Dear Faithful Cheeseburger Readers,
We have a policy here at Eat A Cheeseburger and that is that we don’t defend our writing. We write it, you respond and we leave it at that. We are all entitled to our own opinions and disagreements are inevitable due to the nature of the topic. However, there has been a recent debate among those who commented on the Anorexic Night Jogger that we would like to address.
First of all, we want to make clear that we are not into thin-bashing or judging a woman by the shape of her body whether that body is small or big (or anything in between). We realize that at the end of the day, when we see a girl who we think might need a cheeseburger, we don’t know anything about her. But please understand one thing: we live in LOS ANGELES! This is the land of Thinology and the home of Thinologists . I understand that women come in all shapes and sizes and sometimes that size is small, but in LA (West LA in particular) an unusual amount of them seem to come in one size: XS. So that’s where we are coming from.
We started this blog because we felt like people were walking around this city like it was perfectly natural for all of these women to look like this. And because we truly believe that all women come in different shapes and sizes (and we have lived outside of LA before and therefore know women come in all shapes and sizes) then we just couldn’t see how this thin phenomenon was natural.
Next, let me define a word I used in the title of this post: Fatism. Fatism, like racism or sexism, is the discrimination of people based on their size. Fatism.org describes it as “Discrimination or prejudice based on a person’s weight”. So in answer to one reader’s question about what type of reaction she/he would get if she/he wrote a blog and called it “Drink a Slimfast” here is our answer. Reverse Fatism does not exist.
Because the mainstream teaches us to abhor all kinds of fat, because we are constantly bombarded with messages that fat kills and weight loss is the answer for everything, because there is legislation being proposed against obese people that is reminiscent of Jim Crow Laws, because almost everyone in our society (including us on our bad days) feels the need to be thinner and because there are already so many websites that encourage weight loss, a website or blog with such a title would not get a negative reaction. Why? Because it’s already the norm!
Let’s be honest here, thin women, on a grand level, are not discriminated against like fat women are . We know that because we grew up thin. Maybe we got teased here and there being called bony but at the end of the day, when our girlish figures metamorphed into womanly ones, we wanted the skinny back. Because thin is already the ideal and fat is seen as unhealthy, disgusting and morally wrong, the reverse argument just doesn’t work and until the ideal changes, it never will.
Eat A Cheeseburger challenges the status quo and forces people to think outside of the box in every area. We present these ideas in a way that are challenging and at times may seem a little offensive because we want to get our readers to think about how utterly ridiculous our society’s obsession with weight and body really is.
So we concede the point that we should be careful about how we talk about thin people (after all we ourselves are “thin”). We certainly don’t want to fall into the trap that the media has towards fat people. But please understand that the nature of this blog is to make fun of our society’s obsession with thin. So many of the posts, although serious in topic, are written in a humorous and joking tone. We are mocking the obsession and everything having to do with it.
Like we have written in our About section , our goal is that this blog will open up a dialogue among women (and men too) about our society’s obsession with thin and question the status quo. Too many of us have lived lives of constant food restriction and obsessive weight control and we want all of our readers to break free of all that. That is our goal and we hope ultimately, even though there are disagreements along the way, we are accomplishing it.
We are so grateful for all the support you have all shown us and are particularly thankful for all of you who are promoting the blog and commenting like crazy. ☺
To Eating Cheeseburgers,
Tiffabee
…what is that sticker..!?? “no fat people”…?!! weird . Are the drivers saying that they may turn down a ‘fat’ passenger? Do they carry a scale in the cab? pfft! that is just surreal…
“..please understand one thing: we live in LOS ANGELES!..” *hahahaha!* I did not know that. I love you even more now.
all i have to say is that i love this blog. i applaud everything you’re doing here.
and ps-i love cheeseburgers. especially the ones from steak ‘n shake with that frisco sauce.
that whole theory of temptation, you know? if you want it, you’ll have it… but not necessarily in a healthy manner.
a lot of those poor girls who deprive themselves of “fatty,” or indulgent foods aren’t necessarily missing out… but they are denying themselves of something. and i worry that one day they’ll let go and inhale everything they’ve kept from themselves for so long… or they’ll crack.
anyways, great blog. woo!
You don’t have to apologize. There is a difference between being naturally thin and suffering from anorexia. It’s fine to be thin, but glorifying a mental disorder as “fashionable” or “good” is not.
People can be naturally “over” weight, but nobody can be naturally anorexic.
Just discovered the site. Thank you!
But… about “reverse fatism”. I absolutely agree with your main premise: there no institutionalized or widespread personal discrimination against women who are “too thin”.
Nevertheless, individualized discrimination against extra-thing women? Still not ok. As a feminist, I don’t believe that anybody has rights to anyone else’s body – not to comment on or criticize it.
There is definitely discrimination against people who are thin… mostly in the form of telling them to eat, or calling them skinny, or saying “you must have high metabolism” as if this was the only way to be thin. It’s different than fattism b/c it’s (sometimes) driven by jealousy, and other times driven by people who just don’t like how it looks – wait, that sounds familiar.
Besides – maybe that lady was a marathon runner, but doesn’t have 4 hour blocks of time to practice, so she splits it into morning and night runs. Marathon runners can look anorexic because they are so muscular and lean. Not that I think running 26 miles is natural, in fact I think the opposite, but it’s a goal that some people set for themselves. Judging someone to be anorexic just because they exercise and don’t have curves like you is discrimination too.
i know exactly wat that feels like even my best friend thought i was anorexic before we became friends im so sick of it its called a HIGH METABOLISM
I love your message (in just having been here for about a minute)!
I have to say though that I think there is reverse fatism, and just like reverse racism, it’s not a valid argument. The privileged of the world should not be given credence for being discriminated against for their idealized traits.
So someone yelling, “Eat a cheeseburger” is no where near equivalent to refusing to hire someone, paying less or not promoting someone, or labeling someone as lazy (all covertly of course) because they are overweight. A thin person automatically gets looked upon (by the majority of Americans) as smart, attractive, and well-controlled just with a glance.
I can see the argument that idealizing one body type over another is harmful BUT the default in the U.S. already idealizes the thin. So ‘glorifying’ someone who doesn’t fit the Size 2 beauty myth is hardly out of line, in my opinion.
I agree with the person above. As a person of color, I can tell you that reverse racism does not even come close to racism (after all, their ancestors did not get lynched, raped or beaten, nor were they pulled into police stations with no reason or shot 41 times for trying to pull out ID, so how can not getting ONE promotion or ONE college offer compare?) reverse fatism is not the same as fatism. The thin women may be “tired” of being called thin, or may refer to “high metabolism” but they are still the goal and still trained to be proud of their “accomplishment” (after all, a high metabolism can be a gift rather than something you earned). An overweight woman is automatically consider to be weak-willed, sloppy, lazy, and deficient in any number of ways and it will be the fat woman, regardless of skills or education, who will be paid less than the skinny woman with no equivalent skills or education. So let’s get rid of the reverse stuff. Until you make less money or risk getting killed or beaten, you don’t get an “ism”.