Awful People Are Handing Out Fat-Shaming Cards

In the last few days, reports have surfaced on Twitter of people handing out fat-shaming cards to women on the London Underground. On Saturday, 30-year-old Kara Florish tweeted a claim that a stranger had approached her on the tube with a card that read, “You are a fat, ugly human.” The card appears to be from a group calling itself “Overweight Haters Ltd, ” an “organisation [that] hates and resents fat people.” Bearing the word “fat” on one side, the card’s message states, in full,

It's really not glandular, it's your gluttony... Our organisation hates and resents fat people. We object to the enormous amount of food resources you consume while half the world starves. We disapprove of your wasting NHS money to treat your selfish greed. And we do not understand why you fail to grasp that by eating less you will be better off, slimmer, happy and find a partner who is not a perverted chubby-lover, or even find a partner at all. We also object that the beatiful ​[sic] pig is as an insult. You are not a pig. You are a fat, ugly human.

Florish aptly describes the card as “hateful” and “cowardly” and shares her concern that these cards “could potentially upset people struggling with confidence.”

Florish isn’t the only one to have received the mean-spirited message. On Monday, novelist Sean Thomas Knox claimed he saw a similar episode occur at Oxford Circus. He alleges that a young man got on the train, handed a card bearing the message “YOU’RE FAT” to a female passenger, and then left. “She read it, & cried,” he tweeted.

The British Transport Police have taken note of the situation and have urged commuters to report any further incidences of being given the body-shaming cards.

In a statement to Mashable, Steve Burton, Director of Enforcement and On-Street Operations for Transport for London, responded to the reports, describing the distribution of these cruel cards as a “sad and unpleasant form of anti-social behavior.” He continued, “If anyone is ever made to feel uncomfortable while travelling they should immediately report it to station staff or a police officer.”

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