Who Would I Be If I Weren’t Fat?
How anti-fat sentiment shapes our world—and our place in it
“You’ve got quite a sense of humor. Do you think that comes from being fat? Do you think you’re overcompensating?”
I think for a moment, combing through family members, funny and unfunny, and a young lifetime of laughing hard. I think of my brother mouthing off to my father so much that my father snapped, “I don’t come home to be insulted,” only to be met with my brother’s lightning-fast response, “Where do you usually go?” I think of my grandfather’s endless stream of jokes, his eyes teary from laughter even as he told them. I think of being the youngest of his grandchildren, scrambling to keep up with astute observations and crackling, electric jokes.
“I don’t,” I say, and notice a wavering kind of certainty in my voice. “But then, I don’t know who I’d be if I wasn’t fat.”
For months, I return to this question over and over again, turning it over in my mind, hoping to reveal its answer like some wayward code cracker. And I come to realize that in recent years, I have studiously avoided the question: Who would you be if you weren’t fat?
There are personality traits to consider. Would I still be funny? Would I have acted more? Would I still write? Would I have stayed on the swim team…
