Understanding Weight Stigma, Fatphobia, and Thin Privilege
I want to unpack these concepts for you, but first I want to tell you why it matters that you understand them. First of all, understanding these concepts matter because they, unlike racism and sexism and many other ‘ism’s’, don’t get talked about enough. The world is starting to wake up, we’re starting to have hard conversations about hard things, but discrimination isn’t reserved for race, gender, and age. Discrimination because of the size and shape of your body is real—it is pervasive and harmful. The second reason is because these cultural issues play significant roles in the development and maintenance of eating disorders, disordered eating, and body image concerns.
I’ve always cared about social justice issues. At my core, I am an advocate. This past summer, I took a multicultural counseling class and it fired me up even more about these topics and issues. It helped me see the many privileged identities that I carry, and I want to acknowledge that here. I am white. I have thin privilege. I live in an able body. I am cisgender. I am heterosexual. I am middle-class. I also carry identities that historically haven’t been so privileged, like being a woman. And identities that in 2020 aren’t so privileged, like being a Christian. But regardless, my privilege has buffered me, in a sense, from having to show up and do my own work surrounding my cultural identity. Until this past summer when Dr. Douglas Ribeiro shook me up and made me look at myself and my cultural identity in a whole new light.
The size and shape of your body is a cultural identity. And like any other cultural identity, such as race, SES, or gender, it is subjected to stereotyping and discrimination. And that’s where terms like weight stigma, fatphobia, and thin privilege enter stage left.
Weight stigma is discrimination, stereotyping, and bias based on someone’s weight. Weight stigma is like any other stigma (disapproval or discrimination)—it’s based on judgment and assumptions. Making assumptions about another person based on their weight is harmful and inappropriate. Without getting to know another person, perhaps a fat person, you really don’t know their story. You don’t know their history. You don’t know if they have an invisible illness. You don’t know if they struggle with body image or an eating disorder. Become aware of your assumptions and the stereotypes you’ve internalized about size diversity.
Weight stigma can increase body dissatisfaction, which is a leading risk factor in the development of eating disorders. It also impacts mental health. According to the research, weight stigma is a significant risk factor for depression, body dissatisfaction, eating disorders, and poor self-esteem (1). Point blank, weight stigma makes people feel awful about themselves because at its core, it is a form of discrimination. Weight stigma moralizes body size, and it makes people in larger bodies feel as if they don’t belong.
People who are victims of weight stigma report that medical professionals and family members are the most common sources of discrimination. And according to the research, “diet talk”, which those who live in larger bodies are more likely subjected too, is linked to binge eating, restrictive eating, weight gain, and extreme and sometimes dangerous weight control behaviors (2).
This leads me to fatphobia, which is quite literally, fear of fat. I want you to sit with that for a second. How does that feel? If you are a thin person with thin privilege, it may feel uncomfortable. You may want to deny that you’ve ever judged a fat person or thought of them as lazy, unhealthy eaters who need to exercise more for “health” which really just means “thinness” so that they can fit into the accepted and idealized “norm.” Look, if that is you, I want to tell you it’s okay. It’s not your fault. We’ve quite literally been brainwashed to fear being fat, which is in part why the statistics on eating disorders continue to rise! Our western culture believes that being thin is morally better, which I will unpack a bit more when I speak to thin privilege. But please do not shame yourself for having judgmental and “bad” thoughts towards people who are fat.
But do get honest with yourself and acknowledge this reality. Become aware and educated about it. This process might be uncomfortable and awkward for you, but growth usually is. If you are thin, do you know that you’re thin? If you are male, do you know that you’re male? If you are cisgender, do you know that you are cisgender? What I’m getting at is this— sometimes we don’t take time to reflect on our cultural identities and how they influence the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves and people who are different from us. The privileges we carry blind us to this important work. The goal is not to eradicate completely your biases and stereotypes because that’s a far-fetched, borderline impossible goal. I hate to break it to you, but you’re human, and we’re always going to be imperfect. The goal is to become aware of what your biases are and decide if they are congruent with your personal values. Let self-compassion be your friend on this journey because like Dr. Ribeiro taught me, self-judgment and guilt are really poor motivators for change.
I mentioned the word above but let me unpack thin privilege a bit. A privilege is a special right or advantage granted to a person or a group of people. If you are white, you have inherent privilege in western culture. If you are a male, you also have inherent privilege. Meaning that you didn’t necessarily do anything special to earn that privilege, you just inherited it. Some people claim that being thin isn’t a “privilege” because they say that there is a choice involved with being thin. This is not a black and white issue, so stick with me and put on your thinking cap.
Their argument is basically that people can achieve “thinness” by dieting and restriction. Which, by the way, is just a socially accepted form of disordered eating, thanks to “wellness culture”, also known as diet culture in disguise. The research is really clear, despite all the cultural noise and the stories that we’re sold by a 66-billion-dollar diet industry who wants your money and couldn’t care less about your health, diets have a 5% success rate and some people are biologically designed to have a larger body. So sure, it was a “choice” to keep the weight off and maintain thinness, but it definitely wasn’t natural, normal, or healthy, and it was most likely a result of disordered eating patterns.
