“Watching Fat Friends on Netflix is a painful reminder of the body-shaming society that raised me”

Fat Friends

Credit: Shutterstock/Rex

TV


“Watching Fat Friends on Netflix is a painful reminder of the body-shaming society that raised me”

By Joanna Kyte

13 months ago

6 min read

Originally aired in the 00s, Fat Friends is now reaching a new audience on Netflix. Watching it is an uncomfortable reminder of the fatphobia that plagued the era, writes Joanna Kyte, and prompts the question of just how far we’ve really come. 


Nostalgic British dramas and sitcoms marry all the elements of TV that I love the most: small town settings, wonderfully ordinary storylines and styling that time forgot. There’s something disarming and undeniably comforting about a series washed in clouded colours, with acting that prioritises playfulness over perfection. So when I saw that Netflix had released Kay Mellor’s iconic Fat Friends (featuring an early collaboration between four cast-members of Gavin & Stacey, and other telly treasures) nearly 20 years after it ended, I was sold long before I hit ‘play’.

Set in Leeds, the series orbits the lives of a motley crew of locals-turned-friends who vary in background, age, personality and romantic status but hold one key thing in common: a lifelong, self-confessed wrestle with their weight. This commonality of body dissatisfaction lands the group in a weekly slimming club where thinness is pinned-up and promised through a programme that divides food and drink into units or ‘syns’, and spurred on by public weigh-ins and motivational chants including “a moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips”. Though the friends scoff and roll their eyes in the meetings, laughing at the absurdity of advice like “try brushing your teeth when you’re hungry”, the room is anchored by an insatiable ache of wanting to be smaller. The satire is satisfying, the language is sadly familiar and the shame is palpable. As each episode uncovers more about every character, we are invited into stories of love, fallouts, family and friendships, but no matter what, are always led back to the most crucial subject of all – being fat.

The thread of 00s diet culture left me with a sinking feeling

As I first watched Fat Friends, the overt focus on weight gain and weight loss felt a little crass. I winced at the lack of progression, felt sporadic pangs of sadness for the characters and sighed at the narrow ideals of attractiveness. It’s a confronting experience, to watch back the society that raised you, and here I was, rescreening of the birthplace of my insecurities.

The period when Fat Friends originally aired, 2000-2005, I aged from 8 to 13, approaching the disruption of puberty and early adolescence with gusto. Though I didn’t watch the series at the time, discovering it is like a hug, like an old friend, like a family home. The turns of phrase, the picture of pre-digital living and sweet the simplicity incite solace, for sure, yet the thread of prevalent 00s diet culture has left me with a sinking feeling too deep to ignore. The pro-skinny movement was so subtle yet so obvious, so hidden yet so brazen, so controlled yet so utterly chaotic. I wonder how, at the time of airing, the provocative storylines and clever callouts of a culture obsessed with slimming impacted those who were watching Fat Friends. Did it trigger its viewers? Was it a wake-up call? Did it grant permission for catharsis? Or did it perpetuate questionable weight loss methods even further? 

plus-size woman back

Credit: Getty

The beauty of hindsight is that it reveals why and how certain patterns are formed. The pain of hindsight is that sometimes you realise those ways of thinking still reign. When I reflect on the messages that marked my own coming-of-age, I see ‘Heroin Chic’ headlines, fashion offices littered with Diet Coke cans and, of course, Kate Moss’ notorious quote of “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels”. Delving into Fat Friends is like finding the prequel to my upbringing, witnessing the supreme influence of the fads that went before me: Slim Fast shakes, Weight Watchers meetings, the cabbage soup diet and supermodel aerobics videos sponsored by vivid Lycra. The outworkings may have become slightly different, but the societal sentiments are soaked in the same body shame: the thinner you are, the more you will be valued.

Communication steeped in scrutiny has the power to speak to your subconscious far beyond positive change. And when I started to see TikTok videos of women admitting that their ‘Roman Empire’ (a catchphrase referring to something you think about too often) is being skinny, I – alongside thousands of other women my age – couldn’t have related harder or faster. I then started to see more commentary emerging, including the viral trend of ‘Almond Moms’. The concept of an ‘Almond Mom’ (a term coined in response to Yolanda Hadid’s relationship to Gigi Hadid in The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills) spotlights weight-watching habits that many women have inherited from witnessing their mothers’ own body hang-ups. “You’re hungry? Have a couple of almonds.” “Are you sure you want to order that?” “Did you read the nutrition label?” “You’re not hungry, you’re just bored.” This hand-me-down of insecurities is addressed throughout Fat Friends, too, and we see generational tension rise between Betty (played by Alison Steadman) and her daughter Kelly (played by Ruth Jones) as early as the first episode. After an argument in which Betty erupts after she catches bride-to-be Kelly tucking into a chip butty, Betty’s explanation of her behaviour (“I’m sorry love, but I’m only thinking of you. I just want you to be happy. I want you to walk down that aisle feeling good about yourself.”) is met with a poignant and vulnerable response from Kelly: “But I do feel good about myself. It’s everyone else that makes me feel bad, going on and on about me being fat.”  

Of course, the strides in progress we’ve seen in the past decade deserve to be celebrated. Representation in media is bigger than ever, and the rebuke of adverts that encourage unreachable body standards is at an all-time high. Yet it seems that the force of ingrained messaging, paired with unprecedented social media usage, is continuing to take Generation Z out with the tide of image ideals. In the NHS’ 2023 survey of Mental Health in Children and Young People, it was reported that eating disorders were identified in 12.5% of 17 to 19 year olds and 2.6% of 11 to 16 year olds, with rates four times higher (20.8% and 4.3%) in young women. In similar research, the American Enterprise Institute stated that Gen Z are going to need therapy more than any other generation, with ‘body image and feelings of inadequacy’ sitting at the top of the clinical themes.

Our collective gathering in the confession box of disordered eating points to the reality of what we have all long suspected but not wanted to be true: the impact of 00s diet culture continues to hold its own, even within the exponential rise of body positivity. The hangover is tangible, the voices are difficult to quieten and the traditions are hard to break. And yet it is equally true that uncomfortable revelations have a habit of sparking a drive to challenge past notions and move forward with healthier perspectives. There are, without doubt, corners of culture that are teaching us to embrace our frames at every stage and, as Beautiful South aptly proclaim in the Fat Friends theme tune, to “love our love in different sizes”. 


Images: Rex/Shutterstock; Getty

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