When Fat Is Never Active Enough
I don’t care what size you are, unless you’ve always been training for the olympics, someone, somewhere has told you or implied that you simply aren’t active enough and are thus doomed to die sooner than…? Anyone? Just athletes? Hmm…Let’s talk about this!
For active is every movement I make throughout the day. To many, active is is only going to the gym or an aerobics class. To others, they haven’t a clue what being active actually is, and I’m beginning to wonder if we’re all a bit confused on ths subject. While I think that being active is a personal thing and that we should seek out only what feels good for our bodies to do and move in, a lot of people in many parts of this world of brainwashours simply think that unless you have some sort of serious regimine, that you’re not healthy. Add in the fat factor and in their eyes, even becoming a gym rat will never be enough.
We’ve even heard it from those we love and trust the most. It can feel like the ultimate betrayal. Even from those who know better, the words somehow still come and you still feel worthless having heard them. I have been there. My very own husband once said to me that he worries about my health and how my fat might affect me in the long run. What?! Yeah, and this was well after I got into FA and started reading up about it. I think reading “Health At Every Size” helped me and him, but me more since I still get shit like this from people.
The worst is when a partner says something like they cannot be attracted to someone who doesn’t care about their health (by not being active in their eyes). It’s so wrong on so many levels. For one, they are already in a relationship with and having sex with you…suddenly the topic of fitness or activity comes up and they think they can get all high and fucking mighty by shaming you this way? If they were telling the truth and this was how they felt? Why the hell are you with them and they with you? Think on that. Why wait until this topic to come out with such a stupid (as in ill-informed) statement? Shouldn’t they have mentioned this on one of your first three dates or something? I think it makes them look like an ass, plain and simple. But it happens. It’s total bullshit and if it were said to me in this way, well, I consider myself a pacifist, but someone would be walkin’ funny for awhile. Thanks.
We live in a society that has been brainwashed. This is my opinion alone. I do think that we’ve all been marketed to for so much of our lives that at some point you stop thinking on your own and simply adopt the socially acceptable thoughts and judgments of the day. And some of us stop to think and question and look beyond just what’s being shoved down our collective throats. Some of us steer away from mainstream media and try to find the truth or the man behind the curtain (Wizard of Oz reference). And when you do? When you do see behind the proverbial curtain and find that the power behind every message we’ve ever been sold (or told) is money and nothing but money money money? You have to stop and wonder if what you like, what you believe, what you know in your heart is truly your own or were you marketed to believe it? Is purple really my favorite color or is it simply this season’s trend? How can you really know?
I don’t have the answer, but I do believe that it is up to each of us individually to decide what feels best, what matters most and what we see as our true and authentic selves! I have reached that point in my life where the false niceties and put-on charms are worthless and truly meaningless. I have little patience for false hopes and bullshitters! I pride myself on my honesty and willingness to seek out the truth, fight for it even. I know what matters most to me. And what matters least is money.
I had a bit of a revelation yesterday. I was thinking about my relationship with my husband (13 years, woo) and how I am so bad at asking for what I want of or from him. I was really, seriously thinking about this. How could this be? Why do I still, after all of this time, have the almost inability to straight up ask him for something or to do something? He will often point out that I will say things like, “Is that window open?” or “Do you think it’d be better if…?” rather than simply asking him to close the window. And I could not figure this out. I knew it bothered him, I tried hard not to do it, but I still fucking do it! And then the revelation came: Growing up poor means that everything you ask for gets shut down. Everything I’d ever wanted, no matter how small or simple, got shut down usually before it even left my lips. Living with that constant rejection tangled up in an endless feeling of WANT left me unable to simply ask for things. Why I refuse help when offered (working on this, too) and why I often talk myself out of possibly fantastic opportunities.
My point is that even when we think we know something, we don’t! When someone shames us for something? They may not even know why or believe what they said themselves. These epiphany like moments are so few and far between, but damn so I/we learn so much from them! I think if we stay more open to what our gut tells us (or intuition, whatever you call it), we may just find our truer selves in there and finally be able to overcome or tune out those messages and marketers once and for all.
What do you think?
