Radio Idiot: Obstacles to Self Esteem

I was on my way to work this morning, sipping my grande nonfat mocha and listening to my favorite radio morning show (Kent and Alan on Star 101.5 in Seattle). They are celebrating 20 years of being on the air, the longest running morning show in this area, so the listening has been especially good these days. But on this morning's "Therapy Thursday" feature, there was a question regarding etiquette for birthday parties. (Whether it's okay to ask people to pay for their own dinner when you invite them out to a restaurant to celebrate someone else. Incidentally, the answer is no, but I digress.) The purpose of "Therapy Thursday" is to allow listeners to call in and offer their advice, so you usually hear people call in with opinions on all sides of an issue, although in the end we all just do what we want to anyway. Still, it's fun to stick your nose in other people's business, which is why this weekly bit is so popular.

What jarred me was the one caller (a male with a gruff voice) who suggested that they all just go to McDonalds or Jenny Craig for dinner. Turns out this guy has been calling every week and his whole shtick is that all the people who write to "Therapy Thursday" are complainers, and all are fat people who just need to lose weight and quit blaming everyone else for their problems. Fortunately, Kent and Alan just fluffed the guy off and thanked him for calling in every week with the same advice. But I couldn't help thinking that besides being completely irrelevant, this guy's comments are really hurtful to fat people. Someone listening to the show that is overweight would be really insulted by this guy.

But then I remembered: I am a fat girl! Why am I not hurt and insulted?

It took me a minute to think on that. Fortunately, the answer rang clear as a bell: Because this man is ignorant, and ignorance is not something by which I can be hurt or insulted. It is something to pity.

I don't need to worry about what someone like this caller thinks. I know I'm fat. I know exactly how I look by virtue of the fact that I'm pretty vain and therefore spend plenty of time looking in the mirror. I know because I can be winded just walking up a couple flights of stairs, or crawling around the living room floor with my son. I know because I can't find my size at Victoria's Secret. I know because my mother tells me so. I know because I carefully Photoshop all of our vacation photos to crop

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