An Adventure in Implied Buts

"You're not fat... you're beautiful"

How many times have you heard that? It may seem like a compliment. Telling somebody they are beautiful - that's a good thing, right? And telling somebody they are fat - that's an insult. The problem here is with the implied 'but'.

"You're not fat - but beautiful."

The 'but' implies that fat and beautiful are mutually exclusive. Some people are fat, and telling them that they aren't achieves nothing. All a statement such as this does is reinforce the belief that fat is a Bad Thing, and that beautiful a Good Thing.

But what if somebody ISN'T beautiful?

"You're not ugly... you're awesome!"

We aren't easily fooled. There is a set standard of beauty to which we compare ourselves and others. If we don't match up, we know. And what's more, cosmetics companies know, and they profit from our insecurities and desperate need to get closer to this image of perfection.

How much money would a campaign like this make?

The message is clear. You can't be ugly and awesome. And if being fat means you can't be beautiful, then you can't be fat and awesome either. We have to be surrounded by the message that everybody is beautiful, and by extension not fat, because otherwise we can't believe that we, ourselves, might be awesome.

Frequently people are told that looks don't matter if one possesses an 'inner beauty' which 'shines through'. I find this equally problematic. I don't want any part of me to be measured by how 'beautiful' it is. Why should my personality be judged by an aesthetic quality?

When I was receiving inpatient treatment for anorexia, a lot of time was dedicated to reassuring patients that they were smaller than they perceived themselves to be.

"You aren't fat".

Of course this is often necessary, especially in early stages of recovery. Even as I write this, I admit that I am guilty of asking for reassurance that I am not fat. Forgive me, reader, for this hypocrisy. I'm working on it.

Treating disturbed body image by pretending that the Feared Thing won't happen, when it might, doesn't work.  It is more sensible to teach people that the Feared Thing isn't all that scary. Let me demonstrate.

It's the difference between this:

And this:

Or, alternatively this:

And this:

It's the difference between telling somebody that that they aren't getting fatter, (which, when you are putting on weight as part of treatment, is a misnomer), and telling somebody that there is no shame in being fat anyway. There is no such thing as a fat person or a skinny person. There are just people, with different, fluctuating bodies. Body shaming has no place in treating eating disorders.

What we need to hear, what everybody needs to hear more of, is this.

"You can be fat AND beautiful. You can be a great person and NOT beautiful. You can be fat and living a healthy lifestyle. You can be fat, not beautiful, not healthy and STILL BE a great person. There is no correlation between a person's size and a person's entitlement to a good life on this planet."

We need to stop conflating meanings. More to the point, we need to stop making unsubstantiated connections between separate personal attributes.

Let's stop trying to convince everybody that they are beautiful, that they aren't fat, and instead try to convince them that it doesn't matter.

Not yours... mine,

BT