When plump was a pleasing word
Recently, I finished a route in the rock climbing gym and someone said to me, 鈥淭hat鈥檚 pretty stout!鈥� I was confused and maybe a little insulted. Was he, out of the blue, calling me fat? 聽
My reaction had a lot to do with how fraught the issue of 鈥渇at鈥� is in American society today. On one hand, we have very negative attitudes about it. Obesity is considered a grave health concern, and standards of beauty skew very much toward the thin. But on the other, there is a growing 鈥渂ody positive鈥� movement that encourages people of all sizes to see their bodies as beautiful. 聽
The word thick, which we looked at last week, goes along with this movement; it is a wholly positive term that celebrates 鈥渂igger鈥� bodies. Fat, in contrast, is a word that is inherently stigmatizing.
A commonly accepted historical narrative holds that in the past, fatness was culturally appreciated. It was a sign that you were healthy and wealthy enough to eat three meals a day. It was only at the turn of the 20th century that a high enough proportion of Westerners had so much food that thinness resulting from self-denial became the standard of beauty. 聽
Do the terms we used in the past to talk about 鈥渇atness鈥� support this story?
In the 19th century, doctors advocated 鈥減lumpness.鈥� Dr. T.C. Duncan鈥檚 1878 guide, 鈥淗ow to Be Plump,鈥� describes this state as beneficial both to one鈥檚 health and to one鈥檚 looks and is filled with advice about how to 鈥済et fleshy.鈥� 聽
Plumpness, though, was a state of moderation. If you got too fleshy, you became corpulent, and this was considered to be unhealthy and unattractive.
The word fat itself combined these dual senses from its very first uses. A 13th-century historian praised King Henry I, describing him as a 鈥渇air man ... and fat also,鈥� while the ideal early medieval woman was 鈥渇at, tender, and beautiful.鈥� Yet fatness was also moralized, associated with the sin of gluttony.
As these words show, we have always been of two minds about fatness. In the 20th century, though, its positive aspects largely dropped out of the picture. The body positive activists who fight 鈥渇at-shaming鈥� are in a way restoring the balance we have lost.聽 聽 聽 聽
As for stout, I had forgotten that it isn鈥檛 just a negative term for 鈥渟hort and fat.鈥� It also means 鈥渂rave,鈥� 鈥渄etermined,鈥� 鈥渟trong,鈥� and 鈥渧igorous,鈥� as in 鈥渁 stout defense.鈥� King Henry I could have been stout as well as fat. Among climbers, a stout route is a tough one. It was a compliment.
