“His teacher said he was not eating all his lunch”

A couple of days ago we attended my son’s IEP meeting. The meeting itself is to determine what accommodations my son needs to support his learning as a student with anxiety, ADHD and dyslexia. I had no idea the emotional impact the meeting would have on me as a fat person. 

My partner and I arrive to the school and are welcomed into a room with four teachers, one  exceptional children’s teacher and the guidance counselor. My son is new to this school and new to public school so we gathered details about his history with school, learning and accommodations. After this short period of conversation the math teacher states,” I am concerned about his lunch, he is not eating all of it and I reminded him he needs energy for the day.” 

I think a level of shock went through my body that I didn't even come in contact with until I left the school that day. Shock of someone doing the thing… the thing we are always trying to uncover, verbalize and act on as the unmet need for oppressed, marginalized identities. 

My son’s teacher saw my son as a person who had not eaten all of his lunch. She saw him as a human that she saw struggling to take nourishment into his fat, bound up body. 

For awareness, if you are thinking no big deal then you might not understand fat stigma. Fat people don’t get met with curiosity when they are not eating, they get met with praise. This teacher met my son with curiosity and acknowledged that his body needed fuel.

Fat bodies do not get to be nourished because, “ aren’t they over nourished?” Is a common response I would hear often in the hospital when a patient had a wound that was not healing, was third spacing and was in a larger body. It literally felt incongruent, misaligned to people who were met with the message that all bodies need nutrition and enough of it.

You know what happened after the teacher said that? I realized I had neglected to tell her about my son’s IBS and how it really can affect him when it is flared up. The teacher, guidance counselor and the EC teacher all then made a plan to make him feel safe if he needed a private place to use the bathroom. 

Pairing bodies with stigmas prevents connection, care and medical support. It alienates us from our curiosity about nourishment and the support that could be there for all humans to feed their bodies. 

I am so thankful for this teacher and her humanity. I am so thankful that my nervous system could come in contact with this experience. This experience allowed deeper connection and trust with those taking care of my son.