining it for Bridget Jones 2, then losing it. Geeeeeez. Truth is, she looked absolutely lovely WITH the weight, and downright awful without it. And I love when magazines show those side-by-side pictures of actresses when they looked normal and when they looked gaunt. Example? The actresses from Friends in the early years of the show (beautiful) and the late years of the show (scary thin).

I'm 5'6 and a size 10/12. I'm NOT complaining. I'm telling you this because a few years ago I went through a nasty, 6 month long bout with Crohn's disease and I drastically shrank in size. I probably started at a size 8/10 and fell gradually to a size 0/2. I am here to tell you, IT WAS AWFUL. Putting aside the fact that I was starving to death, I had the weird (no, not pleasurable) experience of seeing myself at a size 6, size 4, and size 2. I remember looking at myself in the mirror and sadly thinking "Wow, look how skinny I am and look how awful it looks". For the first time ever my thighs did not touch, but it definitely did not look good. Being able to see your protruding bones is just not sexy to me! So I have a round ass and big thighs and hips... I've learned to be proud of them.

Thanks for sharing the poem, you are one talented woman!

[ASM]

I'm a 5'0", 110lbs., no-bust-all-ass black girl, and while my (white) girlfriends squeal over how "tiny" and "thin" I am, nothing would make my mother happier than to see my face a little rounder, my arms a little chunkier. When my mother (a size 12/14) goes "home" to Jamaica for a visit, people mistake her for her (ten years younger) sister, because with age and prosperity you're supposed to be fat and happy! Thinness means stress and illness over there - people will gossip and wonder if your marriage is failing, not ask you for diet tips.

Come join us over in the culture of brown people, Cecily. We'd love you over here.

[KimN]

Cecily, from your pictures, I think you are incredibly beautiful! I would give anything for just a smidge of your chest (I look like a 12 year old boy). Plus, you have the most incredible smile.

When I got married I was 5'1" and 88 pounds. I look ill in the pictures. What is even more ill is when I look back at the pictures I desperately wish I could be that thin again. I am very plain jane so the ONLY special thing about me was how thin I was. Now that I'm not so thin, there is nothing special about me.

[Lisa S (& Riley, Bella, & Adelyn)]

Cecily - I adored your peom, and I have a whole arsenal of coma fantasies. I thought I was the only one!

You know, I was down to a size 6 (OK, an 8) just before I got pregnant (oops!) with Adelyn, down from over 200 lbs. after Bella's birth (I was a size 16 or 18). At just under 5'4", that put me at 137 for an all time low since college. Yet according to you one source, I should weigh 120 lbs?? I don't think so, not without the reintroduction of the Nazi regime.

The sad part is, I'm back at a size 12 (about 35 lbs. over my pre-pregnancy weight and holding), which is a size that I fantasized about when I was an 18. But I'm completely miserable, and yet unmotivated to diet.

Anyway, I was saddened when I read your bit about dreaming to be in a 12 again, because I had already forgotten a time when 12 sounded so damn skinny.

With two daughters of my own now, I'm already worrying about them. Bella has her father's metabolism, skinny as a rail. Adelyn, even at 8 months old, has visible cellulite (that Bella never had) on her chubby little bottom. I worry about their relationship if Addie takes after her mother, and is stuck being compared to her skinny older sister. I would hate it if their metabolism and societal demands had any impact on their relationship, but I fear that it's inevitable.

Anyway, I'm trying to set a healthy example for them both (as well as my son) so that they can feel good about themselves no matter what size they are.

[Lisa]

I would like to be a 12, and just stay there. I know that's realisitic for me and doable, however, I feel my 14's getting snug. I wax and I wain.
I try never to talk about diets or weight or say "I'm fat" I have 3 daughters, and I don't want to put the importance on it that society does.
My 13 year old is 5'4' and probably weighs 95 lbs. She has boobs and hips for someone so thin. She is almost a B cup. I know if she had an ounce of fat on her she would be really curvy. She eats like a bird. I seldom see her pig out like her younger sisters. I used to just think, this is who she is, a small appetite. We don't have fashion magazines and I try to control other media. However one day she put on a dress and tied it too tight. I told her to loosen it because I was afraid it would rip. She said she liked it that way because it made her "look tiny." So now I find myself worrying about an eating disorder. Is her appetite natural or self-induced? I am tempted to buy gallons of Rocky Road and give her a spoon.

[Heather]

The poem is great - it's obvious from the comments that we can relate to you. The coma part hit home - for me it's always been a car accident that keeps me in the hospital for weeks and weeks, I can't eat for whatever reason and I come home thin. How fucked up is that? That we are almost (or very) willing to harm ourselves in some way to get thin.

P.S. I bought the Fat Flush book today and I'm going to start reading it asap.

Heather

[Moxie]

I love how this post has become sort of a True Confessions of our body "flaws." It fascinates me that no matter what our actual weight and size, we all have these ideas in our heads of how we're "supposed" to look.

A few years ago, I was walking down the street and I caught a glimpse of myself in a store window. I thought, "I look good today." And immediately I felt like I'd had this sinful thought. How dare I feel like there wasn't something wrong with my body, even for just 5 minutes? It shocked me when I realized how deeply body shame was programmed into me.

To the women who hate depo and have gained weight on it, why do you stay on it? The best birthday gift I ever gave myself was going off hormonal birth control, and I wish more women could just make the break.

You are all beautiful women. Thanks for being yourselves, asses and all.

[eve]

Gosh, you're a great writer, Cecily!!

I walk that same tightrope between loving my body and its size, and despising my body and its size. I've done so much in the past to f*** up the connection between my brain and my body, I sometimes feel like I'll never just be able to say, "I weigh xx pounds" without having a judgment of some sort that accompanies it.

[Debe]

I love my boobs and so does my dh, I have no butt, my butt is in the front, like a Barbie turned around backwards.
I'd love to be a 12 again (16 now), so close and yet so far

[thisgirl]

"The odd thing about this is that super skinny is simply not beautiful"

Super skinny can be just as beautiful as super "large." The beauty is in the eye of the beholder. We don't all view the same body type as beautiful, which is why we all come in different shapes and sizes.

There was a time in my life, altough not anymore, that I was one of those super skinny gals. I had a very hard time with how thin I was, and was very self-conscious about it. And for you to say that it isn't beautiful is just as wrong as me saying your not beautiful because your not super skinny.
We are all beautiful in our own way.

How do you complain about being made fun of for the way you look and then do the same thing to "skinny" people?

Oh, and by the way....some men do prefer that skinny look....just like some men prefer larger gals, or tall gals, or short gals or what have you. There are enough people in the world that someone finds us all beautiful.

And before you all attack me, I'm not a troll....just slightly offended by the comment which I'll get over. Generally I love the blog, but had to voice my disagreement here.