{"id":11861,"date":"2024-07-13T10:05:48","date_gmt":"2024-07-13T10:05:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/topat10.com\/?p=11861"},"modified":"2024-07-13T10:05:48","modified_gmt":"2024-07-13T10:05:48","slug":"fatphobia-is-back-with-a-vengeance-among-gen-z-girls-heres-how-phrases-like-big-back-and-fatty-are-damaging-say-experts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/topat10.com\/?p=11861","title":{"rendered":"Fatphobia is back with a vengeance among Gen Z girls. Here\u2019s how phrases like \u2018big back\u2019 and \u2018fatty\u2019 are damaging, say experts"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\u201cI\u2019m so big back!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re being such biggies right now!\u201d<\/p>\n

Welcome to the latest teen-girl parlance\u2014a TikTok-trend spinoff that\u2019s become the new language of casual, constant joking used to poke fun at each other, and one\u2019s self, for eating.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And while many teens say the jargon is simply meant to be playful, others admit they find it hurtful, or at least jarring. Experts find the explosion of this kind of slang alarming.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a problem for everybody,\u201d says Z\u00f6e Bisbing<\/a>, a body-image and eating-disorders<\/a> psychotherapist. \u201cIt has a lot to do with this really, really entrenched anti-fat bias in our culture that normalizes microaggressions toward fat people.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Complicating the problem, though, is that the jokes are made by and about thin girls.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWith this new language, they\u2019ve given each other permission to comment not only on weight<\/a> but on eating itself. So there\u2019s nothing good about this,\u201d Barbara Greenberg<\/a>, a teen and adolescent therapist based in Connecticut who is familiar with the terminology, tells Fortune<\/em>. \u201cIt\u2019s going backwards.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chanea Bond<\/a>, a Texas high school English teacher and education influencer<\/a>, tells Fortune<\/em> she was disturbed as she watched the trend pick up steam before summer. \u201cIt started this school year. At first it was mostly students referring to themselves. But now \u2018big back\u2019 it\u2019s so common in their vernacular, they say it anytime there\u2019s eating happening. Also, \u2018You\u2019re a fatty.\u2019 \u2018Fatty\u2019 has definitely come back,\u201d she says. \u201cI definitely wish it would go away.\u201d<\/p>\n

Never was that truer for Bond than it was earlier this week, when her 6-year-old daughter came home from daycare and asked, \u201cMom, do I have the biggest back?\u201d After some digging, Bond learned her kid had been told by the teacher that she had \u201cthe biggest back\u201d after asking for extra crackers at snack time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI asked if it hurt her feelings. I told her that her body is proportional, and that if she wants extra snack, she\u2019s allowed to eat extra snack without someone commenting on her body,\u201d says Bond, who shared the exchange with her daughter on X<\/a>, where it\u2019s been viewed over 1.3 million times, prompting a slew of supportive responses.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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This \u2018big back\u2019 business is fatphobia. My 6 year old coming home and asking if she has \u2018the biggest back\u2019 because she wanted extra crackers at snack time is NOT cute or funny. <\/p>\n

Time to wrap it up.<\/p>\n

\u2014 The Madwoman in the Classroom (@heymrsbond) July 10, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

She notes that the young teacher\u2014whom Bond plans on talking to about the situation\u2014is probably not too much older than her students. \u201cI don\u2019t think she meant to be hurtful,\u201d she says. But it showed Bond that the trend, despite her wish that it might calm down over the summer, \u201cis definitely still very much there.\u201d<\/p>\n

