"Many of us who are
above "normal" weight refer to ourselves as
fat
when talking to ourselves or close friends, but we
bristle at anyone else doing so. In interviewing for the
book, Size Wise, I at first danced around terms, trying
to avoid offending anyone. With an unerring ability
always to guess wrong, I believe I managed to make
everyone wonder where my head was.
"At first I stuck with the commonly used term
overweight.
The response was often, "Over whose weight? I prefer
to think of myself as fat. It's a short,
simple, and descriptive term. Nothing more."
"An even bigger blunder was in falling back on the
clinical term obese. Even those with
medical backgrounds would say, "Obese
is a medical term inferring illness. Just because a
person is fat doesn't mean they are sick."
"Finally getting brave, I blurted out
fat
. . . to the wrong person. "What do you mean,
fat?
I'm just overweight. Besides . . . it's
temporary!"
"At that point I decided that I might as well just toss
all the choices into each conversation - overweight,
chubby,
heavy,
hefty,
chunky,
plump,
calorically
challenged, obese, stocky,
zaftig,
stout,
corpulent,
large,
extra-large,
supersize,
husky,
oversize,
jumbo,
big,
roly-poly,
tremendous,
pudgy,
rotund,
heavyset,
big-boned,
great,
fleshy,
round, and, for those of use with that
certain European mystique . . . en bon plump
(French for "person of plumpness" or "in
good condition"). Why not just offend everyone and
get it over with? But that wasn't really such a good idea
and certainly not my intention.
"Overwhelmingly the descriptive word of choice among
individuals who have come to terms with being a larger-than-"normal"
person is the word fat. It is time to
decriminalize this word. I have chosen to use it on
occasion throughout the book and on this web site and
mean no offense to anyone. Those of you who just don't
care for the term should feel free to mentally change
each occurrence of fat to whatever word you prefer. I won't
be offended."
It isn't the word. It's the intention behind it.
