Kill the Crazy Fat Talk
And boost your self-esteem
“Truly. Don’t laugh. Does my bum look big? I can wear something else…”
A typical question from a wife to her beloved before they go out.
“Yes. It’s as big as a bus! Can we go now?”
A typical answer from my husband, which, about twenty-five years ago, cured me of crazy fat talk.
“A bus? What kind… A double-decker or one of those little vintage types?”
“A really old — emphasis on the old — triple-decker.”
Note* Of course, some women wear extra padding in their underwear these days to boost buttock volume, so if my hubby was right, I’m super-trendy now.
My unaccommodating, no-nonsense spouse taught me a fine lesson. His refusal to take fat talk seriously forced me to give it up for good.
Still, we had to go through similar conversations on and off for several years before I finally noted it wasn’t worth talking about body size.
“Do I look slimmer in this one” — I hold up a black dress — “or this one? (I hold up another black dress).
“Can’t you wear what you’ve got on?”
I look down at my shabby jeans and shrunken punk rock tee shirt, and he smirks before saying:
“You might as well. I’m not changing.”
“Oh.”
The key to my mental transformation rests in not having someone join in with my delusion about needing to look smaller, and I recognize the main reason I ever went down the fat talk path was out of habit.
Back in my teens, I often shared changing rooms with other girls when trying garments on for size in boutiques.
“What have you picked to try? Put it back! Big patterns on the butt equals a big butt. And stripes should be vertical. Horizontal makes your waistline grow.”
Our usual comments, back and forth.
Those were the days when physical transformation shows were all the rage on TV, and PC meant personal computer, not politically correct.
Women were told there was something wrong with their appearance and they ought to disguise themselves, squeezing into support knickers — I never went that far personally — or at least avoid clothes that weren’t slimming.
Now, politically correct is supposedly in, and yet women are fat-shamed like never before on social media and subject to glossy advertisements showing photo-shopped beauties under the average size, which my friends and I always were.
Average. But we didn’t know it. We thought we were huge.
Maturity — passing years — often brings confidence and adds wisdom. You discover, hopefully, you were never faulty and become grateful your body does all the marvelous things you want it to do.
I wonder, though, whether fat talk would have continued longer in my house had I not the benefit of my cheeky spouse’s unrelenting refusal to budge.
If you still live amid ongoing comments and conversations about not shaping up, or rather not being the right shape, you might take a leaf out of my hubby’s book.
Become a stubborn mule, and don’t budge when a friend tries to get you to join in with rubbishing her self-image. If your retorts are like my spouse’s, though, make sure the person on the receiving end understands your sense of humor first.
Now, I don’t even think to ask anyone’s opinion about how I look before I go out. Those days are long gone, and I’m happy in my skin. Nonetheless, I am quick to spot relatives and pals who try to goad me into fat talk on their behalf.
Instead of saying, “Yes. You look much slimmer in the red dress than the blue,” I’m likely to say, “Wear the one that makes you happiest, and you’ll look terrific.”
I steadfastly ignore fat talk by steering away from it and don’t fall for the mistake of accidentally advocating it under the guise of support.
When someone prone to fat talk wants you to say they look smaller than they are, it’s not as kind as you might think to satisfy them. Doing so encourages them to carry on attempting to be ‘less than’ rather than accepting there’s nothing wrong with them.
Who, after all, decided people should be a particular size? When you think of it like that, you can see how ridiculous the whole idea of trying to shrink must be.
The only sane reason to consider shrinking is for health. If your weight interferes with healthy functioning, it’s wise to take action.
Or if your size makes you feel physical discomfort, you might think of losing weight. Other than that, the only potential reason — a bad one — to slim is to fit in with a mass-produced illusion; hysteria that suggests you should be small.
Sanity is accepting your size, whether naturally large, small, or somewhere between the two.
“Damn! I look fabulous in this dress.”
“Get out of the way of the mirror. I look better than you. I’m gorgeous!”
A typical conversation between my husband and me before we go out these days. Much healthier than fat talk.
Copyright © 2019 Bridget Webber. All rights reserved
