Lexicon
Language is powerful.
Knowing what to call someone who is overweight is tricky. I personally think "chubby" and "plump" are cute words, but "chunky" and "hefty" are not--your mileage may vary. I think "porky" is funny, though not when used seriously. I think "curvy" is my favorite way to be described, despite the whole personal-ad-euphemism thing.
I was thinking about this because in one of the comments below, I was going to refer to Kirstie Alley as "fat" since she has gained a considerable amount of weight. But I was afraid of offending anyone who was that same weight but did not like to be called "fat." I think I went with "overweight" instead, my favorite neutral term.
Then I started looking up synonyms for "fat."
Synonyms with negative connotations include: chunky, chubby, corpulent, blimpy, gross, lardass, fatty, flabby, tubby, roly-poly, pudgy, plump, and unwieldy. And "fat slob," "fatso," and "two-ton" are even listed in my thesaurus, which is lovely. Oh and I remember "Krispy Kreme" got a big laugh in Erin Brockovich, so much so that the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly counts it among the best movie lines. Yeah. It was funny in context, I guess, but notice that I don't own Erin Brockovich.
Animal-related terms: cow, whale, elephantine, porcine, porky, and piggy. And for anyone who read Judy Blume as a kid, there's blubber.
Personal-ad euphemisms: voluptuous, Rubenesque, curvaceous, curvy, full-figured, plus-sized and zaftig. Those are all positive terms, but there's a certain amount of disingenuousness in some of them. I mean "Rubenesque" is a great word, but to me it comes off a little like someone who is afraid to own her own shape.
Positive connotations: Interestingly, many of the terms used to describe overweight men could be considered positive. Like "beefy" or "burly" or "brawny" or "stocky," these words imply physical strength and substance and are only applied to women when we want to say "big and butch," whereupon they become negative again. (Obviously, it is more acceptable to be an overweight man than an overweight woman. N.B. Jack Black vs. Camryn Manheim.)
As neutral as it gets are the following terms: heavy, overweight, large, big, stout, fleshy, rotund, thickset, heavyset, ample, obese.
So which of these words should we use? I personally hate the word "heavyset" and certainly don't want anything to do with "obese" although it is medically correct.
The word "fat" as a descriptor might be the best we're going to get, except for the fact that it's considered an insult. But what if we try to reclaim the word fat?
The land mine about that can be found when examining at other words that have been reclaimed, such as "fag" and "n----r." [Edited to add little marks. My aversion to that word is too strong.] These words have been reclaimed by people who identify with those groups and therefore it's acceptable for them to use those terms. Whereas someone like me (neither homosexual nor African-American) would avoid those terms as slurs.
But with the word "fat" there is no clear-cut way to determine whether you do or do not fit in that group. Especially if you're gaining or losing weight--where's the borderline? When do you have to stop using it? When can you start?
And in fact if you identify as fat, but other, fatter people look at you and think you're not fat, using that term to apply to yourself would not be seen positively. I am not immune from this; if a size two person is going to call herself fat, I am going to call her someone with a wildly distorted body image.
So how about you. How do you feel about these words? Which one (like me and "heavyset" really sets your teeth on edge? What's the worst thing you've been called? (I think I got called "Wilson Phillips" once, which was creative I guess, but wouldn't work anymore. Why do strangers feel the need to yell out fat slurs, anyway?) What words do you like? What words are empowering? What words should we use?
Knowing what to call someone who is overweight is tricky. I personally think "chubby" and "plump" are cute words, but "chunky" and "hefty" are not--your mileage may vary. I think "porky" is funny, though not when used seriously. I think "curvy" is my favorite way to be described, despite the whole personal-ad-euphemism thing.
I was thinking about this because in one of the comments below, I was going to refer to Kirstie Alley as "fat" since she has gained a considerable amount of weight. But I was afraid of offending anyone who was that same weight but did not like to be called "fat." I think I went with "overweight" instead, my favorite neutral term.
Then I started looking up synonyms for "fat."
Synonyms with negative connotations include: chunky, chubby, corpulent, blimpy, gross, lardass, fatty, flabby, tubby, roly-poly, pudgy, plump, and unwieldy. And "fat slob," "fatso," and "two-ton" are even listed in my thesaurus, which is lovely. Oh and I remember "Krispy Kreme" got a big laugh in Erin Brockovich, so much so that the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly counts it among the best movie lines. Yeah. It was funny in context, I guess, but notice that I don't own Erin Brockovich.
