I agree, but I'd like to add that I don't like to say I am fat. I am not fat. I am (insert name here). I have fat, I have too much fat, but fat doesn't define me. I know that's being nit picky, but I just think that is why the term sounds wrong to many people. If someone says that, it makes the loved ones feel uncomfortable because hopefully, they see you for more than just your body type.
I get this alot. I mean, I don't mean to look for people to tell me Im not fat, but I know I need to lose weight and when people tell me I look fine and that i'll look anorexic if I try to lose as much as I want to annoy me.
I know they're trying to be nice, but really I've stopped talking about my weight to everyone but my sister. i don't feel like getting annoyed if I bring it up. :/
I agree, but I'd like to add that I don't like to say I am fat. I am not fat. I am (insert name here). I have fat, I have too much fat, but fat doesn't define me. I know that's being nit picky, but I just think that is why the term sounds wrong to many people. If someone says that, it makes the loved ones feel uncomfortable because hopefully, they see you for more than just your body type.
I understand why people make this distinction, but to me it feels like an artificial one, and often creates more awkwardness than it addresses. Saying I am (descriptive adjective) doesn't mean I expect people to see me for nothing other than the adjectives that describe me, but I'm still going to say
I am fat (not I have fat).
Just as I will continue to say my husband is tall (rather than he has height).
I am creative (rather than I have creativity).
I'm sociable (rather than I have sociability).
I am talkitive (rather than I have... well I'm not sure talkitiveness? talkituity?)
It's only because we used fat as a "bad word" for so long that we have to attempt to make a distinction between the "bad" and "neutral" uses of the word. "Has fat," rather than "is fat" I suppose is one way to do it, but I believe that a better way would be to stop using it as a bad word in the first place. Then using "fat" as a descriptor would hold no more sting than tall or blonde.
Kaplods, I do agree with you. I think there are just too many people out there that still discriminate against those of us who are carrying excess fat....even good people do it without even realizing just because in our society, it's considered very unattractive. For instance, my son has a disability...he is not disabled. It just gives more power to who he is as a person rather than defining him as being completely disabled. I'm not sure if I'm making sense...it has been a long day. As a whole, I don't get offended by the word (fat) if it's used with kindness and caring but most of the time, it's not.
Woman (girlfriend, mom, wife, whomever) says they're fat. There is no response a guy can give that is safe.
If we say - "Yes you're fat" - she will never forget we said that
If we say - "No you're not" - she will come on three fat chicks and complain
If we say nothing - she will complain that we aren't listening.
WHAT IS A MAN TO DO????
Obviously we pick option two because we don't actually care if she complains as long as we don't have to hear it.
Hey, you don't have to be a guy to feel this way. I think a lot of us are find ourselves in that sort of situation. I know if the past if someone has talked about how fat they are, I've laughingly said, "please" or "stop". What I really mean is "Please stop talking about this. I'm uncomfortable." I don't want to agree for all the obvious reasons, and can't disagree because I'm one of those socially-awkward-can't-tell-a-lie types. So I say something else altogether.
I get that all the time too... my boyfriend says he loves my belly... but I hate it. I say it's fat and I'm fat and he tries to say I'm not(he is sucha sweetie...just would like him to be honest).
If I had a friend like you have I would give her a big ol' hug!
That right there would be enough motivation to keep going
DH does that to me too! He loves to rub my tummy (he calls it "sexy tummy" at home) and so people always think I'm pregnant. I've come to love the fact that even though he knows I need to lose weight he still loves me and finds me attractive
Why would you tell someone else that you are fat in the first place? All it does is make them uncomfortable and unsure of how to react.
I'm all for having a realistic perception of yourself, but I don't think it's necessary to use the word "fat." If using "fat" makes someone uncomfortable because it's been loaded with unnecessary meaning, I don't think that person ever need use it. Besides, I think every fat person knows that he or she is fat...and probably 90% of healthy weight women think they're fat, too.
Kaplods, I do agree with you. I think there are just too many people out there that still discriminate against those of us who are carrying excess fat....even good people do it without even realizing just because in our society, it's considered very unattractive. For instance, my son has a disability...he is not disabled. It just gives more power to who he is as a person rather than defining him as being completely disabled. I'm not sure if I'm making sense...it has been a long day. As a whole, I don't get offended by the word (fat) if it's used with kindness and caring but most of the time, it's not.
