Thin privilege is knowing that at the bottom of all things, at the end of all things, no matter what…you will be acceptable no matter where you go. You will always find clothing to fit you. Choosing clothes will be just that–a choice, not a resignation to take something expensive or unflattering, poorly fitting, or just plain ugly because it’s all that’s available to you. If you are thin, there will always be clothing to cover your nakedness.

No one will ever tell you your existence is wrong because of your weight. You can walk anywhere and do anything without first being evaluated based on your body size. You can eat what you wish, buy what pleases you and is affordable. You will never be violently and/or sexually attacked, be denied health care, medical procedures, fertility options, entrance into college, work, fair wages, or anything in between because of your weight. Every pair of eyes that falls on you will judge you on other qualities, but the base level will always, always be that you’re thin. And you will never full appreciate how easily that privilege came to you. Whatever other shortcomings you may have, no axe will deliver that final blow: “And you’re a fat motherfucker too…God, you’re just disgusting!”



You will never know the feeling of having to put mental armour on that one vulnerable part of you before you open your door and step outside to LIVE and not stay in the shadows. And even if you do, you will never have that one part of you unexpectedly torn away and left raw and bleeding by someone’s cruel, random words…then experience the raging guilt because you a) haven’t learned how to let someone else’s hate flow past you; and b) you think, on some hidden, shame-filled level, that maybe you deserved it all. You will never know the paranoia and deep mental scarring that can happen as each day isn’t a blessing but just a series of opportunities for people to demean, belittle, photograph, mock, and otherwise fine-tune their bigotry on you.

You will never be identified as “fat” first thing when someone describes you. Your thinness plays a secondary but supporting role in everything you are. You will never experience the eye rolls, the sighs, the behind-the-hand, obviously-meant-for-your-ears comments that people make when you do anything at all. Your relationships with all your doctors will have that element removed completely because your weight is “fine…so obviously it’s something else going wrong”, and you will never leave with a diet plan instead of a much-need prescription. Or a pamphlet on lap band or bypass surgery.



You will, above all, be seen as a person first. Not a flawed object who has to fight to earn respect straight away because fat people obviously are sub-average creatures with no claim to personhood unless they show their drive and desire and proof that yes, they are on a diet and really, really want to be thin like everyone else, that they’re trying super-hard to be good, and their highest desires are to be thin and perfect and by default, healthy and acceptable.



Thin people…that part of your world has a fairness and an equality to it that most of you are either not aware of or lord over everyone else. The few of you who have seen how this works have pierced the veil and made weak but stubborn bridges to our side of life.

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Many of these examples also intersect with white, cis, straight, able-bodied, class and male privilege. Though the kind of surveillance your body is under and the comments / reactions can be different.

-FBP