Animal-related terms: cow, whale, elephantine, porcine, porky, and piggy. And for anyone who read Judy Blume as a kid, there's blubber.
Personal-ad euphemisms: voluptuous, Rubenesque, curvaceous, curvy, full-figured, plus-sized and zaftig. Those are all positive terms, but there's a certain amount of disingenuousness in some of them. I mean "Rubenesque" is a great word, but to me it comes off a little like someone who is afraid to own her own shape.
Positive connotations: Interestingly, many of the terms used to describe overweight men could be considered positive. Like "beefy" or "burly" or "brawny" or "stocky," these words imply physical strength and substance and are only applied to women when we want to say "big and butch," whereupon they become negative again. (Obviously, it is more acceptable to be an overweight man than an overweight woman. N.B. Jack Black vs. Camryn Manheim.)
As neutral as it gets are the following terms: heavy, overweight, large, big, stout, fleshy, rotund, thickset, heavyset, ample, obese.
So which of these words should we use? I personally hate the word "heavyset" and certainly don't want anything to do with "obese" although it is medically correct.
The word "fat" as a descriptor might be the best we're going to get, except for the fact that it's considered an insult. But what if we try to reclaim the word fat?
The land mine about that can be found when examining at other words that have been reclaimed, such as "fag" and "n----r." [Edited to add little marks. My aversion to that word is too strong.] These words have been reclaimed by people who identify with those groups and therefore it's acceptable for them to use those terms. Whereas someone like me (neither homosexual nor African-American) would avoid those terms as slurs.
But with the word "fat" there is no clear-cut way to determine whether you do or do not fit in that group. Especially if you're gaining or losing weight--where's the borderline? When do you have to stop using it? When can you start?
And in fact if you identify as fat, but other, fatter people look at you and think you're not fat, using that term to apply to yourself would not be seen positively. I am not immune from this; if a size two person is going to call herself fat, I am going to call her someone with a wildly distorted body image.
So how about you. How do you feel about these words? Which one (like me and "heavyset" really sets your teeth on edge? What's the worst thing you've been called? (I think I got called "Wilson Phillips" once, which was creative I guess, but wouldn't work anymore. Why do strangers feel the need to yell out fat slurs, anyway?) What words do you like? What words are empowering? What words should we use?
26 Comments:
My partner is ....... fat/heavy/overweight/chubby/pick your adjective. Most of the time I don't use any word to describe his weight or body shape, because, hey! his body is none of my business and it's a weird, reductionist way of describing someone. But, if it does come up in context I generally use "struggles with his weight", because I think it's a richer description of the actual situation and closer to describing the person and not just the body.
sasha
Bloater is one I hate.
Lardy is another.
Voluptuous I love - because it sounds terribly confident and assertive.
Statuesque - another word that puts you up on a plinth to be adored :)
My friends loathe it when I refer to myself as fat. They wince and say things like “ Don’t say that, it’s mean” or “don’t be so hard on yourself.” Even when said in a lighthearted manner it raises their hackles. For example, several plus sized friends and I recently went on a road trip to hit a Torrid store. We jokingly called it “the fat girl shopping spree”, but when I mentioned it other friends that had not gone, they were shocked.
It is almost like by my accepting the word, by accepting the fact that right now, I am a fat girl, they are forced to deal with it on a level they don’t like. It is the strangest thing.
Jenniah
My boyfriend uses "Pudge" as a term of endearment for me. I never thought I'd like something like that, but I do. :) I also like chubby. I *hate* the word obese. It just sounds so gross to me. If I'm describing myself to someone who's never seen me, I usually use overweight or large, I guess. They're just more neutral to me. I'm trying to reclaim fat (the other-other F word, after fuck and feminist), but I'm still not %100 ok with that. - Blaise (http://astralounge.diaryland.com)
Oh, just remembered one other thing that drives me nuts. I like the words curvy and voluptuous a lot, but I dislike it when that is associated with "womanly". For example, although it was a great movie, I hated the title of "Real Women Have Curves." Same thing with the Lane Bryant Real Woman ads. Especially when adding the whole "real" thing. I understand that it is rooted in the desire to make plus-sized women feel good, but I feel like it works at the expense of people like my sister, who has a stick straight figure but is as real a woman as any I know. - Blaise
"Positive connotations: Interestingly, many of the terms used to describe overweight men could be considered positive. Like "beefy" or "burly" or "brawny" or "stocky," these words imply physical strength and substance and are only applied to women when we want to say "big and butch," whereupon they become negative again."
