Would You Ever Call Someone Fat to Their Face? Martha Stewart Would.

By Rigel Celeste on February 9th, 2010

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On a recent show Martha Stewart had Saturday Night Live’s Kenan Thompson on and during a part of the show where the audience was being encouraged to ask health-related questions Martha turned to Kenan and said “You’re overweight, aren’t you?”

Yikes.

I like Martha Stewart, but that what the heck was she thinking? Kenan seemed to take it in stride, making a little joke and shrugging it off, but I can’t help but wonder what he was thinking and feeling on the inside. It’s hard enough when your mom makes a comment about your weight in private. I can only imagine how it would feel to be ‘outed’ by a relative stranger on national television.

So what do you think, was she being rude and out of line or just honest and genuine in the moment? Weight is, after all, totally visible to the world and Martha didn’t seem to be coming from a place of malice or nastiness. Weight is a sensitive subject, though, whether we like it or not, and I think Martha made a pretty significant social blunder by crossing that line.

There are many lines when it comes to socially accepted “mentionables” and “unmentionables.” Someone’s weight is considered by most to be an unmentionable, (unless of course they’re losing or have lost a lot, then it suddenly becomes an encouraged mentionable) but is that the way it should be? Do you think weight and body image issues would be less of a problem if all of us were more open and free with each other about it?

Photo Via Proper Lounge