Reporter Responds to Being Called Fat on Live TV

Sam Rubin had a rude awakening on live television this week. During a taping of KTLA’s morning news, the entertainment reporter jokingly noted, “My wife calls and says ‘Since when did you become the fat one on that show?’” As he continued talking with his co-anchors, a female voice shouted, “He’s always been!” The video then cut to traffic correspondent Ginger Chan, who hadn’t realized that her mike was still on.

This unfortunate incident between friendly co-workers has started a larger conversation about double standards that exist when we talk about weight and gender, as well as the contentious “F word.” Rubin, 54, composed an open letter on Medium, titled Do I Look Fat in This Airbrushed Picture?

Rubin wrote that he thinks the definition of fat has shifted over the years as Americans’ waistlines have expanded. “If you were to hook me up to a polygraph machine and ask me if I thought I was out and out fat; I would say that I wasn’t. Sure, I can stand to lose a few pounds; who couldn’t. But am I among the morbidly obese? I don’t think so.” Rubin, who famously confused Samuel L. Jackson with Laurence Fishburne, is right. To be considered morbidly obese is to have a severe health condition that impedes basic physical functions and can even impair the ability to walk and breathe.

Yet even though Rubin is conscious of his overweight appearance, he still notes in the essay that a friend mentioned that Rubin might be suffering from “body dysmorphic disorder.” But BDD is a serious psychiatric issue, one that this acquaintance and even Rubin seem to make light of. Occurring when people look in the mirror and see something different than everyone else sees, BDD is a condition whereby patients typically have very poor insight into their actual problems. Rubin seems to be acutely aware that he’s packing on a few too many pounds by admitting this much.

But while these comments making light of serious health issues are a bit out of touch, Rubin does make sound points about the gender disparities within his industry. “The world won’t end if I am both jolly and maybe a touch jiggly, but heaven help us, if one of my female colleagues is truly heavy,” he wrote. “In the entire 20-plus years I have worked on the air, none of my bosses have ever said anything to me about my weight. I know that virtually every woman I have worked with has not been able to avoid those same conversations.” Luckily, this kind of weight bias isn’t that common in the workplace. According to a recent study, only about 5 percent of people reported experiencing such discrimination, and the vast majority of overweight and obese people are generally treated with respect.

Body snarking — the colloquial term for speaking derogatorily about someone’s figure — should never be done. “It really doesn’t help anyone to shame them for their appearance, regardless of their size,” Claire Mysko, director of programs at the National Eating Disorders Association, tells Yahoo Style. Research even suggests that fat shaming doesn’t encourage weight loss, and it might even exacerbate weight gain.

The experience seems to have had an opposite effect on Rubin, though. After being humiliated and called out on TV, he now thinks he’ll grab one less chocolate-chip cookie when the plate is passed around. As for his relationship with Chan, the colleagues were able to hug it out, he wrote. “And, she was able to put both of her arms all the way around me.”