Here We Go Again

[Content Note: Fat hatred; disablism; misogyny.]

Professional fat-shamer Katie Hopkins decided to gain and then lose 50 pounds in order to "prove" that fat people cannot be happy and that fat people are liars if they say they can't lose weight.

The TV personality said that after years of relentlessly reminding overweight people that if they just tried a little bit, they too could be skinny. A live TV moment triggered her to finally do something to take her anti-fat theories to an extreme.

During her appearance on the "Late Late Show" back in February, Hopkins was torn apart for her bullying.

"I don't believe you can be fat and happy. I think that's just a cop out," she said on the show in response to the critics. "It's living a lie. It's not having the balls to cope with things and make a conscious effort to say, 'I'm going to do something about the state I've gotten myself in.'"

Just then, a 250 pound woman in the audience stood up and said she actually was fat and happy. Hopkins claims this is the moment that inspired her to prove the "fat and sloppy" woman, and everyone else who is overweight, wrong.

So Hopkins set about gaining weight by eating nearly 6,500 calories a day. Which of course is not the typical caloric intake of any person, fat or otherwise. And once she had gained about 50 pounds, and found herself miserable, as anyone with a pathological hatred of fat people would be, she declared her experiment a success. She had definitively proven that fat people can't be happy, because she wasn't happy.


Fat people who claim to be happy are thus crazy liars.

And the entire thing was documented on camera, naturally, and will air in the United States as a TV series titled Fat and Back. Because what fat people need is for people who bully and harass us to have more ammunition to use against us. Terrific.

I've already said everything I have to say about people who imagine that it's impossible to be fat and happy. I'm never going to convince someone like Katie Hopkins that I'm content, so I won't even bother trying.

What a waste of my emotional energy to try to convince someone who believes I'm a delusional liar if I express my own genuine lived experience.

I do, however, want to point out that this is a basic form of oppression: To deny even the possibility of people's authentic emotional expression by deeming it a lie, deeming it evidence of not having a grip on reality, before they even speak.

And this, too, is a basic form of oppression: To privilege the pronouncements of someone who is not part of a marginalized community over the reported lived experiences of the people who are, even if that person readily admits to despising us.

Finally, once more I will note that this seething hatred is simply about the way we look. It is not about our health. If any of the people who engage in this vile garbage were the slightest bit concerned about our health, they would:

1. Care about our emotional health, and the deleterious effect it has on one's overall health to be constantly policed and bullied.

2. Stop trying to demonize our bodies and shame us for having them, and instead get on board with the idea that there is little incentive to take care of a body you hate, that fat hatred is a barrier to seeking care, that fat hatred kills.

The reason Hopkins can't imagine for a moment that I am happy with my body is that she is so unhappy with my body. That isn't about my health. That's about rank hatred.