Similarly, words which have positive connotations when associated with women have negative connotations when associated with men. I'm thinking terms like curvy. Apply it to a woman and it is appealing. Apply it to a man, and yuck.
Don't you think this is b/c men and women have basically different body types rather than a societal double standard? Husky and burly cause me to picture wide shoulders and barrel chests, which are primarily male attributes. Curvy causes me to think of a big chest/waist/hip difference. Primarily female attribute. Seems natural that there are terms which are positive for one gender that are negative for the other.
I just say that I'm more woman than most people can handle.
That's a good point, Anonymous. (Oh what can I do to persuade you all to register! Is it a pain in the ass to register? Maybe I'll try it myself a little later.) There's a certain way in which language favors men, and maybe I'm overly sensitive to it. You're right that we'd never call a man "voluptuous." Maybe I am looking for a gender-neutral term. Actually "solid" isn't bad. That implies strength when speaking of both genders. Hmm.
There's also an interesting thing that happens with weight-loss journals. They're named things like Losing the Cow or Lose the Buddha or Drop this or Put Down that. Which is certainly true to the idea of losing weight (and I love both those journals, as well as Put Down the Donut) but we're gaining things too, aren't we? Not that we should all name our journals "Getting More Self-Confidence" or "Getting Revenge On My Ex-Boyfriend Who Dumped Me For A Bikini Model" but we do emphasize the loss more than the gain sometimes.
Here's something that you hit on for me as I read this, that I hadn't really articulated before. When I weighed 245 pounds, I never called myself fat. Or any other adjective. I never described my height either. (5'4"). Now that I'm 154, I talk about how I "was fat", a "real Fatty McFatterton". I would NEVER describe somebody else in such a flip manner, by the way. Too disrespectful, by far! I also point out my body flaws now, ad nauseum. My husband just capped on me for this. I NEVER called attention to those fat rolls before, and now that they are (still there, but...) less pronounced, I feel the need to constantly rate them. Same thing with my height. I am always referring to myself now as "shrimpy" or "stubby". It's like, I used to totally disassociate from my physical self; with blinders I would move through life with confidence that if I never mentioned it, nobody else with good manners would mention it either. I LOVE the idea of taking it back, and it was reading smart ass bloggers who come up with REALLY creative descriptors that inspired me to "own it", as it were.
Mo said "Not that we should all name our journals "Getting More Self-Confidence" or "Getting Revenge On My Ex-Boyfriend Who Dumped Me For A Bikini Model" but we do emphasize the loss more than the gain sometimes."
Which I can see - but then again, you can be a fat, self-confident person and fat girls are fully capable of revenge on facile ex bfriends lol
I see diaries that are titled in a "getting Healthier" mode too - and then - well, you can be fat and healthy too.... it all seems to be about "when I'm thinner I'll be able to .." which implies a life suspended - which is a waste.
When I worked at Addition-Elle (Lane Bryant-like store in Canada), all the girls there referred to it as The Fat Lady Store. We didn't see anything really bad in calling it that. Because we were fat! It wasn't like we didn't *know* we were fat, and euphemisms seemed like we were trying to hide something that we really couldn't have hidden anyway. Still, it made smaller-sized patrons uncomfortable.
Ladyloo (ladyloo.diaryland.com)
I wanted to post this link (which has nothing to do really with the topic at hand - only sort of it does {on a whole})
http://www.imdb.com/news/wenn/#celeb1
Scroll down to the section about Moore. It's appalling what people will say about another person's weight. Calling him a beach ball certainly isn't going to help him lose weight. That just pisses me off.
~Lisa
We call it "fat girl shopping" too. I think maybe people aren't comfortable with hearing someone refer to themselves that way not because they want to control them or whatever, but because they don't understand the intricacies and nuances of the language. It can be used empoweringly or it can be used self-deprecatingly as a defense mechanism. Sometimes it's hard to say which is which.
And yeah, Michael Moore is a good example. People love to attack his weight instead of his politics. I think Nader seems to be genuinely concerned about his friend's health, though... like when I look at John Goodman sweating on SNL or whatever, I definitely worry about him. Not because he's big, but because he looks about 10 steps away from a heart attack. Just because we don't want to be fat-bashers doesn't mean that there aren't real health concerns at times... it's just a fine line, I guess.
Personally, I'm not fat - I'm fluffy.
