In which Anna gets under my skin

May I direct you to the always brilliant little.red.boat for a funny and poignant post on, shall we say, a sizeable issue. One close to my heart. And hips.

Apart from the evil NURRRSE JEAN! — pleased to say I've never experienced such a walking disaster in a healthcare situation — this all sounded painfully familiar. Lifelong natural roundedness? Check. Consistent surprise when actual weight is revealed? Check. Increased girth after falling happily in love? Check. Defiance? Check. Resentment at the very idea of having to stop enjoying food in the way I do? Check. Sense of failure as a feminist for caring too much? Check.

It would be ridiculous to say that not enough has been written on the subject of fat, but I don't think I've ever read anything that I felt came close to unpacking the huge* complexity of the issue. I'm particularly fascinated (and frequently distressed) by the lack of understanding of chubbies by non-chubbies. There is such a gulf between the Fattipuffs and Thinifers; skinnies just don't get it. I know. I live with one. And have spent much of the past nine years trying to bridge the gap, in the interests of not murdering him in his unsuspecting sleep one day.

Here it is. I have always been a curvy wench. I always will be a curvy wench. Having dieted myself into a low-carb, lightheaded frenzy a few years ago, I think I can safely say I know what I look like at my skinniest (bar actual anorexia or famine), and Skinny Scroobious still has soft bits. A teeny tiny little waist, yes, but a gently rounded belly, and well padded thighs. And, of course, my cups still runneth over, and we won't complain about that. I know the shape of my ideal self, and it's a pretty cool shape, but nowhere near the general fashion ideal. And the softness is impossible to budge — seems I will never be one of those people whose skin fits neatly over their muscles.**

Beloved, on the other hand, is naturally wiry. He's a born runner, he has tiny little bones and strong muscles; he is now chubbier than he has ever been in his life (seems even Thinnifers are not entirely immune to the dangers of being in love and well fed) but that little extra padding around his waist is still almost invisible to the untrained eye. So there are certain basic physical differences between us. The lightest I have ever been is about 2kg heavier than he has ever been or is likely to be.***

There are also, as you might expect, certain differences in our eating habits. I love food; I especially love creamy pasta, fresh bread and quantities of cheese, and all variations on chocolate and ice-cream. There's a special place in my heart for junk food. Salads bore me. I believe "yes please!" is always the right answer. You can see how I end up rounded.

Beloved enjoys food. He loves my cooking. But he doesn't fundamentally care. He's less critical, and conversely less appreciative, of meals than I am; when cooking himself, he tends to forget to add seasoning. He doesn't look forward to meals (except, obviously, when hungry). He would never fantasise about a perfect meal when planning a holiday, as I have been known to do. He doesn't ever want to eat something just because it's there (say, someone's birthday cake at the office). He is capable of that utterly alien problem, forgetting to eat; and then when he gets hungry, he will fill up on half a packet of chocolate digestives. When he lived alone in London, he was perfectly happy surviving on biscuits, peanut butter sandwiches and tinned ravioli.

Tinned ravioli.

The man is clearly a freak.

But here's the thing: this is not enough to explain the difference in our respective sizes. No. He starts each day with a huge bowl of sugary muesli; I eat a small bowl of sugarfree, wheatfree cornflakes.**** We eat dinner together, the same food, the same amount. We eat comparable lunches at work; actually his are frequently larger than mine. It's true that when he's home alone, he's more likely to forget lunch, but then I'm more likely to skip breakfast. There are times when I snack a lot, there are times when I don't. I generally get more exercise than he does. Even when I am on strict diet (it happens; not often, but it happens), and he's eating more than me, and exercising less — even then, he is skinny, and I am not.

Which is fine. That is how he is. This is how I am.

The problem is that, like most Thinifers, he doesn't understand what it is to like food maybe a bit more than he does, and to have maybe a slower metabolism, and most of all, he doesn't understand emotional eating, or how it feels to be fat.

Beloved is a very loving, caring, supportive chap. But he is sometimes quite astonishingly short on empathy. He means well; he just Does Not Get It. This applies to various situations, but most especially to the Question of Chub. In his skinny male brain, he thinks: She is fatter than she wants to be. (True.) It is possible to change this by diet and exercise. (True.) Therefore she wants to diet and exercise immediately. (Uh...) I can help by pointing out that she is fatter than she wants to be and that she really shouldn't have that chocolate she's reaching for. (NOW HOLD ON ONE DARN MINUTE!!!)

I know he's not alone in this failure to understand. Reading Anna's post, and the comments on it, it is painfully obvious that the world is full of clueless people. People who somehow believe (as Beloved tends to) that being fat is a sign of a disgusting lack of self-restraint. Now, I guess that attitude is no more unreasonable than my own ingrained (and obviously self-sabotaging and childish) belief that I should be able to eat WHATEVER I WANT SO THERE... but how is it that fat becomes so important in judging a person? How is it that a person's size becomes their defining characteristic? How is it that it becomes okay to judge them — even in Anna's comments, someone suggests that a fat person regularly eating at McDonald's is fair game.

It's enough to drive a person to the dessert trolley.

(Full disclosure: my latest diet started on Wednesday. Which may or may not have anything to do with my crabbiness on that day.)

_____
* No pun intended. Honest.
** This is a bit mystifying to me. Exercise makes my muscles rapidly very strong and hard, but there is always, always a soft layer over them; usually quite a thick fat duvet, as Bridget would say. Dieting reduces that layer, but doesn't erase it. My skin fits me loosely. That's just how it is.
*** And it does bother me, actually, to feel like Jack Spratt's wife. My boyfriends have (almost) all been around 10kg lighter than me. Ladies are supposed to be small and delicate. I do not dig this inversion.
**** Don't imagine this is me trying to be restrained. I just prefer the cornflakes, and can't eat a lot in the morning.