Born Fat

Genna is fat. They are also queer and nonbinary. All of these things can make a person feel marginalized in a straight, cisgender, thin-obsessed society … but for Genna, it’s being fat that’s hardest.

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Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.

Genna: I had no concept of there was something wrong with me until I was probably in middle school, when other girls were like, "There is something wrong with you."

Ahhhhhh, middle school. 

Here in America, those years of adolescence are almost universally horrible. There are books about middle school, movies about middle school, and countless hours of therapy spent dissecting these three or four years of emerging adolescence.

This is a time where you and everyone around you is changing – trying to individuate while also trying to fit in, experiencing the onset of puberty (which is truly the grossest word but an accurate one to describe this gross time) – all of you closely observing each other, judging each other, and updating the social hierarchy to reflect who is in who is out.

In the early to mid-aughts when Genna enters the middle school gauntlet, Genna is out. 

By this time, the standard ways of harassing a kid who doesn’t fit in have evolved a bit since decades past, when bullying was limited to the time you spent together at school or maybe calling someone’s landline and hoping their parents didn’t answer.

Kids at Genna’s school now have a little thing called a flip phone, and if text messages weren’t so expensive, maybe these kids would’ve spent their time sending Genna shitty text messages. 

But at this point, the parents are paying the phone bills, and 25-cent text messages add up quick …

Genna: So like, I got harassed via a phone call a lot. And in sixth grade, I said something in front of these two girls that they were like, "GASP! You're a lesbian!" And I was like, "No? I don't know what you're talking about. What's a lesbian?" But that became my identity in middle school. And it was the dirtiest word that you could possibly use. And so that's kind of like part of my isolating experience in middle school is that people thought I was queer and didn't want anything to do with me. I grew up in a very small town, and that was a very bad thing to be. 

That’s one thing that hadn’t changed by the millennium: “Gay” was still the worst thing you could call a middle schooler. Watch a movie from this era and you’ll still hear “gay” being used casually as an insult or a “joke.” 

But this isn’t the only thing that’s “wrong” (in quotation marks, if you can’t hear them) with Genna. There’s another label that’s been stuck to Genna since the day Genna was born, one that will haunt Genna long after Genna leaves this small town and moves on with their life:

Genna is fat.

Nora McInerny: What does it mean to be called fat in middle school? 

Genna: That was … I got chills when you said that. That was the worst thing that you could possibly be, because it meant something about who you were as a person – that you were lazy, that you have no self-control, that you just didn't work hard enough to be this version of yourself that you should be. And especially around, you know, 12, 13 years old, when everyone is hyper-focused on their body, it feels like everyone's hyper-focused on your body. And to literally be the fat kid and then to be called the fat kid was just, um … it was a really hard way to exist. 

The thing is, Genna was born fat – about 10 pounds at birth. And being fat is one of the core memories of Genna’s childhood.

Genna: One of my very first memories of my mom is actually us standing outside and her telling me to suck it in. So, like, I was standing in a way that my belly was hanging out, and that was just unacceptable to her, or embarrassing to her, or whatever it was for her.

Nora McInerny: How old were you when your mom said that to you? Like, set me the scene. Like, where are you that it's so important for you to, like, suck in your belly?

Genna: I think I was probably 4 years old.

Nora McInerny: Gasp!

Genna: Yeah. And I think we were, we might have been, like, somewhere at the park or at the zoo or something like that, but we were definitely in a public place where other people could see us. 

Genna’s sister was not told to suck it in. That message was for Genna and only Genna. 

​​Genna: I have a brother and a sister. I'm the youngest of three. And my sister was always the thin one – always like, so thin. Actually, she had an eating disorder and had to get treatment for having an eating disorder. And so that was an experience, having that dichotomy of me being as fat as I was and her being as thin as she was.

Fat — who is and who is not  — is how Genna could categorize anyone in their family growing up.

