Fat Suit

Episode 1

The idea of the proverbial fat Suit may possibly be a tired metaphor.  It may possibly be cliché and well overused.  However, maybe it really is accurate.  I completely believe that my fat is not me.  I am in here somewhere.  My appearance, my body, my fat suit does not show the world what is inside and what I am capable of.  My appearance is deceptive.    

I feel like a beautiful, capable, intelligent, and talented woman.  I feel sexy, and pretty, and tall, and graceful.  I feel like a thoughtful, helpful, and active human being.

 I am not lazy.  I am not dumb.  I am not slow in thinking.  I am not helpless.  BUT, I think my appearance often portrays those things. 

It is very difficult not to think of myself in the way that society treats me.  It is difficult, but not impossible.  I have been working on how to handle it, how to deal with it, and how I should feel about the judgments that others make when they see me as just an overweight, incapable, less intelligent member of society. 

I met a friend for lunch one day.  We stood in line at the Paradise Bakery, my friend ordered first.  The employee at the register was a young man, possibly of Asian origins.  His shoulders were about the width of one of my legs. 

“Would you like a Coke with that?” he asked my friend and she accepted, swiped her card and shuffled over.

“Would you like a Diet Coke with that?” he asked me and waited politely for my response.

“No, water’s fine, thanks,” he charged me for my chicken salad and bottled water then put two complimentary chocolate chip cookies on my tray without my consent. 

We sat at a small, teetering table across from one another.  She eyed my tray. 

“Hey! How come you got two?” she asked and retrieved both cookies, knowing that I often forgo eating sweets. 

“The kid was confused,” I said simply, and smiled.  “More for you, I guess.”

            I have often wondered about that difference in offering me a diet coke, and my firend a regular coke.  I had watched the man go through the line of customers asking the average and small sized customers if they would like a drink, and asking the customers with a few extra pounds if they would like diet.  His criteria seemed odd to me.  It was also very odd that he gave me an extra cookie when the meal only came with one.  Did he believe I should be on a diet, but then also believed that I would like additional dessert?  Where did this variance in treatment of the customers stem from?

One time I was shopping at the mall.  A woman who passed me by smiled kindly and gave me a compliment. She said:

“Oh that is a lovely top!”  I smiled back and began to nod my “thank you” when she added, “You are so brave for wearing such a bright color at your size.”    

Both of these types of situations are not uncommon.  We could very well assume that the insensitive remarks and attitudes are just a simple case of people being ignorant.  But, how can the majority of a society be so ignorant as to think that a large person should not wear bright colors, or that a large person will only want to drink diet drinks?  I understand this was just one man at a restaurant and one woman at the mall, but I see and hear and am shown this type of prejudice by people over and over and over again. 

I like to think of people as good and kind, in general.  I try to be unbiased in my treatment to others.  I could easily judge someone, but it makes no sense, simply because I have no earthly idea what brought them to where and who they are today. 

As members of a very diverse society, I feel it is more than ignorant to make judgments based on appearance.  I feel the habit of assuming a fat person is less intelligent because they don’t appear to understand the concept of calories in versus calories burned, to be a tragic assumption.  The individuals who make those types of assumptions may be wonderful people, and may have a lot to offer the world.  But, what will they miss out on by continuing to feel as though overweight people are inferior? 

How often do we make assumptions based on someone’s appearance?  How often do we miss out on really getting to know and really learning about someone else because of our ignorant judgments getting in the way of seeing a person for what they truly are? 

I know that humans beings are capable of looking past the fat suit, and past the poor suit, the uneducated suit, the dissabled suit, an all the other suits that do not define who a person is on the inside.