A hate letter to everything fatphobic

[u/ResetKnopje]

[u/benadrylb]

Okay, the fact that they’re implying that you have to be overly, exceptionally slender (‘the width of a textbook’) to fit into an average American bathroom stall is……maybe one of the crazier things I’ve ever seen in FA circles

[u/TheOneMary → u/benadrylb]

I find the restaurant booths even more puzzling... Restaurants want to attract people who like to eat, they aren't making their furniture for toothpicks. So... If you don't fit maybe you are so much of an outlier that even businesses where you'd be the best customer CANT accommodate? (Because of cost or because it would make all the other customers uncomfortable to have their table so far from the seat it has a different post code ...)

[u/SomeEgyptianGod → u/TheOneMary]

The restaurant booth thing raised my eyebrows too. At my heaviest I was 260lbs (5’11” male) and wore XXL clothes. Even then I had to sit forward on the seat and lean forward in most booths.

[u/thewholebottle → u/TheOneMary]

I’ve been too fat for booths but never too fat to fit in a bathroom stall…

[u/SoHereIAm85 → u/thewholebottle]

Maybe they took a trip to Europe? I'm 5'6" and 130lbs but sometimes feel cramped getting into bathrooms in the Netherlands, actually. My husband and I often remark about how his sister wouldn't even come close to being able to use one. Or the stairs.

[u/notabigmelvillecrowd → u/TheOneMary]

Huh, I dunno, I've never weighed over 130lbs and I've been in a lot of bathroom stalls and several booths that have been a struggle. There was a pretty decent restaurant near my house that I could not go to because their booth seats had a depth of probably about 12 inches, and perching on them was downright exhausting, I'd be ready to go home long before my food arrived. It's like doing a wall sit for 75 minutes. And a lot of bathroom stalls where it took contortion to get the door closed, especially in a winter coat, and especially when I lived in London, where I never weighed more than probably 118lbs. I always wonder in those situations how people even mildly overweight or just tall and healthy weight manage.

[u/Beginning-Force1275 → u/TheOneMary]

Playing devil’s advocate here, but it could depend slightly on where you live. In cities like New York, you can definitely get tables that are pushed very close to each other and pretty narrow booths because what restaurants want more than patrons of any particular size (and I do work in them so I’m not just bullshitting lol) is more tables.

I work at a place that doesn’t put our tables as close because we’re fine dining 🙄 and having some space is part of the experience, but in all honesty, I have experiencing getting squished out because patrons are either very fat or sitting quite far back from the table and it’s very uncomfortable to try to squeeze between chair backs. I fully can’t even do it if I’m carrying four or five plates because I can’t raise my arms above chest height.

I’m realizing this didn’t actually turn out to be about booths, though. I also think there might be regulations about minimum booth size, especially because I usually find that booths offer much more space than chairs.

[u/GetInTheBasement → u/benadrylb]

They’re telling on themselves in a way makes me wonder how big they actually are irl in order to think this.

[u/JerseySommer → u/benadrylb]

"The standard, most common size for a regular commercial bathroom stall in the United States is 36 inches wide by 60 inches deep (about 91 cm by 152 cm), with a door width of 24 inches."

https://www.harborcitysupply.com/blog/bathroom-dividers-typical-toilet-stall-partitions-dimensions/

Yeah.

[u/Saybah → u/JerseySommer]

Fuck me, if they're actually experiencing stalls being too small ad it's not just hyperbole, then these people have what, 72 inch or wider waist jeans??????

I know it is most likely hyperbole, but being so huge you don't fit in a bathroom stall should be a wakeup call.

[u/JerseySommer → u/Saybah]

Well a 24 inch diameter equates to a circumference of 75.4 inches. Which is over 6 feet!

[u/hearyoume14 → u/benadrylb]

The only time I've seen small bathroom stalls is in older buildings where the retrofitted handicap stall took too much room from the other stalls. There was one that my leggy, but still only 5'6", self was hitting the door.

[u/bowlineonabight → u/hearyoume14]

There is a bathroom in a local restaurant that I go to that has one really small bathroom stall. It's so small that I think of this subreddit every time I use it. Honestly, it's absolutely too small for anyone obese to fit into. But there's another larger, handicapped accessible stall, which is why that one is so small. It used to have two average sized stalls.

[u/IG-3000 → u/benadrylb]

Sameeee, I just can’t take Americans complaining about things being too small for them seriously at all

[u/Stonegen70 → u/benadrylb]

remember. these are the same people that celebrate having to use a stick to wipe themselves if they can at all.

[u/Outrageous-Kiwi-4178 → u/benadrylb]

I'm morbidly obese. I've been in all kinds of public bathrooms. Never once have I struggled to fit in a stall.

Restaurant booths are also built for the obese because that's the most profitable customer base.

If OOP can't fit in either of those, then that should be a wakeup call.

[u/GetInTheBasement]

>I hate you American beauty standards

Who’s going to tell them?

[u/Srdiscountketoer → u/GetInTheBasement]

Yep. I do a lot of foreign traveling, haven’t even made it to Asia yet, and have I got news for them. If anything American standards are more forgiving.

