A blog was posted this morning on the Marie Claire website called,
Should “Fatties” Get a Room? (Even on TV?) by
Maura Kelly, a freelance writer. She wrote this post based on a question her editor asked where: "Do you really think people feel uncomfortable when they see overweight people making out on television?"
Maura gives her opinion very matter of factly where she says some brutal, insensitive and cruel things about fat people in general:
“So anyway, yes, I think I'd be grossed out if I had to watch two characters with rolls and rolls of fat kissing each other ... because I'd be grossed out if I had to watch them doing anything. To be brutally honest, even in real life, I find it aesthetically displeasing to watch a very, very fat person simply walk across a room — just like I'd find it distressing if I saw a very drunk person stumbling across a bar or a heroine addict slumping in a chair.”
There are now over 600 comments left giving their own personal opinions about the post and the writer herself.
You can read in full by clicking over there. Prepare for your mouth to drop. First of all I can’t believe the powers that be at Marie Claire or Maura’s editor would allow her to spew such hatred and fat bigotry. And really, what was Maura’s point in all of this? To get a rise out of the public at large? Did she not think there wouldn’t be some outcry at her WTFckery diarrhea of the mouth?
You’re probably wondering why I would be so outraged. I’m a fat girl, or perhaps I should say a former fatty, who knows full well what the power of hateful words can do to someone’s psyche.
The first time I was called fat was when I was around 8 or 9. It started when I was in fourth grade. By the time I was 12, I was given the nickname “Chunky Chicken” by a boy and had that nickname until I graduated in eighth grade. For years I would only answer to the “Chunky Chicken” nickname.
All through my teen years I was overweight, and by the time I was in college, I was what you could call obese. By the time I was a senior in college I was close to 245lbs and wore a size 24 pants. I was known as the “cute fat girl”. I hid behind food and big clothes and didn’t do anything about my weight, which was slowly spiraling out of control. Hearing that I was a fat slob, chubby and sloth bounced off of me because I had heard it too many times before. I grew numb to the insults and digs. And then one day, six months before I graduated college, I was in my sorority’s lounge (Surprising for some I guess because I was accepted into a sorority as a fat chick) and a few of our fellow frat brothers were looking through pictures of an event that only my sisters were at. One guy lifted up a picture and said, “Wow, who’s the fat dude in this picture?” When I was handed it, I was stunned. The fat dude was me. I was the fat dude wearing a bulky black sweatpants set and a hat. That day a piece of me died inside.
From that moment on I decided to do something about my weight. I started to exercise, and by the time I graduated, I had lost 40lbs. I was then around 190 pounds, and that still wasn’t good enough for me. I needed to lose more. I had a goal where I would reach 150lbs, which for a woman of 5’10 is an acceptable average weight for that height or I would at least get down to a size 10.
I became obsessed with losing weight. I no longer wanted to be known as the cute fat chick because it wasn’t acceptable by those I knew and surrounded myself with to have these extra pounds. I was sick of getting looks and having people tell me I wasn’t taking care of myself. I was sick of people making comments every time I went for seconds at some event or party. I joined a gym and began to work out.
Soon I was working out 6 days a week, almost 3 hours a day. I would get up at 5am, workout until 6:30am, and the when I got home from work, I would work out for another 60 to 90 minutes. I became so obsessed with losing weight that I join LA Weight Loss, which was really a great weight loss center that taught healthy eating. But I fudged with them. I lied about what I ate. Not only had I cut my calorie content, but I was barely eating 800 calories a day. I was living on egg whites, chicken, lettuce and coffee. At one point I ate prunes and jello to make me go to the bathroom more times than I could count in a day. Also at this time I was taking water pills and any other appetite suppressant pill that would help me take off the weight. I refused to be a fat girl, that tub-a-lub I had been thought of as most of my lfe.
And then something both amazing and disturbing happened, I didn’t only get down to 150lbs, but almost close to 140lbs, and you know what? I wanted to lose more. Gone was the girl who would eat 3 bowls of ice cream before bed and drink a 6 pack of coca cola a day. In her place was a close to skeletal, bone jutting, sickly looking woman who had developed an eating disorder. All because being “fat” and “overweight” was thought of as wrong and disgusting as Maura Kelly thinks it to be.
And then a week after I hit my all-time low, I blacked out in the gym one morning. My head was pounding and I could barely move because my body hurt. Not only was I putting my body through such damage by the amount of exercise I was doing, but I was starving myself and popping pills to keep my weight under control to the point I wondered if I could possibly get down to 100lbs.
Before I could do anymore damage to my body, I decided I had enough and wouldn’t destroy myself. I began to eat healthier, didn’t exercise as much and tried so very hard to accept the person I had become.
And when all was said and done, I went back up to a healthier 160lbs. And after 13 years of deciding to live a healthier lifestyle, I still remain at that weight. And I’m not only just eating egg whites and lettuce.
But I still think of myself as a fat girl. I will always have body image issues, as well as issues with food. If it were up to me, I wouldn’t eat, but know I have to, although there are days I don’t want to. There are days I want to spend hours at the gym because I’m so afraid I will balloon back up to 240lbs. There are days I’m afraid someone will call me fat and that I will have a relapse and begin to starve myself again.
When I read the heartless opinions of Maura Kelly, I feel sad. Not only for those she has callously put down, but for Maura herself. She has then apologized for her post and states that that she has a history as an anorexic and her obsession with being thin. She should understand very well then what every overweight person goes through. Being overweight may be a choice for some, but it’s bad enough that we have to go through life with people snickering behind their hands or making cruel comments. I know this all too well as a former fat girl on the outside, but very much still a fat minded girl on the inside.
I no longer look at fashion magazines where this supposed perfect looking woman will stare back at me with her very flat, praying mantis type body with no tits and ass to speak of. I look away because I feel so bad for that emaciated woman, as well as those men with the oiled, 8 pack abs and legs of steel who are killing themselves just because of what we think society accepts as right or normal.
Even after losing close to 90lbs, I have a bulging stomach, jiggly arms, hips and cellute. I have stretch marks that I once thought was the bane of my existence. To me those marks were a sign of failure, or being fat. They aren’t a sign of failure; they are a sign of accomplishment, at least for me. And when I stand naked in front of a mirror and look over my body and see those marks, I think of them as old friends.
The world is not meant to be perfect. People are not meant to fit into one type of mold. There are supposed to be all different sizes, small, big or large.
Marie Claire shame on you for allowing this bigotry to be posted, and Maura Kelly should be ashamed and embarrassed for her bias. The one positive thing that has come out of this is the amount of people who have been very vocal and happy with the way they look and feel.
I am one of them, with my stretch marks and all.
Also check out Insame Hussein's post as well in regards to Marie Claire and Ms. Kelly's post.
UPDATE:
Marie Claire Editor-In-Chief Joanna Coles has responded to Maura Kelly's Fat Bigotry post:
“Maura Kelly is a very provocative blogger,” Coles told us. “She was an anorexic herself and this is a subject she feels very strongly about.”
Coles said the mag has received over 28,000 email responses to the piece, and that Kelly was “excited and moved by their responses.”
While Coles made clear that she hasn’t actually seen Mike & Molly, she added “I’m concerned about a show that makes fun of large people.”
So, if 28,000 readers cancelled their subscriptions soley based on Ms. Kelly's blog post, would Marie Claire still be excited and moved?
Yeah, some WTFckery right here...
