What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat

by Aubrey Gordon

Concern trolls lament our size, offering compliments only with judgmental caveats attached. You’ve got such a pretty face. If only you’d lose some weight. Their eyes follow our fork from our plate to our mouth and back again, sometimes even freely commenting on what we eat, whether we eat, and how much. When challenged, many become defensive, even indignant. I’m just trying to help. Food surveillance and policing are especially insidious and pernicious tactics of many concern trolls. For many fat people, concern trolling doesn’t end at overt comments about our food, size, or perceived motivation. Sometimes, that concern turns into invasive, deeply personal cross-examinations that I’ve come to call thinterrogations. Some thinterrogations are confined to dieting. Have you tried paleo? What about keto? Did you track your macros? Did you work out? Did you cut out bread? Did you cheat? You must have been sneaking sugar. You probably aren’t doing it right. Others become deeply intimate, with thinterrogators asking after the trauma they’re certain must be at the root of my size. Were you abused? Molested? When did it happen? How? Are you in therapy? Is it comfort eating? I’m an emotional eater, too, and here’s how I beat it. Have you tried Overeaters Anonymous? EMDR? These trauma voyeurs, often strangers or acquaintances, have invented an etiology of my body: a troubled past, a mental or experiential defect that has led me to maladaptive behavior. A fat body must be the result of...