Discrimination against fat people is so endemic, most don’t even realise it’s happening

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When we think of prejudice and discrimination, most of us tend to think of overt attacks, harassment, or discriminatory behaviour. Blatant examples of prejudice do still occur with depressing frequency, but for most members of stigmatised groups, it is not these experiences that shape their daily lives. Rather, belonging to a socially stigmatised group means travelling through a world that is rife with multiple small, sometimes subtle or apparently inconsequential reminders of your devalued status, known as microaggressions.

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Microaggressions against fat people are so pervasive and normalised in modern society that people, even fat people, may not recognise them as stigmatising at all. The sometimes ambiguous nature of microaggressions means that the target may be unsure of the intent or underlying meaning, wondering if that person was actually stigmatising them or not, making it difficult to respond. What is more, fat stigma is so entrenched that many fat people are complicit in their own stigmatisation, believing that they deserve it, or that the perpetrator was just stating a fact (“fat people are ugly and disgusting”).

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When they get on a bus and the person sitting next to an empty seat scowls at them or pointedly places their bag on the seat;
People watching them while they’re eating in a restaurant or checking out the contents of their trolley in the supermarket;
A fat joke on TV or in a film; A slimmer friend asking if she “looks fat in this”;
Hearing a group of children making fun of them;
Or even wondering whether they will be taken seriously when they go to the doctor with a sprained ankle, or just told to go away and lose some weight.

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