AN ONLINE PETITION to remove the ‘fat’ emotion from Facebook status updates has succeeded, with the campaign gaining over 16,000 signatures in just one week.

The campaign, set up by student Catherine Weingarten and Endangered Bodies, argued that fat is not an emotion and Facebook offering it as a feeling in their selection of emojis was insulting and ‘making fun’ of people who consider themselves overweight.

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Weingarten writes:

As someone who has struggled with and overcome disordered eating, I know what it’s like to ‘feel’ fat. When Facebook users set their status to ‘feeling fat,’ they are making fun of people who consider themselves to be overweight, which can include many people with eating disorders. That is not ok.

Facebook decided to make the change after the huge support the petition received, saying:

We’ve heard from our community that listing ‘feeling fat’ as an option for status updates could reinforce negative body image, particularly for people struggling with eating disorders. So we’re going to remove ‘feeling fat’ from the list of options. We’ll continue to listen to feedback as we think about ways to help people express themselves on Facebook.

Weingarten said that she’s thrilled about the decision and that the success “shows us that people together can challenge the cultural messages that are so damaging to our ability to love ourselves and live comfortably in our bodies”.

Users can still manually enter fat as an emotion, but the emoji itself no longer exists.

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