Living fat in a thin-centric world: Effects of spatial discrimination on fat bodies and selves

Abstract

Traditional narratives about fat experiences often exclude tangible, lived experiences in favor of examining fatness as a social and interpersonal symbol. In order to expand considerations of what it means to literally be fat, I use information from interviews, personal journals, and ethnographic research to explore how fat persons experience and navigate their daily, spatial worlds. Key to my analysis is an exploration of the concept of spatial discrimination, or experiencing the physical and emotional effects of living in a world designed with smaller bodies in mind. I propose spatial discrimination as a form of microaggression, a type of discrimination that implicitly, and through a myriad small words and examples, derides the physicalities and identities of marginalized persons. Finally, I explore three common, social psychological methods of coping with spatial discrimination: withdrawal, invisibility, and disembodiment, all of which illustrate fat persons’ adaptations to moving through physical spaces that implicitly exclude them.