It's a Shame

Last week, I had my tenth endocrinologist visit in the past year. When I left the office, I realized when my mom asked how it went that it was the first time no one had said anything deeply offensive/insulting/etc. to me during a visit. I’ll note deeply offensive; the nurse still didn’t stifle her shock when I broke down my gym habits for her, which I did take a little personally. (That really gets old. Yes, I work out. No, I don’t eat a lot of McDonald’s. Thanks.) The next day, I read an article about the perpetuation of skinny culture by Lululemon and how plus sizes don’t fit into their business model on the Huffington Post. Fine; after what happened to me at the Lululemon in Bucktown, I don’t even care a little bit about their business model or if the entire company and every pair of their yoga pants falls into an ocean. I’m happy to buy $100 pants to run in elsewhere, but more on that later. What really hit me was when I accidentally clicked on the comment section of this article.

There were standard responses like, “If you look like a whale, you don’t deserve to wear yoga pants.” (Definitely true, guys. Definitely.) All this indicates to me is that I no longer really need to pay attention to anything coming out of your…in this case, fingers? You get the point.

There were a handful of people saying that Lululemon should embrace what it claims to be, a welcoming, peaceful place that loves all people who love yoga and running and want to help them do those things by carrying larger sizes and whatnot. Fine. Even if they did, I’m still not shopping there.

But the most distressing thing I saw, over and over and over, were women who kept saying, “Well, I’m really big and no one wants to see me in yoga pants.” or “I’m a size 22 and Lululemon doesn’t need to take my size into consideration because I’m never going to look good doing yoga.” Whoa. Since when is yoga about looking good? And when was the point of yoga pants about wearing them for someone else? And yet this attitude is everywhere. This deeply-ingrained loathing and judgment based on size. Women believing they aren’t good enough for a pair of yoga pants? I have been mulling over writing about fat shaming for a really long time and I haven’t for a few reasons and even now, I’m a little worried that this post will ramble or feel a little whiny or somehow be invalidated by the fact that I’m losing weight finally. I’ll hope that isn’t the case.

Fat shaming. It’s really not cool. In fact, it’s pretty much the only kind of public humiliation that is regularly tolerated in polite society and even good company. Worse even, it rears its ugly head in several different toxic forms that chip away at the body image and self-esteem of just about everyone who has ever struggled to lose a few pounds. It becomes worse when it is a lot of pounds. Because people treat being heavy like you did something to earn it; the state itself becomes an issue of value. I once drunkenly told my boyfriend I was terrified of having children because I didn’t want to gain all of that baby weight and have it hang around forever; that that would be the worst possible scenario. Because there is nothing worse for a person, especially a young lady, than being fat. Obviously. I now understand that I am not struggling with my weight because I did something extremely karmically wrong or because I am a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad person, but because there was something physically going on in my body that was making it really difficult for me to lose weight for a long time that needed help to be balanced. But it was a schlep to figure that out, friends.

This schlep was unaided by being shamed by strangers for my weight. This schlep was unaided by being shamed by people I knew for my weight. This schlep was unaided by seeing women constantly shamed for their weight in print and on screen. This schlep, most of all, was unaided by being shamed for my weight by myself. And for that reason, I’d like to take a moment to PSA a little, wax poetic even, about these areas.

When I was running my first 5K in 3 years, I really needed a good sports bra. The best rated sports bra for a D, which I was then was Lululemon’s Ta-Ta Tamer. Ready to shell out $70 for the bra and even pick up a pair of running tights to run the actual race in, my friend Bailey and I went to the Lululemon store in Bucktown. I grabbed the 36 D, which was a little snug and knew they made a 38D, so I asked the fitting room attendant to grab me one, when she stopped chatting with the only other girl in the fitting room (a size 2 on a bad day). SHE LAUGHED AT ME. The most hateful laugh. It clearly said, why would you bother with that? Why are you running at all?

I have never gotten clothes on and out of a store so fast on very sore legs. Beet red  and without words, I boarded the 77, eyes welling with tears and Bailey had to call corporate to complain on my behalf. I sent this email later that day:

Hello,

My name is Ashley Spencer and I have been an avid Lululemon follower since I was introduced to your store 4 years ago. I find your manifesto incredibly inspiring; it is on the wall in my office and on my bedroom mirror. I have had nothing but positive experiences at store events, classes, etc. 

I am an avid runner, dancer and a little addicted to spin classes. I'm running my first 5K in 3 years on Sunday, so when I realized I needed a new bra, I hopped a bus across town to try out a Ta Ta Tamer at the Bucktown store. I was initially the only customer in the store, but no one seemed very interested in assisting me. 

