I’m finally moving! And it is STRESSFUL and my microphone is packed, so this week we’re doing a re-run of one of our foundational episodes, all the way back from spring 2016–the Good Fatty episode.
In our culture, fat people are expected to be making every effort to become un-fat. Every day we must be proving that we’re trying our hardest to lose weight in order to make sense to the rest of society, and as long as we continue to prove our efforts and talk about our healthy decisions we get a pass.
My friend Alison Zwecker joins me as co-host for the day, and we’re talking about social inclusion and the “good fatty.”
So “good fatty” is a concept that refers to a fat person who is
deemed exempt from social exclusion based on how they handle or react to
their fat. There are several different types of fat person who are
generally considered “good” in our culture, and fat activist Stacy Bias
outlines these types thoughtfully and beautifully on her blog (http://stacybias.net/2014/06/12-good-fatty-archetypes/). It’s
a huge concept and way more than we could take on in one 30 minute
show, so we’ve chosen to focus on the good fatty archetype that we
encounter most frequently: the work-in-progress.
A work-in-progress fatty is one who is fat but who is doing
everything in their power to become un-fat. This good fatty is on the
swirling ride of diet culture without even knowing it and without
knowing that they can choose to get off. They have been dieting their
whole life and they know that part of the deal they have made with
society is that they must announce their desire and intention to lose
weight in return for its approval.
In this episode, Alison and I talk about the tornado of diet culture,
the good fatties who are trapped inside, and what we can all do to keep
the vortex at bay in our own lives.
The music in this episode is Talking With You by Artificial.Music and is licensed under a Creative Commons License.