“I’m so big back!”
“We’re being such biggies right now!”
Welcome to the most recent teen-girl parlance—a TikTok-trend spinoff that’s grow to be the brand new language of informal, fixed joking used to poke enjoyable at one another, and one’s self, for consuming.
And whereas many teenagers say the jargon is just meant to be playful, others admit they discover it hurtful, or not less than jarring. Specialists discover the explosion of this sort of slang alarming.
“This is a problem for everybody,” says Zöe Bisbing, a body-image and eating-disorders psychotherapist. “It has a lot to do with this really, really entrenched anti-fat bias in our culture that normalizes microaggressions toward fat people.”
Complicating the issue, although, is that the jokes are made by and about skinny women.
“With this new language, they’ve given each other permission to comment not only on weight but on eating itself. So there’s nothing good about this,” Barbara Greenberg, a teen and adolescent therapist primarily based in Connecticut who’s conversant in the terminology, tells Fortune. “It’s going backwards.”
Chanea Bond, a Texas highschool English instructor and training influencer, tells Fortune she was disturbed as she watched the development choose up steam earlier than summer season. “It started this school year. At first it was mostly students referring to themselves. But now ‘big back’ it’s so common in their vernacular, they say it anytime there’s eating happening. Also, ‘You’re a fatty.’ ‘Fatty’ has definitely come back,” she says. “I definitely wish it would go away.”
By no means was that more true for Bond than it was earlier this week, when her 6-year-old daughter got here dwelling from daycare and requested, “Mom, do I have the biggest back?” After some digging, Bond realized her child had been instructed by the instructor that she had “the biggest back” after asking for further crackers at snack time.
“I asked if it hurt her feelings. I told her that her body is proportional, and that if she wants extra snack, she’s allowed to eat extra snack without someone commenting on her body,” says Bond, who shared the alternate along with her daughter on X, the place it’s been considered over 1.3 million occasions, prompting a slew of supportive responses.
This ‘big back’ enterprise is fatphobia. My 6 yr outdated coming dwelling and asking if she has ‘the biggest back’ as a result of she wished further crackers at snack time is NOT cute or humorous.
Time to wrap it up.
— The Madwoman within the Classroom (@heymrsbond) July 10, 2024
She notes that the younger instructor—whom Bond plans on speaking to concerning the scenario—might be not an excessive amount of older than her college students. “I don’t think she meant to be hurtful,” she says. But it surely confirmed Bond that the development, regardless of her want that it would relax over the summer season, “is definitely still very much there.”
What ‘big back’ and different phrases imply—and the way we bought right here
As with so many troubling tendencies, the most recent type of fat-speak may be traced to TikTok—particularly, to a “big back” video development (at the moment with over 174 million posts) that seems to have peaked within the spring. That concerned sharing movies with certainly one of two themes: 1) exhibiting your self consuming rather a lot or another person consuming rather a lot (usually somebody skinny) with feedback about it being “big back” habits, or 2) stuffing your garments to make your again (or even a child’s) seem bigger after which both operating to get meals or, as soon as once more, simply consuming.
These movies in flip led to criticism of the development, with some calling it out for “making fun of fat people” and “creating new insecurities.” Then got here movies showing to mock the development altogether.
However what does “big back” truly imply? That’s the place issues get sophisticated, as many have famous that the time period and presumably the development seem to have roots in African American English (AAE) and in Black areas on-line. However the development is “pretty new, so there hasn’t been a bunch of research done on it,” says Kimberley Baxter, linguistics PhD candidate at New York College who makes a speciality of AAE.
NYU professor of linguistics Renee Blake says that the time period has roots within the “Black London community, meaning ‘derrière’ in a positive light,” and that it solely grew to become destructive by appropriation.
Baxter theorizes that “big back” grew to become “a term to be levied at all fat people, but also towards people who engage in stereotypes associated with fatness,” and that it has connections with the time period “bad built” in addition to the old-school “built like a linebacker.” She observes it was propelled throughout social media not too long ago partly by reactions to a well-liked TikTok sequence by Reese Teesa.
Its origins have prompted some—together with a therapist who goes by Remedy Dojo on TikTok—to say that present makes use of of “big back” really feel like “cultural appropriation,” and may make white criticisms of the development really feel just like the “policing of Black culture.” That’s regardless of the therapist’s perception that the time period, on its face, is “absolutely fatphobic.”
Lizzo has even weighed in, calling the development “horribly fatphobic,” however noting that the time period was simply “something Black people say” and that it wasn’t till it “got turned into a trend” that it bought “out of control,” with folks utilizing it “in a harmful way.”
The nuance is why Bisbing says she appears at “big back” and “fatty” as “two distinct phenomena.”
Nonetheless, “big back” now will get used interchangeably with different present phrases on this realm, together with “fatty” and “biggie,” in accordance with teenagers across the nation.
