By Andrea Miotto
NOTE: This article uses the word “fat” in an effort to reclaim a term others have used to shame us. By using it, I am not trying to hurt but rather to empower.
Fat people and people with mental illnesses just might be the last groups it’s socially acceptable to degrade openly for a good laugh. In the media we still find examples of subtle or unexamined racial or other prejudices, and people are, happily, called out regularly on these. Overtly racist and homophobic jokes, on the other hand, are waning fast in mainstream media. But fat jokes and jokes punching down at the “crazy” are blatant, gleeful and unashamed.
They hurt.
It’s not just isolated jokes. Sometimes it’s whole movie plots that distort and sensationalize mental illness (see Split); whole websites dedicated to fat jokes and the hatred of fat women; endless games and sit-coms in which the “comic relief” character (or the wise friend or the wacky neighbor or the amusingly incompetent villain) is fat and jolly (and always sexless) or quirky and funnily crazy (but in treatment or struggling). Stand-up comics do whole routines on fatness and its funniness or “psycho” exes suffering from hilarious obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Media offerings like this hurt my heart when I hear them, and they are hurting our society. They coarsen the ability and willingness of “normal” people to empathize with those shaped differently from them and those who suffer from invisible health problems in their psyches. They add to the suffering of great numbers of people already in great pain. They contribute to the awful stigma society places on the fat and the mentally ill, which studies show causes people to avoid seeking life-saving treatment. (1) If you’re fat and have heart problems and you’re too ashamed to talk to your doctor about becoming more fit (simple weight loss is not correlated with overall improvements in health), then stigma is killing you—or at least making your death more likely. If you’re fixating on killing yourself and you’re told by ignorant people who have watched too many movie characters heal their mental illness by getting a manic pixie dream girlfriend, to just “get over it,” then stigma is killing you. What do fat and “crazy” stigma have to do with bisexuality? Everything. Bisexual women are already at significantly higher risk than other groups in this country for mental and physical health problems. The US Department of Health and Human Services states that bisexual and lesbian women have a more difficult time than straight women finding health treatment and fitness programs sensitive to their particular health needs. (2) A Norwegian study released in 2013 found that bisexual women, compared with straight men, straight women, gay men, gay women, and bisexual men face the greatest risk of all these groups for “mental health problems, poorer self-rated health, more sexually transmitted diseases, experiences [of ] loneliness and … suicide attempts.” (3) In 2016, the Daily Beast reported on a Drexel University study that surveyed the primary health providers of 2,500 people aged 14-24. (4) Among the findings was that “lack of acceptance for bisexuality is behind an increased risk for depression, anxiety, substance use, and suicidal thoughts.” And pride.com reported on a study by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine that found bisexual women in the UK were at 26 percent higher risk of depression than lesbians and had more eating disorders.
With all these health risks, bisexual women can’t even turn to the one community that should bolster us and greet us with support and love. We still face significant social isolation and stigma even within the LGBT community just by virtue of our sexual identity. (6) Bisexual people in general tend to be closeted these days much more than our straight or gay counterparts, with all the stress and shame that entails. Bisexual women who are fat and/ or have mental illness face the double health hazard of stigma surrounding their sexual identity and their shape or health. And women of color face a literal triple threat: stigma around their sexual identity from people of other sexual orientations. Stigma surrounding their shape or health, and the tremendous stress of operating in a racist society.
The good news is that there are groups out there fighting discrimination and stigma surrounding fatness and mental illness. Check out these websites (see Resources below), call out your friends/ acquaintances/colleagues if you hear fatness- or mental-illness-related jokes, contact the media to protest stigmatizing stereotypes and join the fight. It’s quite literally a fight for our lives.
Resources:
- https://www.thebodypositive.org/what-we-do
- https://www.sizediversityandhealth.org/about.asp
- https://www.nami.org/stigmafree
- https://adaa.org/learn-from-us/from-the-experts/blog-posts/ending-mental-health-stigma-generations-come
- https://bringchange2mind.org/
Andrea is a fat, proud, and queer woman who works for a nonprofit organization near Baltimore, Maryland. She is also a writing and reading tutor and freelance writer, editor, and proofreader. She has worked on web sites, newsletters, books, and more. To hire her, contact her at amiotto@yahoo.com.
- bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12916-018-1116-5; www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/nurturing-self-compassion/201705/the-catastrophic-effects-mental-health-stigma
- www.womenshealth.gov/blog/one-size; https://publichealth.gwu.edu/content/landmark-study-helps-overweight-lesbian-and-bisexual-women-adopt-healthier-habits
- uni.no/en/news/2015/01/30/bisexual-women-struggle-more-health/
- www.thedailybeast.com/bisexual-women-are-at-higherrisk-for-depression-and-suicide
- www.pride.com/bisexual/2018/9/27/8-reasons-we-needtalk-about-bisexual-women-mental-health
- www.thedailybeast.com/are-bisexuals-shut-out-of-the-lgbt-club; https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3966467/