In the body positivity world, you’ll often see women calling themselves fat, as a way to reclaim the word as something positive or neutral. Personally, I used to have a lot of resistance to this, and in this episode, I share how and why my mindset has shifted over time. I also talk about other language people use to describe bodies like “overweight” and “larger” and why the words we use are actually important.
In the body positivity world, you’ll often see women calling themselves fat, as a way to reclaim the word as something positive or neutral. Personally, I used to have a lot of resistance to this, and in this episode, I share how and why my mindset has shifted over time. I also talk about other language people use to describe bodies like “overweight” and “larger” and why the words we use are actually important.
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Rebecca Sigala:
Hello, beautiful souls. Welcome back to the Body Image Revolution. Today we're going to talk about the word fat, because for such a simple, innocent word, it has become one of the most insulting, derogatory, shame filled words for millions of women. And be sure to stay until the end because I'm going to talk a little bit about my signature program, the new Sexy that I actually announced today on social media and Sunday, which is Mother's Day, is when I open the doors for registration. This is the second round of the program and I am so freaking excited to share all of the details with you and all the incredible results that my students got in the last round, and what is possible for you too. Okay, so back to our topic for today. The truth is I've actually had a lot of resistance to women reclaiming the word fat. Fat, which is something pretty prevalent in the body positivity world. I started seeing women call themselves fat, and they said that it didn't mean anything negative to them. It was just a describing word. They'd say like, I'm fat, so what's wrong with that? It was very triggering for me at first. It was a word that is so painful for me and it was used against me and my body for many years. Even as I started this healing journey, I refused to use that word for myself or for others. It just felt wrong. When I was little, I was teased for being fat, even though I was totally average sized A boy in the bus called me a fat Jewish pig, which sent me into a spiral of shame for many years, and then through my teenage years, I'm so fat was said over and over again by myself, by my peers, by my mom, her friends, and women all over the media. I can almost hear that echoing in my ears. I'm so fat. The common response to that was, oh my God, no, I'm so fat. Or You're not fat. You're beautiful. And that was one of the first diet culture phrases that I started to second guess. Yes, because I was like, why couldn't it be possible to be fat and beautiful? One doesn't negate the other. Also, many of my clients in larger bodies would tell me that people often thought they were complimenting them by saying, you have such a pretty face while, of course, simultaneously criticizing and shaming their bodies. It was so interesting to me that women would often tell me that they would rather not go on medication than get fat. Like anxiety or depression medication, for example. They actually felt like their quality of life would be worse if they were fat versus depressed. This is the lie that diet culture teaches us that we must be thin at literally all costs. That thin is our ticket to happiness. If that's true, then why is it that every single person, at least. That I've met no matter what their body type is, has struggled with their body image. Why is it that thin women also have eating disorders and think they're fat and not enough? It's a global crisis. The diet industry has done an incredible job with its marketing and messaging, and it has literally seeped into every single aspect of our lives. I actually cannot think of an industry that has more effectively sold their products and services, like literally everywhere I turn. Women desire to lose weight. Young, old, smaller, larger, doesn't matter who you are. Most women desire to lose weight. If you want some statistics here, I'm gonna throw some at you. This is from Harriet Brown's book, the Body of Truth. Nearly half of three to six year olds in a recent study were anxious about being fat, and 99% of the girls in one 2011 study said that their ideal figure. Was smaller than their current one. Two thirds of 13 year old girls were afraid of gaining weight. Half of the woman who took one Esquire magazine poll said that they would rather be dead than fats. I'll say that again. They would rather be dead than fat. The author Harriet, she actually interviewed a chef at a hospice and learned that many of the women who could still eat refused bread and salad dressing, butter, chocolate desserts, and other quote unquote fattening foods. And these are elderly women in hospice. Even as they were about to pass away, they still could not let themselves eat. The foods that they were taught were bad. Being thin and good about their eating had become so incredibly ingrained in them. That study really hits me, and I've thought about it a lot since I first read it a couple years ago. I was just like, oh my God, that cannot be me. That is not what life is all about. I do not want to believe this bullshit anymore, and I want something different for myself. So fact, the concept, the word, the physical mass is something so feared in our society today that it's become one of the worst things someone could possibly be. So that's really why I was uncomfortable with using that word fat to describe a person. It felt almost dehumanizing, like that's all they were a fat person, nothing more. And that's how some people treat people in larger bodies. But as I've gone on my journey, I started to change my mindset that good equals thin and bad, equals fat, and it's become less and less of a big deal. To use the word fat, even to describe a body because I don't