Fully Loaded Fat

This blog is inspired by Caitlin Moran in her book How To Be A Woman, a so far inherently interesting and fascinating work, inspired by the author's personal experiences. The book is part memoir, part rant, with some interesting sections to debunk the prevailing myth of feminism and feminist activity. On the train back from sunny Croydon (I told everyone it was London), I was reading this section and was inspired to write something regarding one of the prevailing issues with today's modern, disenfranchised youth, and which resonates profoundly with my own experiences and formative years.

Fat: The Biggest Insult

Its the ultimate insult, akin to calling someone a Jew in Nazi Germany or gay in the 1950s. It is the most heavily loaded insult in modern society.

I was fat. I divulged in a proverbial shitstorm of bread, cheese, butter and oncoming diabetes.
I partook in the heavenly, gluttonously decadent act of gorging my already bloated insides and for this I paid my pound of flesh; along with many others. My pounds of flesh were added to  the ever expanding waist of my jeans. But yet I didn't change. Home was a haven away from the onslaught of playground jibes and torments. Now I'm not talking about primary school level, or even the hormone induced formative years of GCSE education. I'm talking about my cognitively mature years of the easily memorable past, even entering my second decade.

I still feel those pains, still feel the barbarous talons of the words and the innate ability to instantly flay the mere green shoots of confidence and self esteem. Flaying instantly my veneer of self-admiration. 
Why does an insult, seemingly innocuous, hold such power over a supposed mentally developed adult?
Its the pressures of childhood and expectation resurfacing into a bubbling cauldron of  a Shakespearian, Macbeth inspired, anxiety and failure. Failure to live up to the ideal. The ideal sprawled across our childhoods and developmental years of a compulsion to fit into the specified mould of attractiveness. It's almost a modern form of Arianism. Fit the mould or be castigated from society. Square pegs and round holes. 

But despite all of this authors assumed truisms and denigrations regarding this idealistic profile, I find my own self, physically and psychologically moulded by the aesthetically obsessed paradigm of the mass community. 
There is nothing that will change this, but you can change yourself. Either change your physical self, or change your psychological self. Change how others see you or how you see others. But, important bit here, you need to be happy in yourself.

I, for all my assumed triumphs in weight loss, have yet to truly develop that sense of comfort with friendship between my brain and my body. It is a guerrilla war of attrition, with my brain continuing its hegemonic position of self-loathing.

The pieces of life for me have been coming together. I have my miniature 4 piece jigsaw of life put together, but still fear the breaking of this inexorably through my weight and figure. No one talks about these issues openly, fatness is not freely discussed, yet needs to be, it is not discussed because it still holds an innate tabooness. This is why the term still holds its highly derogative connotations and is the ultimate derisive remark. It has the power to instantly stop an argument, yet begin one. The ability to inspire a runner or push someone into a gluttonous mess of beer, meat and bread, like a Bavarians wet dream. Fat is a powerful word, and should not be used lightly, but its power lies in the 'arianesque' imagery of the ideal body and society's inability to openly discuss these issues.

Its not healthy to hold weight, it may feel good, but its dangers are to peoples health, in a physical sense. However the derisive and deeply penetrating scything character of the insult adds a psychological dimension to the anguish and reverberating chasm of depression, which is truly dangerous.