Genna: My mom's side of the family, they're not super skinny, but they're relatively what I would say normal, like, average when it comes to their body size. And my dad's side of the family has plenty of fat people on it, and I think that that's where my experience from fatness with fatness comes from is that, like, it's a big Italian family. And our experience of love comes through food. So like, the way that you express how you love each other is by how much of their food you eat. And like, going back for seconds tells them that you love them. And so that's a big part of my experience is that that's how we communicate with each other.

When Genna goes back for seconds, it’s a way of showing love. And it’s also because … well, Genna’s still hungry! Where some people might feel full after one serving of lasagna (or maybe two) … Genna doesn’t. 

Genna knows that this is different from how other people eat. Genna knows that their body is different, and that the people around Genna feel uncomfortable with how Genna’s body looks.

Genna: That's, like, a core memory of what I have of growing up as a fat kid, that other people were really ashamed of my body.

But Genna? Genna doesn’t feel how other people feel. 

Genna: And that's always really been my experience is that I don't really feel badly about myself. Like, I don't have a problem with my body. But other people really do. So growing up, it was a very different story of, "No, there's not something wrong with me, but other people have a problem," and I was very aware of that. 

I am … stunned by this. By this kind of unshakable core in a kid. By this kind of hard emotional boundary. And I would like to propose that maybe it’s GENNA who invented body neutrality, way back when Genna was just a little kid being invited to Weight Watchers.

Old WW Commercial: “Start a diet, cheat, end a diet. Story of my life! Weight Watchers Easy 123 success is a different story. Eat any food you crave …”  

For those who aren’t in the know, Weight Watchers started as a weight loss support group back in 1963 with a woman named Jean Nidetch. Growing up in the Midwest, I would pass Weight Watchers centers in suburban strip malls, watch the commercials on television, see their ads in magazines. 

By the time Genna joined, in third grade, Weight Watchers operated on a points system. Based on your height and your desired weight, you were assigned a number of “points” for the day. And each food you ate had a point value, and you tallied up your points as you went, like you were managing a budget. If you wanted to, you could go to a Weight Watchers center for one of their support groups (and to get weighed in). 

Genna: My mom and I did it together – which, we were always dieting together, so that we had the support system. And I have a very vivid memory of when we first started Weight Watchers. I think it was probably, like, the first day that we started Weight Watchers. Back in the day, they didn't have, like, apps and things, because we didn't have smartphones. They had this little counter that was basically like a little calculator to count your daily points. And I was using it while we were making dinner to calculate the points that I had eaten that day, and I realized that I didn't have any points left for dinner. 

Old WW Commercial: “Stay within your daily points and lose! Now take it off and show it off!”

No points left for dinner. Because Genna calculated wrong. Somewhere between breakfast and lunch and an afternoon snack, all those points were used up. Spent. There was nothing left for dinner. 

And Genna was hungry.

Genna: And I had a complete meltdown, because I was like, "I can't eat anything. What am I going to do?" And my mom was trying to comfort me, like, "No, that's not what that means. It just means we have to be more cautious about what we eat in other days." But I was just, like, my little 9-year-old mind was black and white thinking, like, "No, we can't do this. I can't eat." And that's a lot of what my experience with Weight Watchers was like, was like, it's very black and white and very stressful to me that these are the rules. And I was a rule-following kid, that if they said no more, it was no more. And that was just a really difficult thing for me to live with, because I didn't understand why no one else had to do this. 

We’ll be right back.

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Weight Watchers is not the only thing that Genna tries to lose weight in childhood. 

There’s the gym …

Genna: There was this little gym near our house that was specifically for women that was a circuit gym. So like, you start at one machine and you just move on to the next, and there's a little timer in the middle that tells you how long to stay on the machine. And I remember that we went there for quite a while. And there was a nutritionist who also worked at the gym that we worked with for quite a long period of time, too. And one thing I remember about this nutritionist is that she kept a McDonald's Happy Meal in her office, to show you that it didn't mold, to show you, like, how bad McDonald's food was for you and that you shouldn't be eating it. And then she had this little recipe book that my mom actually brought me recently, and I was looking at these recipes. And some of these recipes, well … most of these recipes, are like, 200 calories. So like, if you eat three of these meals a day, you're eating 600 calories, which is just absurd. 