I selected several items to try on, fully ready to buy an ensemble for race day. I grabbed the wrong size bra so I asked the fitting room attendant if she could grab it for me in a 38D. She scoffed at the size and rolled her eyes, as though it were unfathomable that someone like me could possibly spend time doing something productive like running. In that moment, I felt so incredibly judged. 

As a size 14, I get to look in the mirror every day and try to make peace with the fact that I'm not tiny and lithe like the other girls I dance with, that I don't run a 6-minute mile like my best friend, the marathoner. And I do. Every day. And I work out and nourish my body and take care of myself and respect it. To have someone in a store that espouses the values and supports goal setting and challenges and being a better person like yours absolutely broke my heart. 

Worse, the fitting room attendant struck up a friendship with the girl who came in after me, frequently checking on her and pulling several pair of size 4 pants that they were discussing, but never checking on me again. Needless to say, I did not make a purchase. I felt so shameful about my body after the fitting room experience that I cried. A grown woman, crying after trying on Sports bras and running tights? That's absurd. I hope that you will take this incident to heart and help your employees understand that there is beauty in all shapes and bra sizes and nothing more discouraging than someone just being unkind. 

Thank you for your time!

What I got back did not contain a whole lot of care or compassion or even an actual apology, so I was completely unsurprised by the HuffPost accounts of Size 12’s pushed in the back and Lululemon being disinterested in the plus sized crowd. Prior to this experience, I was a big fan of their wares. I loved their manifesto and carried around a water bottle EVERYWHERE that had the manifesto printed on it. This experience cheapened all of that. Something that had inspired me to be better, to run farther, pedal harder made me feel like I was nothing at all.  I’ll add to this category the woman that called me “thick” on the bus, the gentleman who refers to me exclusively as “fat girl” when I walk to Target, and the slew of drunken bros who have beerily grabbed my ass or stared at my boobs instead of listening to my words, reducing me to nothing but my physical being.

Luckily, however, most of the people in my life are of the wildly supportive variety. The “it’s ok if you want that gelato or gin or if you’d rather stick to pineapple slices and seltzer today” kind of people. I never think about being the chubby friend, being anything but me. Full of dreams and plans and sunshine and rainbows and a strong desire, which I come by honestly, to make sure everyone is comfortable and well-fed and watered. These are the people who cheer me on, mile after mile. Who kept me going when my doctor wasn’t sure what was wrong with me. Who keep me going when I’m tired, when I feel like I’m hitting a brick wall. When I’m not sure the words I want to come will come or if I want people to read them. And I thank hundreds of lucky stars every day for those people. But, there are people who are supposed to love and support you no matter what who really make things difficult when they don’t. At Thanksgiving, I was sick with walking pneumonia and spent two days making five kinds of dessert for dinner. And my grandmother asked me if I really wanted to eat a roll when I finally sat down to eat. Yes, I did want the roll. She then told me Taylor would never marry me if I got too fat. I mean, I certainly hope that’s not the case, but a little harsh. Especially on Thanksgiving. When one has had walking pneumonia and still makes a pumpkin bread pudding with vanilla bean caramel and cranberry sauce, yo.

I’m going to discuss my doctors here because I feel like your doctor is someone you have a relationship with and shouldn’t be grouped with frat boys and vagrants. I will also preface this with a note that I do understand the medical effects of being overweight and that my quest to lose weight, in fact, is primarily because my endocrinologist said it was the best thing I could do to boost my fertility odds for when I want to have tinies in the not-too-distant-anymore future. That being said, all of my blood work is remarkably normal. Lipids, sugars, vitamin levels, etc. My resting heart rate is “athletically low,” an accomplishment I feel remarkably proud of since I run a lot but have to remind myself that I count as a runner and mostly because I kind of always wanted to be athletic! Now the most important part of me is athletic at least! So, when I go into the doctor’s office for something like a cold and they tell me disparagingly that my cold is because of my weight; it gets a little old. When doctors assume I’m lying about how much I run and work out or what I’m eating, that’s straight up insulting. I’m an adult and I’m here seeking assistance because I’m having trouble losing weight. Look at my chart, please. Once, a resident suggested that if my current medication/diet/fitness regimen didn’t work that my endocrinologist might consider “duct taping my mouth shut.” I literally had no words until I had walked half an hour home I was so mortified. When I injured my foot in April, the doctor I saw accused me of being drug-seeking because there was no way someone with my weight in January would be at my current weight running as much as I said I did so I had to be lying and could not have caused a stress fracture. I have great respect for medical professionals; it’s hard to become a doctor. But, good lord, that is just mean. So is asking me if I eat a lot of McDonald’s. (Ew. Of course I don’t.) I’m an intelligent human; so are you. Can’t we both act like it?

There was a magazine cover shortly after Kim Kardashian announced she was pregnant on which the following photo appeared with the headline, Who Wore It Better?