What \u2018big back\u2019 and other terms mean\u2014and how we got here<\/h2>\n

As with so many troubling trends,<\/a> the latest form of fat-speak can be traced to TikTok\u2014specifically, to a \u201cbig back\u201d video trend (currently with over 174 million posts<\/a>) that appears to have peaked in the spring. That involved sharing videos with one of two themes: 1) showing yourself eating a lot or someone else eating a lot (typically someone thin) with comments about it being \u201cbig back\u201d behavior, or 2) stuffing your clothes<\/a> to make your back (or <\/a>even a baby<\/a>\u2019s) appear larger<\/a> and then either running to get food<\/a> or, once again, just eating<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Those videos in turn led to criticism of the trend, with some calling it out for \u201cmaking fun of fat people<\/a>\u201d and \u201ccreating new insecurities<\/a>.\u201d Then came videos appearing to mock the trend<\/a> altogether.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But what does \u201cbig back\u201d actually mean? That\u2019s where things get complicated, as many have noted that the term and possibly the trend appear to have roots in African American English (AAE) and in Black spaces online. But the trend is \u201cpretty new, so there hasn\u2019t been a bunch of research done on it,\u201d says Kimberley Baxter, linguistics PhD candidate at New York University who specializes in AAE.\u00a0<\/p>\n

NYU professor of linguistics Renee Blake says that the term has roots in the \u201cBlack London community, meaning \u2018derri\u00e8re\u2019 in a positive light,\u201d and that it only became negative through appropriation.<\/p>\n

Baxter theorizes that \u201cbig back\u201d became \u201ca term to be levied at all fat people, but also towards people who engage in stereotypes associated with fatness,\u201d and that it has connections with the term \u201cbad built<\/a>\u201d as well as the old-school \u201cbuilt like a linebacker.\u201d She observes it was propelled across social media recently in part by reactions to<\/a> a popular TikTok series<\/a> by Reese Teesa<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Its origins have prompted some\u2014including a therapist who goes by Therapy Dojo<\/a> on TikTok\u2014to say that current uses of \u201cbig back\u201d feel like \u201ccultural appropriation,\u201d and can make white criticisms of the trend feel like the \u201cpolicing of Black culture.\u201d That\u2019s despite the therapist\u2019s belief that the term, on its face, is \u201cabsolutely fatphobic<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lizzo has even weighed in<\/a>, calling the trend \u201chorribly fatphobic,\u201d but noting that the term was just \u201csomething Black people say\u201d and that it wasn\u2019t until it \u201cgot turned into a trend\u201d that it got \u201cout of control,\u201d with people using it \u201cin a harmful way.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

The nuance is why Bisbing says she looks at \u201cbig back\u201d and \u201cfatty\u201d as \u201ctwo distinct phenomena.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Still, \u201cbig back\u201d now gets used interchangeably with other current terms in this realm, including \u201cfatty\u201d and \u201cbiggie,\u201d according to teens around the country.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Big-back\u2019 is something you say to your friends when they\u2019re eating, like, \u2018Oh, you\u2019re such a little big back, you ate four cookies!\u2019\u201d F., a New Jersey 16-year-old, tells Fortune<\/em>. (The young people in this article are being referred to by their initial to protect their privacy.) \u201cIt\u2019s only said when a person is eating. But you would never call your overweight friend \u2018big back.\u2019\u201d She feels like its rise in popularity could be due to \u201cbacklash\u201d over the body-positivity movement, noting, \u201cLike, it was OK to look like Lizzo, but then it\u2019s suddenly not OK anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think people are kind of saying it casually,\u201d says S., 17, from Massachusetts. \u201cI haven\u2019t heard them saying it to insult people. It\u2019s kind of more of a self-deprecating joke.\u201d<\/p>\n

S., 17, of Rhode Island, agrees. \u201cI definitely think it can be harmful to some but for me, I just think it\u2019s funny. I definitely wouldn\u2019t say it around an actual fat person,\u201d she says, \u201cbut I have heard other people [do that].\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

L., 16, of Connecticut, explains, \u201cWe say, \u2018Hey, fatty,\u2019 as if you\u2019d say, \u2018You\u2019re so silly.\u2019 It\u2019s an insult but it\u2019s playful, you know what I mean? I will often say \u2018I\u2019m being so big-backed right now,\u2019 like if someone offers me part of their lunch and I eat all of it \u2026 It feels like a joke. But,\u201d she adds, \u201cin some ways I guess it does strengthen mental bias.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why the fat-phobic jargon worries experts<\/h2>\n