There’s sports …

Genna: I was on the volleyball team in middle school and I quit at some point, but nothing ever really seemed to stick the way that Weight Watchers did.

There’s chronic dieting …

Genna: It was special butter. And I think it was called Benecol butter, which was like lower cholesterol, way low fat. There might not have been any fat in it whatsoever. And they came in these little packages that were probably, like, maybe one tablespoon per serving. And I got to use two of those, one for each slice of bread.

None of it, by the way, works. No matter what they do in middle school, Genna is still a fat lesbian to all those middle school classmates. 

Genna is so, so lonely (and, obviously, also depressed).

But Genna’s not going to be in that small town forever. And someday, being called a lesbian won’t be the worst thing in the world. And it won’t be particularly accurate, either. 

Genna: At 20, I came out as gay. And I, like, told my mom and, like, told my friends, and it was fine. I was living in Seattle at that point in time, which is a very queer city. So it was, like, a rocking place to be to come out as gay. And it was so fun. And I loved that experience. But I kind of started to evolve my identity through taking a gender and sexuality class. That is the first place that I heard the term non-binary, and I was like, "You're allowed to be that? I didn't know that that was an option!" [laughs] And I was like, "Oh, that sounds like how I feel." And so around the time I was 21, I started using they/them pronouns and that felt more authentic to my identity.

Being gay? Fine. Totally fine!

Being non-binary? Fine.

But being fat? Still a challenge for Genna … within their family and within this world. 

That book that Genna mentioned? From the nutritionist at the gym way back in childhood? Genna’s mom recently dropped that book off, so Genna could have it.

Nora McInerny: Describe the book and the way that it looks and the weight of it to our listeners.

Genna: So it's called “Good Food, Good Choices.” And I'll leave the author's name out for their safety. [laughs] It's a little, like, what do you call it that has the, like, metal snapping things in the middle of it? 

Nora McInerny: Oh, it's like a … is it a binder?

Genna: Yeah, it's like a small binder. And I opened it up, and one of the recipes is a spring salad, and its serving size has 137 calories. And that would be a suggestion of one of the things that, like, you would eat that for lunch. So spring salad is two and a half teaspoons fresh lemon juice, two teaspoons olive oil, one clove garlic, one pound asparagus, half an English cucumber, half a teaspoon kosher salt, half a teaspoon pepper, three scallions, one cup fresh or frozen peas, and one ripe avocado. And that whole recipe serves six.

Nora McInerny: Okay. Wow. Everyone gets one sixth of an avocado. 

Genna: Yep.

Nora McInerny: A very satisfying, very satisfying portion. Oh, my God. Are there desserts in it? 

Genna: Yes, there are: poached peaches with strawberry sauce, berry freeze, and carob and pumpkin seed bars. Those are your three dessert recipes. 

Nora McInerny: Fucking carob. 

Genna: [laughs] So when she brought it to me, she was like “These are just some good ideas that you might want to try,” because the kick that she's been on recently is to get me to eat less meat and more vegetables, which … more vegetables? Okay. But I don't really eat a lot of meat in the first place, so I don't know what that is about in particular. And I didn't really think a whole lot of it, because I've seen this book before, and I was like, “Oh yeah, you know, I remember making some things from this when I was younger.” And then I started flipping through it and seeing that these recipes are, like, 200 calories apiece and was like, “Oh, this is a problem.” And it really made me wonder if, one, she looked through it before she gave it to me, and like, what she thinks of it, like if she does genuinely think that these are good recipes, or if she just remembers that, like, these came from a nutritionist, so they must be healthy. 

Genna’s mom, by the way, is not a nefarious criminal. She is not a shadowy figure who thought to herself, “Hmmmmm, how can I make sure my child feels bad about their body?” As much as she -- as any of us, myself definitely included -- have perpetuated this culture, she’s a victim of it, too. How many generations of women were trained to stay small, stay slim, to control their bodies, their cravings, their desires? To fit themselves into whatever small space was allotted for them? 