Another argument from thin-privilege disputants is that it’s not a privilege because people also get body-shamed for being too thin and that thin people have body image issues too. One of my favorite humans in the Intuitive Eating and HAES world is Christy Harrison (MPH, RD, CDN), and she puts it this way, “You can have thin privilege and also hate your body.”
Thin privilege isn’t just reserved for supermodels, or people who love their bodies (which, if you know those people, consider them a rare breed. Because I think “loving your body” all the time is unrealistic. I think body respect is realistic, and that’s what we should be aiming for.) Anyways, Christy puts it this way in one of her blog posts, and I think it’s worth quoting.
But like any other kind of privilege, thin privilege actually just means that by virtue of some characteristic of your body—in this case, being below a certain size—you have greater access to resources and face less discrimination in society than people without that characteristic.
People in larger bodies (i.e. people who wear plus sizes) face consistent, systemic oppression—not just body-shaming by a few individual assholes, but an asshole culture that makes it difficult or impossible to find clothes and spaces that fit, healthcare that’s effective and non-discriminatory, equal access to employment, and all of the other basic human rights that we all deserve.
The term “thin privilege” is meant to highlight this systemic disparity, and to call out the fact that dignity and respect and equitable treatment shouldn’t be privileges reserved for smaller-bodied folks at ALL—they should be universal rights afforded to everyone, no matter their size.” – Cristy Harrison (MPH, RD, CDN)
Thin privilege is a cultural issue. It’s a social justice issue. Because all people, despite their body size, deserve to be treated equally, to have equal access to resources. This issue isn’t just a social justice issue though, it’s also a mental health issue.
Weight stigma, fatphobia, and thin privilege are all cultural and environmental factors that play a huge role in the development and maintenance of eating disorders and body image issues.
It’s no wonder the statistics on eating disorders continue to rise! Beliefs that are grounded in weight stigma and fatphobia are loud and overwhelming and quite literally everywhere. And once you become really aware of these things, you’ll start to see the subtle ways that weight stigma and diet culture are infused in almost every aspect of western culture.
Of American elementary school girls who read magazines, 69% say that the pictures influence their concept of the ideal body shape. 47% say the pictures make them want to lose weight (3). The best-known environmental contributor to the development of eating disorders is the sociocultural idealization of thinness (4). By age 6 (yes, SIX), girls especially start to express concerns about their own weight or shape. 40-60% of elementary school girls are concerned about their weight or about becoming too fat, and this concern endures through life (5). In a large study of 14- and 15-year-olds, dieting was the most important predictor of a developing eating disorder. Those who dieted moderately were 5x more likely to develop an eating disorder, and those who practiced extreme restriction were 18x more likely to develop an eating disorder than those who did not diet (6).
These statistics really fire me up. They fuel my passion for becoming a therapist who works with people in recovery from disordered eating. It especially fuels my passion for working with children and adolescents because this is where the seeds of weight stigma are planted. Kids are intuitive and they’re constantly internalizing the dominant cultural messages around them. And if what they see and hear, even covertly, is that being thin is morally better than being fat not only are we setting them up to have a disordered relationship with food, but we are also setting them up to judge and stereotype people based on the size and shape of their bodies. And this is not okay with me.
I ask you to look within. Consider your biases. Consider your stereotypes about size diversity. Consider your reactions to people in larger bodies. If we want to help people recover from eating disorders and disordered eating behaviors, we have to start to pay attention to the dominant cultural narratives, privileged identities, and environmental factors that are contributing to their etiology.
References:
1. Andreyeva, T., Puhl, R. M. and Brownell, K. D. (2008), Changes in Perceived Weight Discrimination Among Americans, 1995–1996 Through 2004–2006. Obesity, 16: 1129–1134. doi:10.1038/oby.2008.35
2. Golden, N. H., Schneider, M., & Wood, C. (2016). Preventing Obesity and Eating Disorders in Adolescents. Pediatrics, 138(3). doi:10.1542/peds.2016-1649
3. Martin, J. B. (2010). The Development of Ideal Body Image Perceptions in the United States.Nutrition Today, 45(3), 98-100. Retrieved from nursingcenter.com/pdf.asp?AID=1023485
4. Culbert, K. M., Racine, S. E., & Klump, K. L. (2015). Research Review: What we have learned about the causes of eating disorders - a synthesis of sociocultural, psychological, and biological research. J Child Psychol Psychiatry, 56(11), 1141-1164.
5. Smolak, L. (2011). Body image development in childhood. In T. Cash & L. Smolak (Eds.), Body Image: A Handbook of Science, Practice, and Prevention (2nd ed.).New York: Guilford.
6. Golden, N. H., Schneider, M., & Wood, C. (2016). Preventing Obesity and Eating Disorders in Adolescents. Pediatrics, 138(3). doi:10.1542/peds.2016-1649