How about "wide-load"? Now there's a synonym for you! When I was in high-school, almost 20 years ago, some male friends (I thought they were my friends, anyway) actually took one of those banners they put on semi-trailers and wired it the bumper of my car. It's something that I have let effect me forever. Sadly enough, I wasn't even overweight in highschool....
""I think maybe people aren't comfortable with hearing someone refer to themselves that way not because they want to control them or whatever, but because they don't understand the intricacies and nuances of the language. It can be used empoweringly or it can be used self-deprecatingly as a defense mechanism. Sometimes it's hard to say which is which.""
Yeah, I dont feel comfortable hearing people call themselves that. I guess because it's always used as a negative-- I dont like to hear people calling themselves stupid, the same as I dont like to hear people calling themselves fat. I know I am not articulating this very well.
But I did have a question to ask-- what is the correct response when an overweight person jokes about/talks about their weight? My coworker today mentioned something about needing to lose "about 120 pounds" and she said it jovially, but I didnt know how to respond. "Uh, yeah, you do."? "No you dont!"? "I think you look fine."? Nervous giggle?
"What is the correct response when an overweight person jokes about/talks about their weight?"
If you know they are working on it, say something positive they do that you admire or know about? For example, I admire you for being dedicated to your program. Or I was inspired to go to the gym this week because of the changes I see you making?
How about:
I support you for making changes but I like you either way? I enjoy working with you, regardless of what you weigh.
I'm not really sure. Just trying to think of polite and supportive feedback and responses. Those are the sorts of things I would go for, so let the feedback pour in if they are socially unacceptable or insensitive things to say.
I like the word "fat". Fat is what I am. I'm not fluffy (I don't have feathers or fur or anything of the sort), I'm not curvy or voluptuous (which imply, for me, bustiness, which I do not have), and obese just makes me cringe (don't get me started on "morbidly obese", which is just horrific).
The worst insult I ever got, which was in high school when I weighed 125 at 5'2" was boys making noises like an elephant walking down the hall whenever I'd walk by, implying, of course, that I made the walls shake with my tremendous weight. Gah!
My dad used to call me Porkahontas as a child and *big surprise* I have lots of issues with my body image and my weight.
I absolutely prefer the word "fat." Yes, it's not quite definable, which is why it's so appropriate. Because who is to say which of us is fat, not fat, a little fat, very fat? It's completely subjective. Also, I am "taking back" the word. When I describe myself as fat, my normal-weight friends wince. A couple times I've asked them why - is it an insult? Only if you intend it that way; being fat isn't an evil thing, it's just a range of body size in the whole spectrum of human experience. Here's a quote from George Carlin, swiped from www.casagordita.com:
"Let's get to some of these other non-victims. You probably noticed, elsewhere I used the word fat. I used that word because that's what fat people are. They're fat. They're not large; they're not stout, chunky, hefty, or plump. And they're not big-boned. Dinosaurs are big-boned. These people are not necessarily obese, either. Obese is a medical term. And they're not overweight. Overweight implies there is some correct weight. There is no correct weight. Heavy is also a misleading term. An aircraft carrier is heavy; it's not fat. Only people are fat, and that's what fat people are. They're fat. I offer no apologies for this. It is not intended as a criticism or insult. It is simply descriptive language. I don't like euphemisms. Euphemisms are a form of lying. Fat people are not gravitationally disadvantaged. They're fat. I prefer seeing things the way they are, not the way some people wish they were..."
From Brain Droppings by George Carlin (Hyperion, 1997)
"The Fat Girl's Guide to Life" by Wendy Shanker has a really good discussion about reclaiming the word "fat". The challenge is stripping the negative connotations from the word and turn it into something akin to "blond" or "tall"--words that have some connotations, but not kiss-of-death shame-inducing connotations.
It's a great book all around actually. I highly recommend it.
- Chloe
Fat is the word I choose to use. It's a friggin' descriptive word no different than thin or short or tall. If we continue to allow people to wield it as an insult fat people will always be thought of as lesser beings.
personally......i am slightly inclined to embonpoint.....thats how j.m barrie described tinkerbell and it means pleasently plump
I feel miserable. I got called "oh yeah, the itty-bitty-girl" Ok so I am not Itty Bitty, but I am not HUGE. I am also 18 weeks pregnant. But you know, no matter what it is that you get called, it hurts.
I hate euphemisms. Anyone using them is basically saying "you're fat and you should probably feel bad about it, so I'll try to be nice".
I'm fat. It's that simple.
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