The Jellies

A lot of people have been discussing fitness advocate Maria Kang and her less than tactful comments about fat people. This has gotten so bad that she was temporarily banned from Facebook. Now, I assume this banning is on her more professional account because it isn't like you can't go and make a private profile with a different name. The only people who really suffer from privately getting banned are the ones who lose all the game accounts they've been working on for years and will probably miss some minor deadline for something. You know, people like me.

Anyway, so she started talking smack about fat acceptance and people taking pride in their larger than average curves. She isn't the only person who hates this, of course. Not by a long shot. She is, however, being loud and annoying about it, and like most concern trolls, she just doesn't see why everyone is so upset that she is pointing out the truth.

Her basic idea is right. Being overweight can lead to a lot of health problems. I say "can" because that isn't always the case. Still, we know it isn't healthy for the most part. The thing is, and this is where her troll trail flies of the rails, when most people are in shape or when they are discussing , thinking about, or judging the fitness of others, health is the last thing on their minds. They are usually assessing beauty and compliance to what is socially acceptable. In a lot of people's minds, health is just a very minor benefit when it comes to that kind of conformity. Bitching about the fact that people don't shame the fatties enough and claiming that it's a health concern sounds like so much bullshit.

Do I think she hates fat people? Hate, as they say, is a strong word. She certainly has a low opinion of us. She thinks we all lack in dedication and discipline and hard work because, in her mind, these traits are only evident in a fit body. This is a rather narrow view, but a common one. Yet it isn't something most folks feel the need to rant about to the point they get kicked off Facebook.

So what does lead to this level of venom?

Jealousy.

Now I am not saying that Maria Kang wants to come down to the donut shop with us fat folk (much), but I am saying her rancor is motivated by a deep and bitter jealousy. It's not about the beauty side of the equation. This is about the social approval side of it.

I'm seeing in this woman the same kind of anger and resentment one finds in people who worked so hard to be popular in high school and are now faced with a popular culture that glorifies geeks, outsiders, and other social undesirables. These people, and people like Kang, work so hard to conform and fit in. It is the cornerstone of their self worth. "Look at how well I follow the rules. Pet me on the head and tell me how good I am." A great deal of their self-esteem seems to be built on the idea that they have achieved things that other people just can't manage to do.

So yeah, I'm sure it's quite a shock to her system when she sees people not only feeling no shame for their fat ways but have also gained a support system around them. I know that she's stated she struggles to maintain her current state of fitness and I know it is a struggle. Still, she shouldn't push that struggle out on everyone else.

ON THE OTHER HAND, I don't think that Maria Kang's choice to show off her body is wrong. She did work hard to look that way and she certainly has a right to feel proud of herself. It's just that she should concentrate on the accomplishment of attaining that level of fitness and not on the how well she has conformed to socially acceptable standards, because that just leads to the dark side. And other women (and men, I guess?) need to get over this shit where they feel threatened by her picture because that also leads to the dark side. She looks good. She worked for that. She's kind of a bitch about it, yeah, but get over it.

I'd like to end this whole mess by stating that I also have a problem with the fat acceptance movement focusing so much on 'look how sexy you are, big girl!" message. I don't think it's helping anyone to just basically state, "Hey guess what, we can sexually objectify you just as much as we do the skinny women yay!!!" Build your self worth in some other area. Be funny. Be creative. Be the best brick layer. Something, anything, besides just an object of sexual acceptance. We need to realize we're more than that.