OK, rude. But, aside from that, Kimmy K got a lot of flack during pregnancy for gaining weight. She also got a lot of flack for working out while she was pregnant. (Media, you can’t have it both ways.) I’m not going to sit here and say that Kim Kardashian is some kind of model feminist or amazing role model. But she is a woman. And she just grew a tiny life inside of her. Normal people gain weight during pregnancy; it’s neither healthy nor normal to remain the exact same celebrity sample size you were before your pregnancy the whole time. When young girls see this harsh criticism of the female body at the time when it is working some crazy voodoo magic to nourish and produce a new human, what are we teaching them? What are we showing them? We are socializing them into the anxiety that a pregnant body is not beautiful (It is. Seriously, that is some biological magic.) and that baby weight is a worst-case scenario. We are filling their heads with images of waifish superstars and perpetuating generations of body dysmorphia by comparing Kim Kardashian’s PREGNANT body to a killer whale. What are we gaining by tearing vulnerable women down who are trying to fulfill the promise made that our generation could indeed have it all if they wanted it? This magazine cover has stuck with me for months; maybe because it hits close to home with one of my all-time most horrible memories (A really mean girl at camp called me Free Willy one time. Let’s not discuss that further, thanks.) or maybe because I think about the amazing mothers I know and the amazing people that they brought into this world and listen, they damn well earned some ice cream if that’s what made their pregnant bodies happy. I mean, the media’s portrayal of the female body is just a whole can of worms that I’m not going to open right now because this will turn into a thesis about the male gaze, but let’s just say the media’s widespread fat shaming gives normal people a free pass for fat shaming all the time and that’s a huge problem when one sees the groups it is actually affecting.

Finally, I want to talk about internalized fat shaming. The way our brains are conditioned after dealing with the aforementioned scenarios day in and day out. After seeing Kim Kardashian compared to a Killer Whale and thinking, what does that make me? The product of meltdowns in fitting rooms when it’s impossible to find jeans that fit or a swimsuit that doesn’t make you feel naked and exposed. The product of wondering how am I different from any other smart girl in ballet flats at the bar, sipping gin and soda and hoping my Spanx aren’t creasing where they meet my bra. It’s the feeling when you are eating with new people and you really want fries but you order salad, not because you are into wilty lettuce but because you are worried that someone would notice fries and scoff. Or worse, recommend that you lay off them. It’s the obsessive feeling, going through every photo taken at every party or vacation or performance and strategically cropping out an arm here, a hip here; disenfranchising these body parts and casting them off so that no one clicking through the pictures does the same to you. Only, my arms can do a lot of pushups. They can dead lift a bunch more than you’d think. And my hips, they have hip dysplasia and they pop in and out, which sometimes really hurts, but I don’t let it keep me from running or taking part in dance parties. But I have. In high school, I never danced unless it was choreographed because I thought too much of me would shake if I shimmied like that. When I started going out to the bars in Chicago, I’d silently pray that drunk guys passing wouldn’t comment about my size and shape that haunted me so much. And I’d crop my photos. And order salad instead of fries. And hope that anyone would notice if I’d lost weight. My weight was more than a number; it was a brand poking hard in my brain. On fire. Keeping me aware and alert and ashamed and anxious. And maybe it’s easier to say because I have started losing weight, but there’s not time for that level of concern. There’s not room in my brain to put a foot in front of the other or ponder changing the world or sing too loudly to my In the Heights Pandora station with that level of shame. And I made peace with that a while ago, even though it’s a journey with peaks and valleys and better days and worse days.

There are things I’m willing to be ashamed of. Not many, but a few. I’ve read all of the Twilight books multiple times. Bailey and I saw the films in marathon form once. I once stole a cab from some drunk tourists after a Cubs game. I used a ten dollar bill I found in a cab to pay for a cab one time. I tripped on a swiffer and face planted and cracked my iPhone screen in a spectacular show of clumsiness. You get the point. But I will not waste time being ashamed about my body. I will not be concerned about fitting into Lululemon’s business model or ever waste my breath in one of their stores again. I will not feel bad about my body and the things it can do because there is some cookie cutter standard that is supposed to apply to people when it comes to size and shape. I will not feel bad about my body because someone thinks I’m lazy or did something wrong to end up the way I am; they clearly don’t know me very well. I’m done giving in to all of these different things shouting at me to feel bad about my body. I will not pity my PCOS or my little cells struggling to balance out insulin or my aching feet after a six mile run. No one should. Because your weight is not a measure of who you are or what you are as a human; there is no value attached to a number on a scale. If you want to change that number, great. If you don’t, great. But don’t forgo yoga pants because you think someone else will think they look silly or that you’ll look ridiculous trying to run a race in those tights. Understand that there is beauty in being human, in having thighs that touch and not being a sample size.