Genna: You know, my mom is what I would call a straight-sized person. I don’t know for sure, but I would guess that she's been like a size 10 to 14 my entire life. So not thin. She's felt like she's always struggled with her weight, but she certainly isn't fat. You know, she's had a really rough life. She lost her dad when she was 11 years old. He was killed by a drunk driver. And this was in the ‘70s, when women still needed a husband to have a credit card. So in order to keep them in their home, my grandma had to marry a man. And the men that she married weren't necessarily the greatest men. So that definitely affected my mom in her life. And, you know, it being the ‘70s, I don't think that my grandma would identify as a feminist by any means, but she certainly had to raise my mother with some feminist ideals – that women were not less than, that women could do all the same things that men could do, simply because she had to. And my mom raised me with a lot of those same ideals, and I think I just took them to another level. And I think that I certainly wouldn't say that she made all the right choices for me as a fat kid, but she did her damnedest. She definitely did the best that she could for me. And that's all anyone could ever ask of their parent, so ...

America was founded by puritans, and puritans loooove self control! Self-mastery! And what could be a better example of self-mastery and self-control than controlling your unruly body? Stifling its wants and attending only to its needs?

I am not condoning any of it. I don’t think it’s great. But I do think it’s bigger and more tangly than any one of us, or hundred of us, or any one brand or diet or magazine cover. It’s the kind of topic where when you pull one thread … there’s just a whole big knot.

It’s still like that for Genna and their mom, decades later. 

Genna: I tell her, like, "I don't want to talk about that," or, "That thing that you said really hurt me," or, "I want to talk about that thing that you said," and, like, explain to her why that thing she said was problematic, and things we could say that would be different and why that would be different. And she has told me several times that she appreciates learning from me in those ways. So, like, that feels very adult, when I don't feel like an adult quite yet. [laughs] But it hasn't really evolved around food. And an example of that is I'm diabetic. And I take a once-weekly shot. It's not insulin, but it's something that helps control my A1C, which is a measurement of your blood sugar over the last six months. And one of the side effects of this medication is that you may lose weight. They actually sell this medication to people to help them lose weight. And another one of the side effects of this medication is that you may get thyroid cancer. And I was talking to my mom the other day about how I have lost some weight. And she's like, "That's really great. I'm so proud of you!" Because she is, you know, always excited about the possibility of me losing weight. But I was like, "But you know, I'm really concerned about this potential side effect of getting thyroid cancer. Like, that's serious and concerning." And she's like, "Well, they can treat it!" And I probed a little bit more and asked her, like, "But it's cancer. Like, cancer is serious," you know? And she's like, "Well, you know, like you're still at risk for cancer for being overweight." So to her, it's just one of the side effects. Like … I'm going to die of something, basically is what that felt like.

Yeah, that’s true, we’ll all die of something. But there is so much we as a society still don’t know about the connection – or lack thereof – between body weight and disease. 

Jordan and Megan and I are all big fans of the podcast “Maintenance Phase” (which we heartily endorse, heartily suggest you listen to – we would love to have Aubrey on this show, let’s just keep our fingers crossed, speak that into existence). And something Aubrey talks about on the show a lot is how the scientific research around weight and physical health is honestly VERY inconclusive, and filled with a lot of hurtful assumptions about fat people that isn’t backed by actual data. 

So it really doesn’t surprise me at all that Genna’s mom is like, “Welp! Better to get diagnosed with cancer than to stay fat!” 

Like I said: You pull one thread, you get a knot. 

And the first pull of this thread -- for us -- came when Genna sent us this email.