At least the question of color love/marketing is fairly easy. If you liked purple before it was THE color, and continue to love it after it becomes the pariah of the color wheel, then you love purple. If you revile purple when yellow becomes the color du jour, then you are a total fucking victim of marketing.
In a way, that’s how you tell with more or less all of it. If you stay the same when the new bandwagon rolls by, then you’re probably authentic. And if you change before the new bandwagon comes to town, you’re probably authentic. But the fact is that society is always there and the question will always lurk in the corners.
BTW, have you ever seen the movie Josie and the Pussycats? It was marketed as an average dumb teen movie, but this is precisely what it takes on in a gloriously cutthroat way. Ironic, huh? The very people who would get it and love it stayed away in droves while people who were just looking for some vacuous pop tunes disliked the message of ‘don’t be a sheep.’ The movie tanked despite being made of awesome because of the crap marketing. Maybe it was intentional, maybe not. I don’t know. All I do know is that a worse campaign couldn’t have been designed if they were trying. I’m just saying.
Anyway.
Breaking years, even decades of programming is hard. Just knowing you’re in a negative pattern isn’t enough to break it… but once you know the pattern is there, that’s when you can look for ways to break it. It’ll take persistence and determination, but it is possible. Just don’t beat up on yourself for not breaking down the walls instantly.
I had no idea about Josie and the Pussycats being anything but pop-tween-fantasy. Good to know. And anyway, I think I am made of persistence and determination! Ha-ha!
Thanks!
Wow! Your comments about not being able to ask for what you want really made me think. I have a dear friend whose wife is really, really, not good at this…to the point they are separated. We’ve talked a lot about how he can help her to ask for what she wants. She was raised in the projects, and also feels a lot of shame about what she does and doesn’t deserve because of her weight.
All of which he is aware of, but I don’t think either of us has framed her need that way. Thanks! This insight may be very useful to them.
Funny. Hubs and I were both raised without much, but I don’t have too much trouble either asking for what I want or just grudging on to make it happen. We’re both the youngest kids-maybe that has something to do with being able to grab it while the gettin’ is ( or maybe isn’t ) good.
I need to think about this a lot more.
Hmmmm. Very interesting idea.
Wow! That is interesting. And to be honest about it, it makes me a bit fearful. Over the past year or more, my husband and I just don’t talk like we used to. We have always been best friends, tell each other everything, sort of a couple. And the other night I had a moment where I straight up asked him what changed? Then I realized that a bit part of it was getting our dog last March. This on top of running my cafe and him taking the pup to work with him every day. It’s left us both tired and stressed out. But the affection has waned, too. He is an introvert, certainly, but he’s been so quiet the past year it is beginning to freak me the hell out, ya know? Silence is my Achilles heel. I cannot handle it. Especially when he walks around like something is bothering him but never says a word no matter how much I press or give him space. I’m at wit’s end. We get along fine otherwise. At least in the sense that we still love each other and don’t fight or anything. But he is a known bottler of emotions and often it takes something he just can’t deal with on his own before he lets it all out. I hate that it is this way, but I cannot force him to change or even to see why it’s so unhealthy. Combine that with my seeming inability to ask for the things I want (like some damned attention) and it hasn’t been very fun at our place in awhile. Oh well, 13 years is a long time, I’m sure we’ll find a way. Thanks.
I think you’ve hit the nail right on the head with the first half of this post – that no matter what a fat person’s activity, even if they are training for hours and hours a day, it will never be enough. Not until they are thin. I think I might write something myself on that topic soon.
But with the second half of the post, I think women in particular are conditioned that just coming out and asking for something, in making their intentions, wishes or desires clear, they are somehow unfeminine. That it makes them pushy or demanding. When from a man, it’s considered assertive, and “as it should be”.
I hope things turn a positive corner for you and your husband, I’m sure they will. Things do that between people who have been together long term, they shift a bit and you need to negotiate your way through the new territory and new feelings. I’m sure you’ll be ok.
Yeah, that post didn’t come out as cohesively as I’d hoped. But I am glad that both halves seemed to ring true for some. And yeah, what is up with that?! Women “Nag” but men are simply assertive? Bullshit! Sadly, my husband is neither. He’s so quiet and passive at times that it scares me. Better quiet than yelling though. Thanks for the love. Sending some back at ya! <3