the 3 letter word

I'm kind of obsessed with the word "fat" right now. It's one of those words that has an immediate, jaw dropped reaction. If you jokingly call someone "fat" - the person you said it to might get the joke but the people standing around will inevitably get that "omg, did she just say that? Is this cool? Should we be laughing too? ok, hehehe, yea, fat, haha, funny, omg, I'm so uncomfortable I think I just peed my pants a little..." well, you know what I mean.

It has a punch in the stomach kind of reaction. It's truly one of the worst insults you can fling at someone because it's so base and raw. Ugly, whatever. Jerk, who cares. Butt nugget, right back at ya. Fucktard, well that's just silly.

But FAT. ouch. That one stings.

Because how many people look in the mirror every morning and say that to themselves? I'm sure there's some people out there who can brush their teeth without looking at their stomach and sighing. (And whoever they are, I totally am forming a club against them. Scott Kelly, I'm looking at you.) But the majority use "fat" as that horrible self-hating word you throw at yourself. And I don't know - maybe I'm just speaking for myself here. But the reaction that I see when that awful 3 letter word drops has me thinking that I'm probably not the only one.

There's such shame associated with it. When you're a smoker and you get called a smoker, yea, it's not like it's a compliment, but it's an identity. When you're a fatty and you get called a fatty - why is it such a jolt? It's almost like the 'n' word - its only ok if I call myself that word.

It's too bad there's such a deep, intense emotional connection to that word. Diets might actually work if we didn't all freak out at the sound of the word "fat".