Genna: Hi, Nora. I saw your Instagram story this morning about being fat, and this is something I'm interested in talking about. I was basically born fat. I was a 10-pound baby. I'm sure my food was controlled before this, but the first time I remember my mom putting me on Weight Watchers, I was in the third grade. I'm now a size 24 and roughly 330 pounds. And I'm fat. I've always been fat. I'm always going to be fat. And I have no desire to try and shrink my body to fit societal standards of what I should look like, much to my mother's disdain. I also identify as queer and non-binary, which puts an interesting twist on being fat, because I basically look like a 12-year-old boy between how I dress and my hair style. A lot of folks in queer communities are fat, which makes being queer a lot easier, but it doesn't make being accepted by society any easier. Sometimes I think I'm hated more for my body type than I am for being queer, which, considering what is happening in Florida and Texas right now to queer kids is really scary. Interested to hear your thoughts on where this story could go. 

In 2022, where Florida is passing “don’t say gay” legislation, and Texas is criminalizing gender-affirming care for trans kids … to say that Genna feels more hated for being fat than for being queer is a helluva thing to say. 

Which means – put stupidly – it’s a helluva thing to experience.

We’ll be right back.

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Genna: Like I said, I had the experience of coming out in Seattle, which is a super queer-friendly city. But like, there are a lot of fit people who live there and, like, want to go outdoors and go hiking and, you know, all of these outdoor sports. And right now, I live in a suburb of Denver, which, Colorado is notorious for their outdoor sports and things like that. So like, you know, people, when they list on dating sites, they're like, "Oh, I'm a hiker, and I like to bike, and I want to go skiing and all of this shit." And it's like, "I like to bake!" [laughs] And it's just a very different experience being a fat person inside a queer community, because there are a lot of fat people in queer communities, which makes it makes it a lot easier to exist, which I super appreciate. But in Denver, it's relatively OK to be queer. There are, you know, plenty of bigots. I've had my experiences of people shouting inappropriate things at me on the street. But I feel relatively safe where I live, especially with the way that I look. And 99% percent of the time, I'm going through a drive thru at Starbucks or, like, whatever it is, or I'm in a grocery store, as long as I'm not speaking, I get called “sir.” So they read me as male, and I get the privilege that that gives me. I feel safe as a queer person here. I do not feel safe as a fat person here. And one experience that I recently had, I was out to dinner at The Cheesecake Factory with my friend, who is also fat. And they seated us at a table next to this couple who were, you know, skinny. Just a regular couple. And you could feel the hatred just dripping off of them when my friend squeezed her butt past them to sit in the seat next to them. Like, just absolute loathing. And it was a horrible experience, because you know that they're just sitting there judging you the entire time for what you're eating, and being at The Cheesecake Factory in the first place, and being out in public as a fat person. And I feel that constantly.

The only thing anyone should be judging ANYONE for at The Cheesecake Factory is sitting at your table AFTER you’ve paid the bill. Guys, there’s a line. There’s always a line. People are waiting. Give someone else a change to peruse the spiral bound menu, please. 

But those looks, those judgments … for Genna, it feels like they’re everywhere. 

Genna: I worry about that at the grocery store – of like, people judging me for what's in my cart at the grocery store because I am so visibly fat. And, like, seeing me through the McDonald's drive thru. Things like that. Like, I worry about that all the time. It's just, like, the way that people look at you inside the grocery store or in line at McDonald's, like, it just feels like they hate you. And they're never going to say anything to you, except the few people who are very bold and will do things like that. But it's just the looks that they give you that are like, "What are you doing here? How dare you take up space?" And it feels like it's about my fatness, not about my queerness. And I worry about it on a daily basis in public spaces that I go – so much that, like, I don't go to Costco on the weekends, because there are too many people there to judge me. Like it gives me genuine social anxiety. 

Why wouldn’t it? A bunch of deal-seeking strangers potentially judging your cart? Maybe thinking that you should have opted for the other yogurt? The diet soda? The organic cereal? 

But it’s not just the assumption that Genna is making “bad” choices, or that Genna’s body is being judged. 

