‘Fat shaming’ cards ‘handed’ to commuters on Tube

NHS worker Kara Florish posted a message on social media detailing the incident, after allegedly being handed a card emblazoned with the word “fat” while travelling on the Tube on Saturday.

The business card, inscribed with “Overweight Haters Ltd”, berates overweight people for “wasting NHS money” and features the tag line “It’s really not glandular, it’s your gluttony.”

“Our organisation hates and resents fat people,” it says. “We object to the enormous amount of food resources you consume while half the world starves. We disapprove of your wasting NHS money to treat your selfish greed.

“And we do not understand why you fail to grasp that by eating less you will be better off, slimmer, happy and find a partner who is not a perverted chubby-lover, or even find a partner at all.

“We also object that the beatiful (sic) pig is used as an insult. You are not a pig. You are a fat, ugly human.”

‘Pointless cruelty’

Miss Florish went further, taking to Facebook to condemn the actions of the currently unidentified man.

“I am not upset myself,” she wrote. “I am smaller than the national average and not exactly obese, but this is hateful and cowardly and could potentially upset people struggling with confidence and eating disorders.

“Please tweet and share this if you are also outraged. Plus – to the person who wrote this card, go back to school, you can’t spell ‘beautiful’.”

Another commuter, Sean Thomas Knox, posted on Twitter that he saw a woman being handed a printed card reading “you’re fat” at Oxford Circus, after which she broke down in tears.

He said he was “99.9% sure” it wasn’t staged and called it a “random act of pointless cruelty”.

British Transport Police said it was aware of the leaflets being distributed and urged passengers who had been handed one to contact police.

“All of our customers have the right to travel with confidence, and this sad and unpleasant form of anti-social behaviour will not be tolerated,” Transport for London’s Steve Burton said.

Fat shaming online

Fat shaming has been making headlines recently, with the internet in particular remaining a breeding ground for cyberbullying and body shaming.

YouTube comedienne Nicole Arbour was lambasted in September for a six-minute viral video entitled “Dear fat people” where she referred to obesity as “assisted suicide”.

“Fat-shaming is not a thing,” she says in her video. “Fat people made that up. If we offend you so much that you lose weight, I’m OK with that.”

In 2013, controversial blog Return of Kings joined in, proposing a “body shaming week”, in order to pressure people into losing weight through criticism.

“Hurting people’s feelings is the quickest way to get them to change,” a post reads. “We have decided as a group that fat shaming is essential in creating a society of thin, beautiful women who are ashamed for being ugly. Let the fat shaming begin!”

Project Harpoon

This August saw the creation of another viral campaign entitled Project Harpoon, the brainchild of a 4chan user who tasked Photoshop users to digitally alter images of plus-size people, including well-known models, such as Tess Holliday and celebrities like Meghan Trainor.

Using the hashtags #SkinnyAcceptance and #thINNERBEAUTY, the page compared side-by-side pictures of plus-size men and women, then asked followers to decide which one looked better.

And this month, Oscar-nominated actress Gabourey Sidibe featured in a sex scene in an episode of the popular series Empire and became subject to taunts and trolling online almost immediately after airing.

“I keep hearing that people are ‘hating’ on it. I’m not sure how anyone could hate on love but that’s okay,” she wrote in Entertainment Weekly. “You may have your memes. Honestly, I’m at work too busy to check Twitter anyway. #Booked. Hope you enjoy next week’s show!”

Several forums and sites dedicate entire message boards to fat shaming, such as the site “VOAT”, which has a sub-section entitled “Fat people hate” and is committed to deriding overweight people through photographs and memes.

In a similar case this May, an image posted on file sharing site 4chan showed Peter O’Brien, 46, dancing at an event, along with the caption: “Spotted this specimen trying to dance the other week. He stopped when he saw us laughing.”

A social media campaign was started in light of the photo going viral and after his identity was uncovered, a star studded party was thrown for him in his honour in LA.