I Feel Fat
I have heard those three words uttered countless times. If those words have never crossed your lips then I bet you’ve heard them said by a co-worker or friend. Women similar to the three women in the above picture have probably said those three words irrespective of the fact that they have three vastly different body types.
Newsflash people: FAT IS NOT A FEELING!
Emotions have the following parts: subjective feelings, physiological (body) responses, and expressive behaviour. If fat was a feeling it would have some kind of expressive behaviour. Think about this: if you had to act out the feeling/emotion of sadness it would be easy. You would maybe have some tears streaming down your face and your head down with an upside down smile. Now act out surprised: Eyes open, mouth open, eyebrows raised and hands to face. Now act out “fat”. All you may be able to do is puff out your cheeks or some other PHYSICAL interpretation/depiction of what being fat is but there is no emotion that is being expressed. Be conscious of how you feel not how you look. Looks are not everything!
When you Google: define: fat there is not one definition that includes a feeling or emotion. So why do so many people say those words? Am I suggesting that people should listen to this picture below instead?
No! The above picture is also a horrendous outlook to life. Pretty is not an emotion. Fat is not an emotion. People really need to take a step back and realize that how they feel does not need to be directly related to how they think they look. All “skinny” girls do not have awesome lives; likewise all “pretty” girls do not have perfect lives. There is no guarantee that being thin or being gorgeous translates into happiness. Instead of uttering the words “I feel fat”, I would like you to accurately assess your feelings because only then can you address the problem. The problem is not your weight or your health, the problem is that you are possibly unhappy. You may feel sad or lonely or depressed that you have gained weight or think you look bigger than you normally do, but you cannot “feel fat”.
Too many people think that changing the way they look physically will change their lives and that they will become happier. Do you really believe people who say: “I will be happy if only I had bigger breasts” actually become happy forever after surgery? There will always be points in life when you feel that your body or face is not what you would want it to be, but it takes a change in attitude, not surgery to become truly happy. I’m not saying I am opposed to surgery. I’m saying that one should not depend on surgery or physical alterations to their body to change how they feel about themselves or to feel happier. If you were truly overweight, your weight is not what leads you to be happy one minute and “feeling fat” the next. Your weight is also not the root of your problem, just like the fact that credit cards and malls exist are not the root problem for a compulsive shopper. The problem with “feeling fat” is the inner emotional state that the person is experiencing such as unhappiness, loneliness, anger, or depression; not the literal fatness.
I feel that it can only be a good thing when people begin to be conscious of the way they FEEL rather than directly relating how they feel to their LOOKS and physical appearance. Next time, try not to “feel” a physical characteristic and actually state an emotion, you owe yourself that much!
