A fatsuit, also known as a fat suit or fat-suit, is a bodysuit-like undergarment used to thicken the appearance of an actor or actress of light to medium build into an overweight or obese character, in conjunction with prosthetic makeup. The use of fat suits in entertainment raises several complex questions about representation, societal perceptions of body image, and the lived experiences of individuals with obesity.
What is a Fat Suit?
Fatsuits worn by characters are either deliberately visible or mainly concealed. Most are intended as unseen body padding beneath a costume (e.g., Rosemary Shanahan in Shallow Hal, and Sherman Klump in The Nutty Professor), others appear as realistic flesh and are viewed directly (e.g., Fat Bastard in Austin Powers, and Les Grossman's hands in Tropic Thunder). Beyond entertainment, fatsuits may also be used to impart the experience of being obese to the wearer, not just the appearance of obesity to their audience. The suit in this case is weighted, as well as padded. Where the intention is to impart the experience of being seen as overweight in a community, its appearance must also be realistic and so a fatsuit rather than just a weight belt is needed.
The Problematic Nature of Fat Suits in Entertainment
There’s a pervasive belief that inside every fat person lives a thin person just waiting to come out, once the person sheds their fat. Weight loss companies have depicted this literally. Fat people who have lost weight are seen as entirely different people post-weight loss. They “come into their true selves” through weight loss. It’s harmful to people who are fat. People starve themselves, spend all their disposable income, consent to dangerous, life-altering surgery in pursuit of the lie that a thin person is inside of them, just waiting for them to shed their fat suit so life can begin. People go to great, dangerous lengths for weight loss because they’ve been conditioned to believe that they can shed their fat bodies like a fat suit and magically find their true selves within. The truth is that we don’t have any reliable way to make a fat person into a thin person. Weight can be lost through extreme means, but that weight is almost always regained. Bodies are hard-wired to return to their set point. Bodies don’t like significant changes in your weight; your body is designed to fight it. And, so, most people regain weight. Most weight loss, even after gastric surgery, is not sustainable. It’s also harmful to fat people who have lost weight.
Characters in fat suits are always a “before.” They exist to show Monica Gellar, Winston Schmidt, Fatty Patty from Insatiable before they become their true, thin selves. They show what life was like before the character’s life truly began. Before they were worthy, before they were loved, before they were desired, before they had confidence, before they found success. It’s not as if Insatiable is the only place this lie is told. It’s just another teen show with this message. Perhaps it’s more egregious than other shows. But teenagers, amazingly, watch “Friends.” They watch “The New Girl,” where the character Schmidt’s fat past is played for jokes. They see Weight Watchers and Slim Fast and Jenny Craig and fitness commercials on TV. They’re getting it from other sources. But it’s part of the lie. And I desperately want to tell young girls watching this show because they love Debby Ryan that it’s a lie. I want to call out the lie.
Actors in fat suits are puffy, overstuffed. They waddle. They are stiff, their bodies don’t move naturally. They don’t look like people, really. They don’t move like people. But unlike CG people added for special effects, or because the actor passed away but the show must go on, the fact that they don’t look right, don’t look fully human, is part of the point. The real issue with fat suits is what they represent philosophically. The issue with fat suits like this one (and Fat Monica and Fat Schmidt and Fat Gwyneth Paltrow…) is that their very appearance is played for laughs. Fat Monica.
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The Lived Experience vs. The Portrayal
Fat people have been clear about this: fat suits are problematic, offensive, dehumanizing. And Hollywood still insists on using them, because the story they are trying to tell is different, that they’re actually trying to teach people about the harm of fatphobia, that it’s just a joke … but they won’t listen to us. They won’t listen to the people who actually live in fat bodies, deal with the consequences of fatphobia, deal with derision and discrimination in their daily lives due to fatphobia, who are victims of the systemic oppression of fat people. And, as a result, every time a show or movie puts a character in a fat suit, they become part of that systemic oppression. You cannot teach a lesson about fatphobia by engaging in it. (Just as, for instance, you cannot teach a lesson about racism by putting a white actor in blackface.) You cannot claim it’s just a joke, it’s not that serious, when the people living in the marginalized bodies you’re turning into a joke live with the consequences. Please, just listen to us. Just trust us on this one.