“‘Big-back’ is something you say to your friends when they’re eating, like, ‘Oh, you’re such a little big back, you ate four cookies!’” F., a New Jersey 16-year-old, tells Fortune. (The younger folks on this article are being referred to by their preliminary to guard their privateness.) “It’s only said when a person is eating. But you would never call your overweight friend ‘big back.’” She seems like its rise in recognition may very well be on account of “backlash” over the body-positivity motion, noting, “Like, it was OK to look like Lizzo, but then it’s suddenly not OK anymore.”
“I think people are kind of saying it casually,” says S., 17, from Massachusetts. “I haven’t heard them saying it to insult people. It’s kind of more of a self-deprecating joke.”
S., 17, of Rhode Island, agrees. “I definitely think it can be harmful to some but for me, I just think it’s funny. I definitely wouldn’t say it around an actual fat person,” she says, “but I have heard other people [do that].”
L., 16, of Connecticut, explains, “We say, ‘Hey, fatty,’ as if you’d say, ‘You’re so silly.’ It’s an insult but it’s playful, you know what I mean? I will often say ‘I’m being so big-backed right now,’ like if someone offers me part of their lunch and I eat all of it … It feels like a joke. But,” she provides, “in some ways I guess it does strengthen mental bias.”
That’s why the fat-phobic jargon worries specialists
“There are so many layers to this, because there’s been such a movement to reclaim words like ‘big’ or ‘fat,’ to use them as a neutral descriptor for folks who feel strongly about fat positivity,” notes educator and father or mother coach Oona Hansen, who makes a speciality of serving to households battle weight loss program tradition. As an alternative, the phrases are again to getting used as insults that mock someone’s dimension or urge for food. “That tends to reinforce this idea that if you’re in a bigger body, you’re always consuming massive amounts of food. It reinforces that notion of gluttony.”
That it’s principally “thinner white women” shouldn’t be a coincidence, she provides, on account of “the backdrop of the weight-loss drugs and people not having appetites, and linking appetite and body size. I think it really reinforces harmful ideas both about body size and about food, and makes it socially acceptable to comment on people’s bodies.”
Greenberg worries that it would encourage secret consuming amongst teen women. “It increases the self-conscious feelings, the social-emotional feelings of shame and embarrassment,” she says.
What the development highlights, Bisbing believes, is that “fatphobia and anti-fat bias is still super acceptable.”
And whereas that’s “a problem for everybody,” she says, “where I’ve seen it really, acutely injure teens is where there’s a peer group with a minority of kids who are in larger bodies … Because that language that’s being used in this playful way is going to hit very differently to a kid who is actually fat.”
Utilizing the language, she provides, “almost creates this invisibility for the actual fat kid in the group—and then also a hypervisibility.”
Lastly, it’s dangerous as a result of youngsters who are usually not in bigger our bodies are not-so-subtly expressing that they’d by no means need to be—mainly saying, with “big back,” “ ‘We strive to not be that way,’” Bisbing explains, whereas, “ ‘I’m such a fatty’ is extra like, ’That’s such a gross factor. Ew, have a look at me!’
“I think that everyone is harmed by this discourse because it maintains a cultural norm that makes it really hard to establish emotional safety for all,” she says. “So I’m worried more about the collective harm, sort of whether they know it or not—and they don’t know it—contributing to an oppressive culture.”
Methods to tackle the development’s potential hurt along with your youngsters
“I don’t think it’s a one and done conversation for a family or parent,” presents Bisbing, who notes that, in a super situation, you’ll have already had so many different “values-oriented conversations about body oppression in our culture.”
If that’s not been the case, she says, this may be a dialog starter—and a possibility to not solely tackle this particular jargon, however to spotlight that this is only one instance of a societal drawback.
And take into accout, she suggests, that “when you have a teen, you don’t have any control over what they say.” But it surely’s value them rolling their eyes and certain listening to you on some stage if you happen to say, “I’m just letting you know: It’s oppressive. Even though your friends are laughing, I bet they’re hurting inside.” Make it clear that you just’re not going to ship a lecture, however level out that the problem touches on feminism, anti-racism, and common social justice.
“Find those points of connection between this stupid trend and how absolutely oppressive it is, and help them connect the dots,” she says.
Hansen suggests approaching your teen or tween with curiosity, maybe saying, “Tell me more about the trend. How are your friends using it? Do you think they’re feeling the same way?”
With a child who may be actually upset about it, assist them discuss it by and work out how they wish to reply subsequent time someone throws the phrases round. “I think teens come up with better ideas than we do, in general,” she says. It’s additionally useful to not overreact or shut them down if they arrive to you with the problem, as they might not come to you subsequent time.
Backside line, Hansen says: “For parents, it’s an opportunity to think about how you’re building your kid’s skills in navigating awkward social conversations and social media. It’ll keep evolving, but it’s really about, can you connect with your teen? Can you have a conversation that sparks critical thinking?”
