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Comment by future1979 | Hacker News Reader

future1979·

Interesting comment on being called fat. I'm a bit, shall we say, big boned. And I experienced two odd instances where a Chinese person I barely knew casually remarked how fat I was. It was otherwise a pleasant conversation and had me a bit confused. If a stranger said that to you in America, it would certainly be considered mean.

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Not in the rest of America (I.e Latin America) where that would be common and even a term of endearment (gordita). It's common in South Asian cultures as well.

To me Americans are focused on being PC while not dealing with the root cause. In the case of "fat" the root problems is that Americans tend to shame & hate those who are fat. It has become a negative stigma, but instead of attacking the root cause we have removed fat as an adjective and think that by removing the hateful term (hateful by usage not by definition) we have solved the problem.

You would be surprised to learn that in some impoverished countries like Nepal being called fat is a compliment. People use same word to describe someone who is fat or muscular. It is a compliment because being fat means you are rich enough to have more than enough to eat.

Yet Americans would tell a stranger that they're tall, or occasionally short.

You can't change how tall or short you are tho, so that's not in any way commenting on your character.

In "western" (not just American) cultures, calling somewhat fat is basically calling them gluttonous or lazy (both among the 7 deadly sins).

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