The body as a combat zone. Especially about size 44
Many years ago, we were not together so long, I was with my girlfriend Rike on the way to Brandenburg. A small, romantic weekend trip, just the two of us. At the train station, she pointed grinning at my bag and asked if I had to take half the household with me just because we were leaving the city for two days. I really do not like it when others rate the size of my luggage.
Being prepared for all eventualities is just important to me. And two sweaters for a weekend are still one to me, rather two too few. Noticeably annoyed I answered mine? slim? Girlfriend, that not everyone could travel only with two small pants and my clothes just needed more space. Rike shook his head and rolled it up. I, however, had a new nickname for her: little pants.
At breakfast I asked her: "Do you still want coffee, little pants ?? While walking through the woods I shouted: "Not so fast, little pants, wait a minute !? At some point she had the faxing fat and snapped at me from the side, that I should leave that please. Where is your problem? I asked her. Is it now averse to having a small dress size? She took a breath: "I just find it annoying that you have to keep reminding yourself."
We started to argue. And got madder. She, because I did not take her anger over that nasty nickname seriously, and I, because I could not believe she was really upset about such a trifle. After a few minutes of blows, we got on it, what went wrong: Who likes it when his own body must serve as the subject of a joke? Being reduced to physical features rarely feels glamorous. No one likes to be (pre-) condemned, and yet we almost do it all.
My body has been a political issue since childhood, no, my body is made a political issue: The doctor, who warned me with my tight little legs that I? Soon? fit in my clothes. The derogatory sayings of the classmates (? Oink, oink !?). The girls chatting in the tennis camp, because I am not only fat, but always came back to the tent as the last of the morning jogging on the beach.
I only have my stomach. And double chin. Was always like that and will probably stay that way. In our argument, Rike asked me why I focus so much on externals. But for me it is everyday! I am so often reduced to my appearance that I had long since adopted this look myself. If you constantly reflect that the outer shell is extremely relevant, you just get used to it.
Rike had already heard silly sayings about her body. But not in the crowd, and rarely with the ugliness, as I experience it since my childhood. Small pants? It seemed like a trifle to me. A small, if bad joke.
Rike and I discussed it for a long time. In fact, never stopped like never before. About our feelings of shame and uncertainty we speak today as a matter of course. Also about how angry it makes me that girls and women should always take up as little space as possible: Please slim, unobtrusive, dear. But never the loud, fat woman who has something to say.
Meanwhile, I have been doing something funny for many years. I sit down and say a sentence that almost no woman says voluntarily. It goes like this: Hello, my name is Magda, and I'm fat. I speak about it professionally? my? Being fat and how fat bodies are socially valued. Or rather: be devalued. It's not a picnic, more like scratching your fingernails on the board. The saleswoman smiling mockingly when I ask for a size 50 garment. The fear that I will not fit in the plane seat. Or laughed at.
The comments on my eating behavior, regardless of whether I eat salad or chips. The unsolicited advice Twitter trolls write to me, even though they do not know me, let alone my medical history. The fact that my state of health determines how respectfully I am treated. The automatic assumption that I signed up at the gym because I want to lose weight? not because I enjoy movement. The certainty that this nonsensical formula called Body Mass Index still decides today how well one pays or whether it is hired. Enough of the examples? I just started!
By the way, we owe the horrible terms "normal weight", "overweight" to the body mass index. or? obese ?, also? morbidly obese? called. That's where we learn to be like Dicken: we're not normal. Thank you, dear World Health Organization! It is responsible for squeezing our complex lives into a handful of categories.
The values for who as "overweight"? applies, were lowered in the mid-1990s by just this organization. Millions of people were suddenly redefined as overweight mules, even though they had not gained a single pound!
Further scientific findings: The previous assumption that the so-called overweight is associated with a shortened life span, can not be claimed as a flat rate. Although obesity correlates with an increased risk of many diseases, this, too, must always be considered as a function of age, gender and social status. A Danish research team even announced in 2016 that the BMI associated with the lowest early risk of death is in the area of so-called obesity. Is About the new normal?
Although I know all this, I still can not turn off the annoying voices in my head: Yes, exactly, those little beasts who still whisper to me with relish that I'm ugly, monstrous, just not adorable. Who throws so easily the learned uncertainties that are instilled from an early age with a huge ladle?
I am still surprised when the cheese tray in my hand is not commented, when no one looks at an angle or advises me to finally do sports. Advice is not for nothing: a little advice, lots of punches. I long for a world in which a fat body can exist. So without ridicule and discrimination, of course. Incidentally, aircraft seats do not have to be that small. And clothes do not stop at size 44.
When the small, annoying beasts in my head plague me again or a flat-whistle drops a spiteful tweet in my direction and asks me if I'm about to burst, I say: Could be. I'm bursting with anger soon.
? FA (T) SHIONISTA. Round and happy through life? is the title of the book Magda published at Ullstein.