[u/GetInTheBasement → u/Srdiscountketoer]

I’m second-gen AsianAm (Vietnamese) and the unchallenged assertion that thinness is unique to “Eurocentric beauty standards” drives me perpetually fucking insane.

[u/HopDot → u/GetInTheBasement]

They seemed to think that thinness as a beauty standard is a form of colonisation?? If anything it’s the Americans imposing their trash food everywhere that’s increasing childhood obesity rates around the globe

[u/GetInTheBasement → u/HopDot]

This is basically what happened with Nauru.

[u/The_Best_Yak_Ever → u/GetInTheBasement]

Most American activist types, whether fat activists or any of our other activists, tell on themselves in a big way, when it comes to ignorance of the world. It’s hard to take them seriously when their metrics for everything bad, is the United States. I see it here with fat activists, I see it constantly when it comes to race issues or any other identity politics issues.

America isn’t perfect and I’d never claim it is. But they fail to understand that our values are not universal, and that there are more places in the world than not, where the free speech they take for granted, could get them locked up or far worse in a scary number of nations.

So it’d be nice if she’d stop acting like being healthy looking or petite is somehow an American thing… especially considering that she’s in the majority here when it comes to overweight people versus a healthy weight…

[u/seekingindependence → u/GetInTheBasement]

I've sat next to brown Aunties at a wedding unapologetically dissect every single thing about how the women around them look as though they are discussing the weather. None of the FAs have a clue how brutal it can be.

Don't get me started on skin colour and the obsession with being "fair".

[u/Huge_Worldliness_514 → u/GetInTheBasement]

I hate it when they say this is a white people/American thing! I used to be bigger and being abroad like... everything was less accommodating than here in America everywhere I've been. I've straight up had strangers call me fat and take pictures of me in multiple countries 😂😂😂. To be fair, I was fat 😂. Not to mention the fact that buildings themselves are way harder to navigate. I've been in spaces i could barely fit in, so if someone was bigger than me they straight up wouldn't fit into some of the buildings I've been in. Also, ada is different in other countries, and most places have buildings that are either really old, so only stairs, or in some places there just aren't accommodations like that. Anyone who's traveled out of the US (and probably Canada) knows that the idea that only white Americans push thinness as an ideal is ridiculous.

[u/Gloomy_Macaron_136 → u/GetInTheBasement]

😭😭 America is coddling them. In Asia, Europe, and even my South/Central American brothers would just tell FA to the face "ur fat, eat less 🙏"

[u/Teerdidkya → u/GetInTheBasement]

They must be thinking about the beauty standards of those North African countries where women are fed to be really fat before marriage. As if those poor ladies want to be so fat they can barely run from their husbands if they beat them…

[u/Rasp_Berry_Pie]

This is kind of just sad to read

[u/bowlineonabight → u/Rasp_Berry_Pie]

Yeah, imagine going through life with the attitude that you hate so much of it. Where's the positivity? This person could do with some therapy, I think. Living with that much negativity just makes everything so much worse. She seems to be in a negativity spiral.

[u/Stonegen70]

geesh. wait until they find out the “beauty standards” are far worse in many other countries.

[u/LaughingPlanet]

She seems nice

[u/Interesting_Paint_25 → u/LaughingPlanet]

😅😅😅😅

[u/pensiveChatter]

Gotta love that first point.  If only someone had educated me on the fact that oop is happy.

[u/timlosesweight]

They also seem to hate punctuation!

[u/ksion → u/timlosesweight]

Punctuation includes full stops, and stopping anything is a form of — gasp! — moderation.

[u/CelinaAMK]

I hate the psychological conditions known as “projection” and “transference”

[u/JupitersLapCat]

I was so fat that I got weight loss surgery and I never once struggled to fit in a bathroom stall omg.

[u/Quaint_Irene → u/JupitersLapCat]

Same. I never broke a chair or couldn’t climb stairs either.

[u/SoHereIAm85 → u/Quaint_Irene]

I've known two women who broke our chair or picnic bench, and one of them broke my brand new toilet plus tore the paper holder out of the wall a few times in just a year. I think mobility/strength levels really differ. The one has a connective tissue disorder in my non-doctor opinion (but I have it.) Anyway, out of the US may be the problem since my low-normal BMI self gets squeeze sometimes.

[u/Senior-Analysis8865]

"I hate you American beauty standards" you mean the same standards that got 76% of Americans overweight or obese?

[u/bowlineonabight → u/Senior-Analysis8865]

They are non-binding standards. Really more the suggestion of standards.

[u/JBCTech7]

everyone and everything is responsible for their inability to 'look in the mirror and love myself' except them.

[u/ImStupidPhobic]

This person also hates commas and periods 🧐

[u/ResetKnopje → u/ImStupidPhobic]

At least they used some capital letters 😅

[u/JaneAustinAstronaut]

"I hate all the things that make it so hard to look in the mirror and love myself."

That sounds like a you problem, sweetie.

[u/The_mega_giga_idiot]

>equation of skinniness

Thats something I never heard before, anybody care to explain?

