What a Shame

During the week, a noted bioethicist (here’s the link ) came up with the brilliant idea that fat people should be shamed into losing weight.

What a novel idea-making fun of fat people! Because that has never been done before. For whatever reason, fat people in our size-zero obsessed society are easy targets.

Yes, there is an obesity epidemic, but shaming isn’t the answer.

From the time I was thirteen, I was made to feel ashamed of myself for being a little bit overweight (seriously- 128lbs on a 5’3” frame). It wasn’t just from complete strangers shouting caustic remarks for all to hear but also from supposedly ‘well-intentioned’ people who were supposed to love me. Some family members felt they were doing me a favor by pointing it out  (all under the guise of constructive criticism) and telling me things like ‘you don’t want to be the fattest one in the wedding party’ or my all time favorite: 'no man wants a fat woman, that's just the way it is'. Then there were the 'boyfriends' who preferred it if you looked like your sister or worse, offered to pay for a fat camp when you hit 160lbs in order to ‘save’ the relationship. (And no I didn’t go- it was just easier to break-up).

Not once did any of the shame lead me to a better path of taking care of myself. In fact, quite the opposite happened. The constant focus on my weight and the subsequent shame of it ballooned quite literally into chronic weight gain and an eating disorder. At the end of all that shame, you’re left battered and bruised and eventually you are unable to separate your self-worth and your identity from the number on the scale. It becomes an inverse relationship: the higher the number goes on the scale, the worse you feel about yourself until you reach the stratosphere of not caring at all. And even if you do manage to get your weight under control, you still have to deal with the feelings of worthlessness and low self esteem, for that is a by-product of continual shaming.

This is what you learn when you are made to feel ashamed about your weight: nothing matters; it doesn’t matter what you do in your life, what you accomplish or what you achieve; or how good or kind you are. It means nothing because you are fat. That is both the message and the corrosive nature of shame.