\u201cThere are so many layers to this, because there\u2019s been such a movement to reclaim words like \u2018big\u2019 or \u2018fat,\u2019 to use them as a neutral descriptor for folks who feel strongly about fat positivity,\u201d notes educator and parent coach Oona Hansen<\/a>, who specializes in helping families battle diet culture. Instead, the terms are back to being used as insults that mock somebody\u2019s size or appetite. \u201cThat tends to reinforce this idea that if you\u2019re in a bigger body, you\u2019re always consuming massive amounts of food. It reinforces that notion of gluttony.\u201d<\/p>\n

That it\u2019s mostly \u201cthinner white women\u201d is not a coincidence, she adds, due to \u201cthe backdrop of the weight-loss drugs and people not having appetites, and linking appetite and body size. I think it really reinforces harmful ideas both about body size and about food, and makes it socially acceptable to comment on people\u2019s bodies.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Greenberg worries that it might encourage secret eating among teen girls. \u201cIt increases the self-conscious feelings, the social-emotional feelings of shame and embarrassment,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

What the trend highlights, Bisbing believes, is that \u201cfatphobia and anti-fat bias is still super acceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n

And while that is \u201ca problem for everybody,\u201d she says, \u201cwhere I\u2019ve seen it really, acutely injure teens is where there\u2019s a peer group with a minority of kids who are in larger bodies \u2026 Because that language that\u2019s being used in this playful way is going to hit very differently to a kid who is actually fat.\u201d<\/p>\n

Using the language, she adds, \u201calmost creates this invisibility for the actual fat kid in the group\u2014and then also a hypervisibility.\u201d<\/p>\n

Finally, it\u2019s harmful because kids who are not in larger bodies are not-so-subtly expressing that they\u2019d never want<\/em> to be\u2014basically saying, with \u201cbig back,\u201d \u201c \u2018We strive to not be that way,\u2019\u201d Bisbing explains, while, \u201c \u2018I\u2019m such a fatty\u2019 is more like, \u2019That is such a gross thing. Ew, look at me!\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that everyone is harmed by this discourse because it maintains a cultural norm that makes it really hard to establish emotional safety for all,\u201d she says. \u201cSo I\u2019m worried more about the collective harm, sort of whether they know it or not\u2014and they don\u2019t know it\u2014contributing to an oppressive culture.\u201d<\/p>\n

How to address the trend\u2019s potential harm with your kids<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s a one and done conversation for a family or parent,\u201d offers Bisbing, who notes that, in an ideal scenario, you\u2019ll have already had so many other \u201cvalues-oriented conversations about body oppression in our culture.\u201d<\/p>\n

If that\u2019s not been the case, she says, this might be a conversation starter\u2014and an opportunity to not only address this specific jargon, but to highlight that this is just one example of a societal problem.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And keep in mind, she suggests, that \u201cwhen you have a teen, you don\u2019t have any control over what they say.\u201d But it\u2019s worth them rolling their eyes and likely hearing you on some level if you say, \u201cI\u2019m just letting you know: It\u2019s oppressive. Even though your friends are laughing, I bet they\u2019re hurting inside.\u201d Make it clear that you\u2019re not going to deliver a lecture, but point out that the issue touches on feminism, anti-racism, and general social justice.<\/p>\n

\u201cFind those points of connection between this stupid trend and how absolutely oppressive it is, and help them connect the dots,\u201d she says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hansen suggests approaching your teen or tween with curiosity, perhaps saying, \u201cTell me more about the trend. How are your friends using it? Do you think they\u2019re feeling the same way?\u201d<\/p>\n

With a kid who might be really upset about it, help them talk it through and figure out how they want to respond next time somebody throws the terms around. \u201cI think teens come up with better ideas than we do, in general,\u201d she says. It\u2019s also helpful to not overreact or shut them down if they come to you with the issue, as they may not come to you next time.<\/p>\n

Bottom line, Hansen says: \u201cFor parents, it\u2019s an opportunity to think about how you\u2019re building your kid\u2019s skills in navigating awkward social conversations and social media. It\u2019ll keep evolving, but it\u2019s really about, can you connect with your teen? Can you have a conversation that sparks critical thinking?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n