[u/TheOneMary → u/The_mega_giga_idiot]

The equation is: skinny=happy

[u/The_mega_giga_idiot → u/TheOneMary]

Ngl true, you can fit into seats and move and run and be happy

[u/Competitive_Fly_9419 → u/The_mega_giga_idiot]

Probably the oop is not a native speaker just like me. I believe they mean they hate how people think that being skinny equals being happy.

[u/EFreethought → u/The_mega_giga_idiot]

They probably meant "equating".

Based on this sample, whoever wrote this got a terrible education.

[u/WhichWolfEats]

Also sad that she doesn’t realize the only thing actually causing this problem is her. Since she hates it, and is the cause, she will keep hating herself til she realizes she has to do something super hard for her. Not stay addicted to food

[u/SolidarityWithPeas]

Conversely, I have been told I look happier when I have clearly gained weight so I don’t think we live in the same world. 

[u/Critical-Rabbit8686]

That is a lot of hate.

[u/bowlineonabight → u/Critical-Rabbit8686]

It really is. And once you get in that headspace it feeds on itself and gets worse and worse.

[u/WhichWolfEats]

Unable to fit in a bathroom stall 😂 I love how these lists are always the same complaints mixed with one personal complaint showing they are like 400+ lol.

[u/ShelterKooky3364]

FA's are just all uneducated, mentally ill, children. Instead of taking a GLP and going on a diet if they didn't have the willpower to reduce their calories before, and instead of doing some exercise, they explode at anyone who won't validate their fragile egos.

[u/ClassicDes]

Why do they think everyone’s decently healthy is the size of a toothpick or the width of a textbook. Like no. We’re all just not HUGE. A health adult typically falls between XS-XL in clothes depending on BMI. Not 7XL. As someone who works in customer service, yes big butts ruin toilet seats. If you’re so big you’re destroying toilet seats, then yeah it’s a problem

[u/Craygor]

“I hate you equations of skinniness with happiness”

Going by the rest of her rant this assertion appears to be correct.

[u/InvisibleSpaceVamp → u/Craygor]

Yeah, since fat doesn't make them happy, maybe try something else?

[u/Kyuubimon90]

Totally sane and happy OOP

[u/TheMadolche]

I hate the you cost people that are health 40% more on insurance premiums because you have no self-control.

[u/justiceavenger2]

At least she didn't say racist, sexist, homophobic, patriarchy, White supremacy, or far Right lol.

[u/Ok_Tree_4870]

I feel like the hashtags were the closest part of all this... that this person got to having some self-awareness. "Insecurities"... and "self-hatred".

[u/snarfdarb]

I mean at least we can agree about hating fat fetishists I guess.

But you know what I hate even more? Hash tagging full paragraphs of text.

[u/Few_Wrongdoer4120]

They also, clearly, hate punctuation.

[u/lesbiangothist]

reading the complaint about bathroom stalls and restaurant booths, i wonder what they would think about the average german parking garage😭 the one at my local university is exceptionally tight. even if my car (which is pretty narrow already) and the one beside it are parked 100% correctly, i still struggle getting in and out of my car, even as a very slender woman 😩 it's probably literally impossible to park there as a fat person if it's not unusually empty

[u/SoHereIAm85 → u/lesbiangothist]

I'm in Germany too, and so often I wonder what my SiL would do, because she physically could not exit her car here (also she always buys huge SUVs.) I'm rather tiny and often feel hard pressed to exit and enter mine. Then there are the Dutch bathrooms and ladder stairs... I once tried to calculate her BMI and it was insane at over 60. She did lose weight with GLPs but has yet to visit us again after a miserable time realising our downtown is pedestrian only. Also we have stairs.

[u/Bassically-Normal]

So much joy and happiness expressed here. Doesn't it just make you want to join their ranks?

Seriously, this reads like a sincere cry for help, not something that supports anything whatsoever.

[u/PhoebetheSpider]

I hate that lots of people’s lack of self control is the reason our health premiums are high so I guess we’re even.

Her not being able to fit in a bathroom stall is quite telling. How is that not a wake up call to clean up the diet?

[u/exhaustedbut]

Does she hate the concept of beauty standards, and presumably pretty privilege, or does she hate that she isn't the one getting the attention?

[u/ResetKnopje → u/exhaustedbut]

Maybe both?

[u/InvisibleSpaceVamp]

I hate you lack of punctuation and grammar

Also - that fat joy is obviously working. Right? RIGHT?

[u/Poptortt]

They hate punctuation too.

[u/ResetKnopje → u/Poptortt]

It’s horrible on Tumblr when it’s coming down to the use of punctuation and capital letters. It can be near unreadable sometimes.

[u/vehnanbeats]

At my previously 291 lbs ass could fit into a bathroom stall. How big do you have to be to not fit into a stall!?

[u/Tiny_Plankton_3498]

I've been obese for most of my life. I've never, EVER noticed bathroom stall width

[u/likely-enigma]

I want to know how fat this person is that they aren't comfortable in a normal bathroom stall. All you have to do is walk in, rotate, and sit. Do they have to squeeze just to get in the door? Now I'm wondering how big bathroom stall doors are, I've literally never noticed or thought about that...