Episode 3 - Fat musings

We live in a fatty fat world. I don’t mean to be offensive, but as a Queenslander, I live in the fattest state in the fattest nation on this planet, a country where a quarter of our children are over-weight.


Yet “fat” is a four-letter word. We are never more PC than when we are referring to someone’s size. We use terms like, “plus-sized,” “largish,” “glandular disorder,” “metabolic resistance,” and my personal favourite, “big boned.” We go out of our way to not mention the dreaded f-word.


Unless of course, people are referring to a pregnant woman.


I discovered that as soon as I announced I was pregnant for the first time, it was suddenly open season on my figure. People freely discussed my weight, girth, stretch marks and water retention, whether I felt like sharing or not. Compete strangers would shoot out hands to caress my rounded belly and an ordinary conversation could easily contain the soul crushing statement, “Gee, you’re getting big, aren’t you?”


Pregnant women have feelings too. In fact, they have more of them than everybody else, courtesy of the whirling vortex of hormones inside them. You’d never walk up to a random obese man in the shops, rub his tummy and say in a baby voice, “Look who’s getting chubby!” Why is it okay to do the same to a pregnant woman who is likely to burst into tears and then slap you?


And constant attention on your weight doesn’t end when the baby comes out. If anything, it gets worse. Post-pregnancy, people will comment on how quickly you will lose the weight, tell you breast-feeding will help, or stopping breast-feeding will help, want to know if you’re making time for exercise and remind you that you’re no longer eating for two whenever you reach for that second Tim-tam.


My friend, who is a slender mother of two, attended a wedding two months after giving birth, already back to a size 8. The mother of the bride came up and enquired how her weight loss was going. My friend told her fine, thanks for asking. The MOB then reached out, pinched the skin around my friend’s waist and jiggled it up and down, saying, “Ah, but you’ve still got these wobbly bits, don’t you!” In what universe is this acceptable behaviour!


So be nice to preggos and post-preggos. And remember that if you do insult one, you stand an excellent chance of being squashed by our huge and beautiful behinds.