I understand why people say it, and I try to respect people's wishes to use the term they prefer, but it's hard to keep track of who prefers is and who prefers has (and who doesn't mind either).
My husband and I are both on disability. We tend to use the words "are disabled." I've been corrected before, "You have a disability you aren't a disability" which annoys me, because I believe that I should get to decide how to use the word as it applies to me, and I didn't say "I am a (noun) disability," I said "I am (adjective) disabled."
I tend to say "I am currently disabled" or "I am on disability" because my disability could (at least in theory) go into remission at some point. My husband tells me (when I try to take on more than I am capable of at the risk of my health) "You are disabled."
He means "know and respect your limitations" and that is hard for me, but I don't believe he sees the disability and not me.
I do try to be "politically correct" but the terms keep changing (illustrating to me it's not the words, but how people use them), and it's hard to keep up (and since part of my disability is memory issues, I'm tempted to stop trying).
When I was in college and graduate school, a professors once jokingly predicted that the (then) professionally correct term for mental delays and dysfunction would change in twenty years (as they had twenty years before, and twenty years before that).
And he was right. When I type in the term we had been taught, it gets edited out by the censors.
In twenty years "developmental disability" and "autism" may go the same way. New words are created to prevent the stigma of the old words, which only absorb the stigma until they too are changed.
It's just hard to keep up with political correctness (especially since the "most correct" terms are constantly changing).
Woman (girlfriend, mom, wife, whomever) says they're fat. There is no response a guy can give that is safe.
If we say - "Yes you're fat" - she will never forget we said that
If we say - "No you're not" - she will come on three fat chicks and complain
If we say nothing - she will complain that we aren't listening.
WHAT IS A MAN TO DO????
Obviously we pick option two because we don't actually care if she complains as long as we don't have to hear it.
That is absolutely not just a guy thing.
I never know what to say to a friend who says, "I am so FAT!" If anything, it's worse to hear from another woman, because in addition to wondering how truthful she really wants me to be, I consider her size in relation to mine. If she's way smaller than me, it's a real "insert needle-scratch sound here" moment--makes me want to say, "If you're fat and you only weigh as much as my right boob, what does that make me?"
I'm proud to say that I have never done that to a guy. I've also never asked, "Does ____ make me look fat?" because I consider it mental cruelty.
Yes - I can see that it is clearly not just a guy thing. Excellent point.
Somewhat related - when I was much larger and I said "no thank you I'm on a diet" to an offer of some kind of food people were very positive. Now that I am thin but trying to get leaner if I mention I am on a diet people look at me like I'm crazy. Thus I never speak about being on a diet - just say "No thank you I'm not hungry".
I'm a language nerd (my MA is in applied linguistics and I teach adult ESL) and so conversations like this fascinate me. Feel free to tune out.
Connotations of words can be subtle, change from person to person, and also change over time. My personal pet peeves are: heavy (you're not trying to lift me, right? and I'm also not a grand piano), chubby (I'm neither a 6 month baby nor a bunny rabbit), and fluffy (apologies to the other thread happening now, but I'm not a pillow). I dislike trying to make something seem "cutesy" as though it changes the fact that I'm overweight.
I used to hate the word fat because I associated it with being teased and laughed at. Then I moved to China, where I lived for 4 years and taught English. Very quickly I learned that the Chinese word that gets translated as "fat," even in reference to me, wasn't an insult or even negative 99% of the time, it was just a neutral observation. And it was accurate - I was fat. How could I be upset at someone noticing and saying I was fat when they also noticed and said I had blond hair, or was short, or was wearing a blue shirt?
Someone said it above - kaplods? - but the word "fat" in America, I think, has come to be shorthand for stupid, lazy, uneducated . . . take your pick, but rarely does it just describe a physical condition. And that's the crux of the matter to me.
On another note, it was on a 3FC thread from a while back that I first realized the word "skinny" had a positive connotation to some people. That blew my mind - to me, skinny describes a condition where you need to eat now or you are at risk of blowing away in the first good wind. I guess that's the Southerner in me.
As a whole, I don't get offended by the word (fat) if it's used with kindness and caring but most of the time, it's not.
