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Interviewing Caz Hales (the bariatrics nurse researcher on p. 8) has got me thinking about fattism. She has been asking health professionals to don a ‘fat’ simulation suit and head out to a café and experience what it is like being very fat in a society that tends to celebrate the thin and judge the fat.

Personally, I’m ‘fat’ enough to feel annoyed when I hear the thin talk about fat people just lacking self-control and I’m ‘thin’ enough to feel that ignoring the health risks of being very fat is like putting your head in the sand. But I’m also clued up enough to know that controlling weight is rarely simple.

Meanwhile middle-age recently saw my BMI tip over from its usual ‘just under overweight’ to ‘substantially overweight’. I was getting close to being a few badly timed comments or judgmental looks away from defiantly or depressively eating my way towards clinical obesity.

But luckily I had the time, energy and money to take stock. I started jogging. A year later I was fitter but heavier. Two years on I’m still running, I’m eating sensibly and have tipped back to ‘just under overweight’.

I do wonder ‘what if’ though... What if I’d been working two jobs to keep my kids clothed and fed with barely time to sleep, let alone jog or plan healthy meals… What if ‘fattist’ smirks in the gym, scoffs at the café, or scowls at the supermarket checkout made me bin my gym gear and go home to binge on comfort chocolate… What if I’d been walking in another’s shoes?

Fiona Cassie
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Twitter@NursingReviewNZ