I rarely encounter a disorder story about obesity. The majority of the narratives I hear illustrate the trauma on the other end of the spectrum: anorexia, bulimia, orthorexia; the paradox of overweight people lacking visibility in our public discourse is addressed by Roxanne Gay in “What Fullness Is”. There is a societal condemnation of ‘fat’ people, and the media only acknowledges them through mockery and demonstrations of what will decrease longevity. To physically take up extra space, yet feel as though your true character is unacknowledged underneath the excess weight is an experience that exploits the body and invisibilized the soul. This week is National Eating Disorder Awareness Week, and I personally cannot share a first-hand experience with obesity; however Roxanne Gay has an underrepresented tale of pain and gravity that warrants more recognition than it receives.
It was incidental that Gay’s memoir entered my sphere of influence. The algorithms tailoring my media would not have brought me to her writing, so I came across Gay by means of a compendium of nonfiction essays in The Norton Reader. I had never heard someone’s experience with a gastrectomy, plus the fact that Gay was for years celebrated as a spokesperson for ‘fat positivity but underwent this procedure, made this journey worth a read. It was a fascinating recount of the shrinking of her liver from a scientific perspective, but it was more so a testimony of physiological unfulfillment and conflict. Gay’s weight loss was not the solution to the years of ostracization and pain; “I had to face the extent of my unhappiness and how much of that unhappiness was connected to my body. I had to accept that I could change my fat body faster than this culture will change how it views, treats, and accommodates fat bodies. And I had to do so while recognizing that losing weight wasn’t actually going to make me happier—which may have been the bitterest part of all”(Gay, 142).
Body insecurities are normal, but they should not dictate how we craft our identities. Unfortunately, we place immense value on the appearance of bodies. We live in judgment of ourselves, and those criticisms are then projected onto others as a way to compensate for our own self-doubt. Gay, like many others, struggled to accept herself, despite her position of body advocacy. She fell victim to the loathing that consumed her and manipulated her body into rejecting anything more than very small portions of food. She was searching for acceptance by means of changing her physicality, and that artificial modification did not bring her comfort. She was certain that culturally, people would never welcome her shape and love it, and that notion was so upsetting and exhausting, that she resorted to a quick fix that would never ease her internal suffering.
The issue that stands is that we have set standards for one image of the body which qualifies as worthy. Those bodies that do not conform to this construct are vulnerable to attack. We all strive to fall into this ideal body type because we fear the hurt of being deemed undeserving; “The truth is that my desire for weight loss has long been about satisfying other people more than myself, finding a way to fit more peacefully into a world that is not at all interested in accommodating a body like mine”(Gay, 137). We understand ourselves in the context of social principles, but forget that joy will not be gifted to us from abiding by these social codes. We make the most significant decisions of our lives based upon the harsh opinions of others. Living under the authority of those who are cruel and dealing with their own uncertainties only removed us further from our independence and happiness.
The eating disorders publicized are focused on self-imposed patterns which are geared towards being thin. We do not hear about overeating and obesity as frequently because once a body reaches that level of largeness, it no longer holds the potential for beauty. People that restrict calories and overexercise are living in a place close enough to the glamorized body, so we give them the attention to achieve that perfect point. Obese people are too far past the point of opportunity to suit our tastes. Because of this, we are indifferent to their needs and casually promote procedures to ‘cure’ an issue that requires far more in-depth emotional work and discovery. The fulfillment we seek will not result from the morphing of our bodies. Gay tried to take this route and was unsuccessful. This narrative needs to become common knowledge because gives us evidence against our conventionalized way of mistreating our bodies to reach a socially constructed illusion of perfection.
Gay, Roxane. “What Fullness Is.” The Norton Reader: An Anthology of Nonfiction, edited by Melissa A. Goldthwaite et al., 15th ed., W. W. Norton, 2020, pp. 136–44.
Goldthwaite, Melissa; Bizup, Joseph; Fernald, Anne; Brereton, John. The Norton Reader (Fifteenth Edition) (p. 144). W. W. Norton & Company. Kindle Edition.
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