These Coronavirus Weight-Gain Memes Need To Stop Right F*cking Now

These Coronavirus Weight-Gain Memes Need To Stop Right F_cking NowGreetings from social isolation, I hope that everyone reading this is doing as well as possible as we navigate this together. We’re in the middle of a global pandemic, so of course, people are using this opportunity to perpetuate fatphobic bullshit.

To be clear, there are serious conversations online about people fearing weight gain during social isolation, which is in itself indicative of the issues in a society that is built on weight stigma and diet culture. The worst of it, to me, are the memes. Because the memes are seen as “jokes” which means that they get shared and people get defensive about it when we point out that they are harmful, and go into that whole “why can’t you take a joke” bullshit. (Hint – it’s not that I can’t “take a joke” made at my expense that harms me, it’s that I shouldn’t have to.)

Of course people are arguing that this isn’t fatphobic, which is patently ridiculous. These memes are absolutely fatphobic because anything that suggests that a fatter body is a negative outcome is fatphobic. Anything that puts fat bodies in a negative light is fatphobic. This is not, in any way, complicated. And there is never any justification for fat-shaming.

But it’s not just the fatphobia – though that would be bad enough to demand that it stop. These are also harmful to people of all sizes who are dealing with disordered eating/eating disorders/body dysmorphia while dealing with quarantine – in a time when they are often cut off from their typical support and resources, memes like this reinforce a fear of body size change due to eating.

There is plenty of humor to be had without doing harm to other people. If someone can’t manage to find it, then maybe humor is just not for them. Definitely don’t share this bullshit and, if you’re up for it, consider saying something when you see them posted,

You can confront directly, or try something a little softer, like “I didn’t realize it, but memes like this actually contribute to eating disorders and weight stigma, so I wanted to pass that along” and/or you can copy this blog post if you think it will be helpful.

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2 thoughts on “These Coronavirus Weight-Gain Memes Need To Stop Right F*cking Now

  1. Just when I think I cannot be more appalled, I started seeing serious comments whenever the picture of the family in NJ is posted–the family that has lost 4 members to COVID-19 so far and others are still ill. The comments seem to cluster around “well, are you surprised? Look at the size of them” yada yada. Or the comments that the illness and death rates will be higher in the U.S. than other countries because of all the ob*sity. Or the comments (again, serious as can be) that triage decisions should screen out certain groups who are likely to have poorer prognoses, and often in the top three categories listed is, of course, fat people. (BTW, as far as I can tell, these comments are not from medical professionals).

    I weep. I weep for the world.

  2. Why am I not surprised…

    Maybe it will make weight bigots feel better to ass-ume it will kill us all off. Little bigot buttressing there.
    If you are thinking the world will be a better place because a whole swath of people from a group of humans you don’t like are gonna die, yes, you are a bigot.

    I’m a bigot too. I hope it goes through and kills sociopaths, bullies, racists and assholes, oh, and liter bugs.

    I saw the beach partiers and the thought occurred to me, if you told people the virus would make them OB–SE, they would be off that beach and living in Not Face Time World faster than the CV19 could spread.

    Hey there is a near guarantee that. You know how the lack of medical equipment means doctors are having to make “hard choices over who lives and who dies.” Done deal. I know if I were on a gurney next to a gurney holding a thinner person, regardless of health (actual) or life style (assumed), the “un-biased” compassionate physician would pull my plug faster than blinking.

    I’m an organ donor. Pretty sure they’ll pick someone ‘not like me’ to spread my parts out amongst.

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