A Love Letter From Fictional Fat Females to Maria Kang

Fitness guru and nutrition expert Maria Kang recently invited the wrath of the internet down upon her head when she posted a picture of herself with a great deal of skin showing and her three young sons, provocatively titled “What’s your excuse?”

Well, Maria Kang is back in the news again. Now she is vehemently defending that being proud of her fitness isn’t hate speech.

The great irony is that she ends by saying that there are only three types of women: the “normal, overweight woman,” the “photoshopped fake woman,” and then an “array of real women” which I assume to mean by her blanket statement incorporates everything from “ideal body weight” to “skeleton.”

I decided to talk to her about it:

Seriously, Maria, you have a giant pair of brass tits there claiming you’re not participating in fat shaming or hate speech while creating a subclass of female that you sneeringly refer to as “normal” and fat. Then you exclude them from the term “real.” Do you know what the opposite of real is, Maria? It’s fake. Imaginary.

Oh, how do you solve a problem like Maria? Well, I’d recommend a really large wedgie to begin with. Can you feel me, bitch?

Ms. Maria, you are a real woman but no, your argument isn’t exactly invalid, but you’re living with your head up your ass. I gave you the benefit of a doubt the first time around and assumed you weren’t really trying to be rude–clearly, my mistake. I don’t find it shocking at all that overweight women are offended by your statements. And I’ll be damned if I let a work-at-home, self-proclaimed recovering bulimic with OCD symptoms brand me “less real” just because I am a few pounds above some arbitrary number dictated as “ideal body weight.”

So maybe you need to hear it. What is our excuse, anyway?

You say, “…plenty of things are normal that shouldn’t be. It is normal to eat fast food. It is normal to play video games all day. It is normal to not exercise.” Maria, you are absolutely correct. Let’s look at a few other things which are “normal” that shouldn’t be:

• Way too many people live below, or close to, the poverty line.
• Far too many people spend long hours at work often not getting breaks or significant physical movement on the job. Too many of these positions get a mere 30 minutes for lunch and often people have a long commute to get to these McJobs.
• It may shock you, Maria, but most people don’t have supplemental income coming in from two nursing homes that they own.
• It’s a lot more expensive to eat fresh vegetables than calorie-dense and nutritionally meaningless junk food. It’s prohibitively expensive for people close to the poverty line.
• Way too many corporate enterprises are allowed to masquerade as “healthy” when in fact they’re actually Satan in a pair of stockings. Perhaps you saw the lobby group trying to get the FDA to allow them to label artificially sweetened milk as just plain “milk?”
• The information available to the public about good nutrition and exercise is shit.

Come on, the Daily Recommended Calorie Intake used for average is still 2,000 calories. Most men would become overweight on a diet of 2,000 calories a day! They don’t even provide a different figure for women. And have you seen the spin job they’ve done on processed food? Holy crapspackle.

I know obesity is a huge problem, and yeah there’s a little bit of delusion about what a healthy body looks like. Let’s look at the other end of the delusion spectrum: the empire of the supermodel where glory is heaped on those living on lettuce and oxygen and where waifs are idealized for looking like a holocaust victim. Hey, wait, you implied those are real women too and fat women aren’t. I am assuming you are okay with anorexia?

“Normal” is FUCKED and you, Maria Kang, are adding to the assault and noise that women are already bombarded with around “appropriate” body image. Yeah, you look good right now, and brava! I don’t think anybody really has a quarrel with your physique. They have a problem with you being an ignorant shit. No wonder women everywhere are putting their fingers in their ears and shouting “LA LA LA!” at the top of their lungs.

The internet would have been a lot kinder to you if you had simply offered compassion and knowledge or a helping hand, but instead you assumed the right to stand in self-righteous judgement. And you call yourself a Christian woman? For shame. Since you forgot a few of your lessons from Bible school:

• Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to do it. – Proverbs 3:27
• A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. – Proverbs 15:1
• And my personal favourite: Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgement you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Matthew 7:1-2

I recommend you spend some time taking notes from Richard Simmons on how to not be an ass while encouraging people to be fit. You will never be as fabulous as that dude.

(Photo courtesy of weknowmemes.com)