19-year-old Vega Blossom was food shamed as she waited in line to buy cupcakes behind a particularly slow customer while the person behind her loudly complained. As Vega stepped up to the counter to make her purchase, she heard the woman behind her say, “Thank god, now let’s hope this fat bitch doesn’t buy all the cupcakes.”
In an epic move, Blossom decided to clap back — by buying all the cupcakesin the store.
“Hopefully, this was a lesson in treating others kindly and maybe a lesson in karma as well,” Blossom said.
Food shaming as a form of fat shaming has happened to every fat person I know, including me. Fatphobes comment on our food at a restaurant, our snacks at work, and our grocery carts — even though they are often at the same place eating/buying the same food. When this happens to us we usually think of the perfect thing to say — ten minutes after the situation is over. Sometimes this is done on a grand scale.
Remember when Geoffrey Miller, an Associate Professor of Evolutionary Psychology (and member of several college admission committees) tweeted out “Dear Obese PhD applicants: if you didn’t have the willpower to stop eating carbs, you won’t have the willpower to do a dissertation #truth”? (Pro tip — this is not even close to #truth, let alone truth, but the fact that fatphobes sit on admission committees can and does stop fat people’s progress in academia.) Well, in response the always brilliant Cat Pausé started Fuck Yeah! Fat PhDs, which now has 18 glorious pages celebrating amazing people and showing just how wrong old Geoffrey is.
Click here for some excellent clap-backs from fed-up folks
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Buying all the cupcakes, ha ha! Perfect revenge.
Oh, man, those comebacks are great. The teen who responded to that monster calling her a bitch and telling her not to buy all the cupcakes by *spending the time and money it took to actually buy all the cupcakes* was epic, but the one about the guy telling a fat marathon runner she could win a medal if she lost weight just in time for her to get called to collect her medal is one of my all-time favorites, and the woman responding to the backhanded dinky-diddums “compliment” at the gym by quipping she’s not getting anywhere on a stationary bike is now a new favorite.
I couldn’t help but notice the *overwhelming majority* of these stories of fat people being insulted by strangers happened when the fat person is doing something popularly perceived to be “healthy.” Among the stories are
-A fat marathon runner who had just completed a 5K
-A fat swimmer in the middle of completing her laps
-A fat cyclist at the gym
-A fat eating disorder specialist trying to explain to her GP that the “diet plan” he’s talking up is a textbook eating disorder
-A fat woman’s *wrist* surgeon suggesting bariatric surgery to prevent further injuries to the area… of her wrist… prompting her to ask if he thinks she walks on her hands
On top of that, the other stories involve thin people criticizing fat people for “unhealthy” behavior *while engaged in that behavior themselves,* like the thin woman who decided to excoriate the fat one for taking the escalator while they were both on the escalator, the thin employee with the hidden candy stash complaining about their fat coworker’s diet, or the woman complaining about a fat person standing in line to buy cupcakes while she was, herself, in line to buy cupcakes.
Just… wow.
Loved all these clap backs. I tend to be a little mean sometimes when I get those types of remarks. I’ve been known to respond “I’m not commenting on your body odor, so why are you commenting on my weight?” But usually when someone says “you’re fat!” as if it’s an insult I just condescendingly reply “No shit, Sherlock” or “Can’t get nothing by you, Captain Obvious.”
They usually shut up after that.
My fat self finished my PhD in 3.5 years, and then a medical degree, and now I’m fighting the fight against fatphobia in medicine. Wonder what Geoffrey Miller would have to say about that.