think it's bad. I don't think it's ugly. I don't think it's unhealthy. I don't think that there's anything wrong with having fat on our bodies or being fat. Even as I'm saying those words, I can imagine people being like, but what about diabetes? And what about bmi? And you just can't promote fatness. That's not healthy. That's a big conversation to get into. But when it comes down to it, there are thin bodies that are healthy and thin, bodies that are unhealthy. And the same goes for fat bodies. We cannot determine another person's health simply by looking at them. And honestly, it's really none of our business. Everyone deserves to exist and existing in our bodies. Accepting our bodies for what they are is not promoting a body type or a lifestyle. That's just awful to expect that fat people hide their bodies while thin bodies are celebrated, no matter how they are treated or taken care of. A few years ago, I was having a back and forth conversation with someone in my private Facebook community for women, which is still a thing you guys should join. I'll leave the link in the show notes. Anyway, I used the word overweight and I got this message in my dms that really helped me change a lot of the language that I was using. I'll read the message to you. I have it with me right here. Hey, Becca. I just wanted to point out one small thing I noticed in the conversation with Shelby the other day. I noticed you used the word overweight, and I wanted to share that the term a lot of body positive people are choosing to use now is larger bodies, simply because there's no ideal weight. So no one should be categorized as overweight since that is linked to bmi, which isn't based on science. I wanted to share, since you are a leader and people really listen to the words you're saying. I don't at all wanna sound condescending. It's something that I myself, have been trying to reframe in my own mind this year too. I'm healthy and work out multiple times a week, and I'm in a larger body. Saying that I'm overweight would deem that I'm too much of something. I hope that makes sense, and I'm so glad you're really starting these conversations and helping everyone think about their bodies in a new way automatically. I was just like, oh my God, you're so right. And from that moment on, I literally never said overweight again. Well, if I did accidentally, I'd correct myself right away. Like over what weight? It's based on bmi, which is not an accurate measure of health. Even mainstream doctors will agree on that. Often they say it's just the best they have. Well do better people cuz it has done way more harm than good over the years. So I threw out the word overweight and I still wasn't using the word fat because. It was triggering for me, but as of today, it's a lot more palatable because it's not triggering for me anymore. At least not in the same way. I personally still wouldn't call myself fat because I don't think that's a describing word I need to use for my body. Sure, my body has fat and rolls and all of that, but before using fat, I think I'd use curvy. Voluptuous, beautiful, sexy, if I hear someone else calling themselves fat, I now totally get it. Sometimes I'll even say the word myself and it's always so striking to me how I don't have a negative association with it anymore. When people use the word fat in a positive or neutral way, they are reclaiming this word that used to hurt them. They take the power back and get to redefine what it means to them. Same thing with a lot of words in my life. Feminists and Zionists come to mind first, which are words that are considered bad or wrong by a lot of the world, or even the word slut or slutty. I'm totally owning that and reclaiming it. I'm totally slutty. Seriously, just look at my Instagram and now to me, that means someone who is in charge of their body and their sexuality. Someone who expresses their sexuality outwardly, who enjoys and seeks pleasure, who enjoys feeling sexual and in their body and wearing sexy clothing. To me, that's all positive and liberating and more true to my authentic self. We need to stop hiding parts of who we are for other people's comfort. And we need to stop letting other people name and define who we are. When we do that, we give up our power. By buying into beauty standards, we give up the power we already have within us to feel beautiful and sexy. Because we say we can only feel beautiful if other people say that we are. How fucking ridiculous is that? It is time to take that back into our own hands and decide who we are, what we want to think, and what we want to feel, and never let anyone tell us that it's not possible. Honestly, that's a perfect segue into talking a little bit about my program. Like I said, it's called The New Sexy. It's a group coaching program and the new sexy meaning that it's a new paradigm, a new definition, your definition of sexy. It's about giving yourself your own fucking permission to feel sexy. Because if you wait for society, or literally anybody or anything outside of yourself, you might be waiting for a long time. And even if you do feel sexy because of that outside validation, that will change the minute a person rejects you or your body changes, or you just have a bad day. So that's what this is all about, deepening our relationships with our bodies and ourselves, learning how to love ourselves unconditionally and relentlessly. So that we can be present in our lives. Go after our dreams, end the cycle of generational trauma about our bodies. Teach your kids how to love their bodies. Feel confident and happy, and just feel good. So, so good. Okay, I'm not gonna give it all up at once. There are more details coming on Sunday. And if you're not on my email list, feel free to send me an email to rebecca@rebeccasigala.com and I'll make sure to get you all the juicy updates. Okay, love y'all. Hope this episode was helpful and I cannot wait to hear what you all think about it. You can feel free to reach out to me on social media or by email. Take care.