We have lives outside of being fat. All the things that happen to thin people in movies? Love, loss, grief, pain, joy, turmoil, revelation? They happen to us too. We have relationships. We have struggles that are unrelated to our weight. We have successes, setbacks, painful periods of transition. We have torrid love affairs and terrible breakups. We have epic love stories. We get married, have children. We have complex, difficult, joyful relationships with our families, friends and spouses. We overcome obstacles. We are triumphant. So why is this the only story that we ever tell about fat people? Stories centered on weight loss? The before and after?
It divides the world into fatties and beauty queens. It divides the world into victims and bullies. Most of us live in the gray. Most of us are somewhere in between. Just like thin people, we can be heroes, and we can be villains, and we can veer back and forth between the two. We can also be neither. We all carry with us reminders of the person we used to be. It’s just a lot more literal for some than others.
The Psychological Impact of Weight Stigma
Although a considerable amount of research has revealed connections between weight stigma and mental and physical health outcomes, no studies to date have experimentally manipulated the experience of obesity to understand how weight stigma causally affects eating behavior, physiology, and psychological well-being. In this research, the effect of weight stigma on psychological outcomes, unhealthy eating behavior, and the stress hormone cortisol was examined by randomly assigning participants to appear obese by wearing a fat suit or not. Supporting these hypotheses, experimentally manipulating apparent body size led participants to consume more unhealthy foods and report higher levels of negative effect.
The Reality of Weight Loss and Body Image
People who lose a massive amount of weight are often surprised at how unhappy they still are with their bodies. The fat is gone, but all that skin that held it in place? It didn’t go anywhere. It's a less explored part of extreme weight loss. The body may be lighter, but it’s now weighed down with folds of sagging skin, causing a wild amount of emotional and physical (think: chafing) pain. More extreme weight-loss patients are choosing to remove the loose skin through cosmetic surgery, and a recent study showed that the bodies and minds of those who do end up faring much better.
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Clothes don't fit because of excess tissue. “So they still feel not-whole, and not-happy," says Wallach.
“I’m wearing a fat suit; I feel like I’m a thin person inside wearing a body that’s twice the size of mine.’"
The loose skin is caused by losing a huge amount of weight - as in, 100 pounds or more - in a very short amount of time. It can happen when the weight is lost through diet and exercise, but it happens more often to weight-loss surgery patients. With a slower, more gradual weight loss, it's easier for a person’s skin elasticity to sort of snap back into place, shrinking back down as the fat is lost. But when too much is lost too fast, the skin’s elasticity doesn’t have time to catch up.
To get rid of the loose skin, exercise helps, a little. But she’s still embarrassed about the way she looks. “Just, with my husband, I’m embarrassed to show myself. I’m always covering myself,” she said.
The most effective way to remove the excess skin is through cosmetic surgery, in one or more of an array of procedures known as body contouring. And those who do shed the extra skin generally fare better than those who don’t, both psychologically and physiologically.
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Body Contouring: A Post-Weight Loss Option
People who had weight-loss surgery, and subsequently had the excess skin removed, were less likely to gain weight back than those who had the surgery but did not undergo a body contouring procedure, according to a recent study published in the journal Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. The report followed about 100 patients who’d lost about 100 pounds after weight-loss surgery. Ali Modarressi of the University of Geneva in Switzerland, go so far as to argue that body contouring should be a routine part of bariatric surgery. (Granted, they’ve got some skin in the game, so to speak.) About 21 percent of bariatric surgery patients undergo at least one kind of body contouring procedure.
Those who choose to have body contouring done usually pick the circumferential body lift: Doctors make an incision across the back, then around the flanks and abdomen, cutting away some of the excess skin and tightening the rest of it by suturing the incision back together. After the body contouring is done, patients routinely lose another 10 to 15 pounds of loose skin alone. People go with the body lift because it makes the biggest difference in their appearance, doctors say; plus, it’s easier to talk their insurers into covering it, because the surgery has some real physiological benefits, in addition to the psychological improvements.