Is fat a four letter word?

Right now I kind of feel like Carrie Bradshaw (Sex in the City) asking those silly questions and then answering myself, except I am not in a small apartment looking out a window at some street in New York, and I don’t have a camera to turn to and smirk at, and this won’t be posted in a national newspaper.  Instead I am in my small office looking at a street in Utah with a small annoying Yorkie barking at my feet.

FAT                                                                                   

You’re fat!  Well it kind of sounds mean doesn’t it.   Even if you say it nice and soft it still sounds mean. Has fat become a four letter word?

So many of us have been called fat and sometimes when we were are not fat at all.  This often happens to girls because men and other women know that just implying someone is fat can hit a nerve.  It upsets us and makes us ask the question “Am I fat?”  And it leads us to other question likes “Is there something wrong with me?”  It creates doubt and makes us feel bad.

The word fat in most cases is used as a descriptive word but as I looked up the word in online dictionaries the sample phrases all had negative connotations.  One dictionary drew a direct line between a fat person and being obese, which not everyone that has fat or is carrying a few extra pounds is obese, although these days I think that line is getting thinner and thinner (maybe because as American’s we are getting bigger and bigger).

Fat people don’t want to be called fat but yet there are few other words to get to the point of describing the way they look as well as the problem they clearly face.  Saying other things like “big boned” or “chubby” is rarely accurate and sounds childish.

I often call myself a former fatty and refer to other overweight people as fatties.  I can see people feel very uncomfortable with this term when I use it and I know I have offended others, but it is a part of me remembering my former self in the most positive way I can.  I feel like I have taken the harsh sounding word “fat” and turned it into something a bit cuter.  When saying it about others I really mean for it to be a word used with sympathy as I know there struggle and have been there myself. 

Now that I write this blog and have become a Beachbody coach I find myself writing and saying the word often.  It is not a four letter word; it is not a mean word.  It is just a word people.  If you are offended by the word the truth is you have issues with yourself.  Not with me or my blogs.  Maybe if we could all start dealing with the word we could actually deal with the weight problem facing so many.

That is it for tonight everyone.  I hope you all have a great Friday night and I am off to go have dinner with my Mr. Big.

Something to inspire you with this weekend.  Join me on facebook to see and read more.  www.facebook.com/amycobine