Flying may be one of the most stress-inducing, fat-shaming things that people with large bodies do, for which there is no comparable alternative (at least in most of the US). If you want more context on how this bears out in real life, allow me to recommend this episode of the podcast Maintenance Phase. Host Aubrey Gordon shares her personal experiences and, while it is not representative of all fat people (nothing is representative of all <fill in the blank> people), it might be eye-opening if you are not a fat person yourself.
My most recent experience with flying was one week ago, and as always, I generally kept my eyes averted as other customers were boarding. The flight was open-seating, so people were filling in as they boarded, and the empty seats were becoming fewer in number and farther apart. I sat next to my husband, who is no dainty fellow himself, and we did our best to condense ourselves into the least amount of space as we could. We even tend to sit towards the rear of the plane, so that sitting beside us is an obligation of last resort. While we can’t make our bodies smaller, he sits by the window (as snug to it as is possible) and I sit as snug to him as possible. And still, whoever sits beside me will do so with some part of me overtaking some of their allotted space because, physics.
I avert my eyes because of what I have seen when I didn’t: the obvious concern that “I might have to sit by her,” or the pitiful look of “I’ve got alternatives, but I feel sorry for whoever has to sit by her,” or the standard disapproval of my existing in a fat body and daring to participate in the world around me. I’ve experienced a passenger seated beside me trying to change seats, one even suggested changing flights because there was another one leaving soon for the same destination that wasn’t sold out. People generally don’t like to sit by fat people on planes, and in some regards, I get it. You paid for your seat, and you should get every square inch of it. No one likes to be squished into (or by) a stranger. No one likes to have constant physical contact with a stranger for extended periods of time. Maybe it’s not an anti-fat thing at all, and I understand that. But when the world around you often comes at you as a hammer, you begin to always feel like a nail.
A note — yes I am fat, yes I am 75 pounds heavier than my preferred size. But I’m also nearly six feet tall, so I am fully aware that even my experience is different from someone who lands at the same number on a scale but reaches a lower standing height. And, compared to the experiences relayed in the above-referenced podcast, I have not been a lifelong fat person. My belief that I was fat began around age 16, but reasonable standards (not those than aim for sizes 0–6) being 5’11” meant that the eventual process of actually gaining weight still did not “catch up to me” in a way that would affect others until the last 5–7 years of my life. I am well aware that even my story is markedly different than that of people who are either larger than I, or have spent more (if not most) of their life in fat bodies.
I share all this context and these caveats to (finally) say this: if you are of a smaller size, consider how your choice could positively impact someone with a fat body. Believe me, I understand that not everyone has an aversion to sitting beside someone else because they are fat. People are weird about coming into contact with anyone else in this way, size be damned. Rather, I’m asking you to be aware that there are many people out there who have this experience when they fly, and you could easily reduce their anxiety in a very real way by choosing to sit with them, and not from lack of options.
To whom might this apply? A thinner person flying solo, or who will not be able to sit with their flying companion, or a young traveler old enough to sit separately from their family/group. Once, my husband and I were leaving for vacation, and a family settled into the seats opposite ours, and their elementary-aged son took the aisle seat beside me. This resulted in a huge drop in my anxiety level, and to try to make the boy feel more comfortable even at such a small distance from his family, we shared with him some of the snacks we’d packed in case we didn’t have time to eat in the airport. In general, I have had people with thinner bodies sit beside me and either we never touched, or if we did they did not move or shift, which left me with the feeling that they weren’t bothered by it.
Insert me feeling the need to reiterate the last sentences of paragraph three, because I do get it. No one owes me anything; that’s not what I’m saying. I’m well aware that I made choices that led to my body becoming the size it is now. I also know that is not the case for all fat people, just as not all thin people are that size because of the choices they’ve made. I believe that there are people who are naturally, inherently thin, and conversely I believe there are people who are naturally, inherently fat. We’ve all known that woman who can literally eat whatever she wants, does not have to exercise, and never gains weight. What we don’t talk about are those folks who make healthy eating choices and are routinely physically active, and still inhabit larger bodies. (This is not meant to be a treatise on “Why Fat?” so I’ll reel it in.)
I’m asking you to consider the humanity here. My goal is to point out something you might have never considered before. The world is already hard to exist in for fat people, in ways those without the experience of inhabiting similar bodies cannot understand, while it is overly kind and welcoming to those in thinner bodies. This is a relatively simple ask, and yet can have a positive impact beyond what you might ever know.