Genna: One thing that bothers me to no end is the assumption that fat people are stupid. I have a bachelor's degree from Seattle University. I have a master's degree from the University of Denver. Like, I'm not dumb. And I'm not making comments about people who do not have higher education. Like, higher education is incredibly expensive and incredibly difficult to obtain. Like, I'm not judging people's intelligence based off of higher education degrees. But people look at me and assume that I am unintelligent because I am fat. And the way that I get treated at work, especially because I am fat, is infuriating. At my previous workplace, it was a … it was very much a place where knowledge is power, and how much you knew about what we were talking about was very important to the success of your everyday life. And someone would go get me, because I knew more about the topic than they did. And people would just be shocked that I'm the one they got for help because I knew more. We were talking about dog and cat nutrition. And especially when you talk about dog and cat nutrition, when you talk about nutrition, period, and you get a fat person involved? And I'm standing there being like, "Your dog is overweight, your cat is overweight, and they need to lose weight, or you need to be feeding this ..." like, from a fat person? People were just shocked. And there were some people who blatantly just would not listen to a word that I had to say, because I was a fat person. And I knew it was because I was a fat person. So like, the preexisting assumptions about people just based on their body size, about how lazy we are and basically, how lazy we are – and lazy in all aspects of life; like, not just the fact that I won't get off the couch and go exercise – but like the fact that I don't put in a lot of work in all aspects of my life is infuriating to me. 

Something I’ve seen happening, especially in this pandemic era, is people leaning all the way into their laziness in a way that’s self-deprecating and honestly very funny. I see memes and TikToks all the time by people poking fun at themselves for hating exercise, or laying on the couch all day, or being an “indoor girl.”

But … I’ve also noticed that a lot of the people making those jokes are thin or average-sized people. And it sometimes feels like that brand of humor is only okay for certain types of people, certain kidneys of bodies, and not others. Because when a thin person jokes about how a trip to the kitchen for more potato chips is the equivalent of a HIIT workout, that’s seen as fun and quirky and cute. When a stereotypically hot girl can house a half-pound burger and truffle fries and a large Coke, it’s sexy! Does anyone remember the Carl’s Jr. ad with Paris Hilton? That is some early aughts stuff. So I don’t think this new. I don’t think this is a trend. I think this is something that has always existed, right? Where a skinny person making jokes about being lazy or eating crappy food is funny, it’s cool, or, in the case of that Carl’s Jr. ad, it is weirdly sexy. 

But if someone who is bigger does the same thing, makes those same jokes? Hmmm.

Genna: I think when it comes to fat people as a society in the United States, we're just we're not there yet. And I don't know that will ever be. You know, there's a lot of great fat activism happening, but in terms of fat folks being able to exist in society without judgment and without hatred and without fear, I just don't think we're there yet. 

Nora McInerny: What is your relationship with the word fat now?

Genna: It's kind of like the word queer, in that queer communities have taken that word back. I've taken that word back for myself, that it used to be a word that was used against me as something negative, and I use it as a descriptor. I use it as an identifier, that it's not something that is going to hurt me. And I know it's still a really hurtful word to other people, but for me, it's just … it’s just an identifier.

I’m Nora McInerny, and this has been “Terrible, Thanks for Asking.” 

“Terrible, Thanks for Asking” is a production of Feelings & Co. This is an independent production. We are not owned by anybody! How exciting is it to say that? You can support our show by signing up for premium content – gets you ad free episodes and some bonus content. Or you can just do this! Listen to this show. Share it with somebody. Review it and rate it. All those things that people are always begging you to do. 

“Terrible, Thanks for Asking” is going on tour in October 2022. We will be in San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Brooklyn, Washington D.C., Boston, Toronto, Chicago, and St. Paul. And because my book, Bad Vibes Only, is coming out at the same time, I will be going to I think seven cities for bookstore events, also in the month of October. It’ll be quite a trip. 

You can get tickets for our live tour and find out more about the book tour as well at ttfa.org. That’s actually where you can find everything to do with our show. It’s ttfa.org. Thank you guys so much for being here. And that is it! That’s all. That’s all I got, buds.