“Churros”, “tortas”, “septum arms”, “big backed” and “headphone waists” are buzzwords circulating around TikTok lately. Just when it seemed like the body positivity movement was making progress, it took five steps backward with this recent proliferation of fatphobic and body shaming “jokes” emerging online. With the influence of Ozempic skyrocketing, it’s inevitable that the fear of plus-sized and fat bodies is too. This fear often disguises itself as being “health-conscious” despite its deep roots in discriminatory beauty standards. Jokes that minimize this reality have more of a negative impact on self-esteem than people are willing to confront.
As a size 22-26 gal myself, I can’t help but roll my eyes whenever I see TikTok discourse over silly phrases body shaming bigger bodies. Even more frustrating is when these phrases aren’t explicit jabs, meaning I spend hours scrolling through comments asking, “what are septum arms?” until I find an explanation of the dumb play on words. If you don’t know what any of these phrases mean, let me give you a quick rundown.
Septum arms describe people, primarily women, with chubby and fat biceps. Though the origins of the phrase aren’t clear, it’s established that the phrase is a play on the words “except ‘em arms.” In short, one would say, “that girl is really cute, septum arms (except ‘em arms).” See how ridiculous that sounds?
“Headphones waist” is another laughable phrase. It’s used to praise people (once again, primarily women) who are slim enough to fit headphones around their waists. The term has become so popular that women are developing workout plans using headphones as a measurement of their weight loss.
“Big back,” probably the one phrase every TikTok junkie has heard of, is a way of describing someone who is fat and performs “fat” people behaviors like browsing for food in the fridge late at night and eating fast food. An innocent concept made viral by a jingle from the TikTok user “thecincomedy,” big back has evolved into a trend where people stuff their clothes with pillows in order to appear obese. Captions in these videos deem anyone who eats McDonalds “big back”, also making fun of the way fat people hunch over when they eat food.
TikTok men seem to particularly enjoy making fun of their girlfriends for eating takeout food by calling them big back.
Most fascinating to me is the churro vs. torta trend on TikTok embraced by Latinx users. If you’re unfamiliar with the terms (or have never been introduced to these delectable foods), churros are the beloved fried dough sticks covered in cinnamon sugar that are a staple of Mexican dessert menus. Tortas are sandwiches shared between multiple Latin American countries with breaded chicken, guacamole and beans as integral ingredients. I’m sure you can see where this is going now.
Churros are associated with slim, skinny and fit Latinas and tortas with chubby and fat ones. There are small technicalities people argue over such as shoulder width, fat proportions, etc. Either way, tortas are less desirable and made fun of with typical racial stereotypes, like associating Latinas with Hot Cheetos.
Unlike the other body shaming three trends, this one doesn’t infuriate me — it disappoints and saddens me. What keeps the churro vs. torta debate alive are the plethora of videos depicting bigger Latinas praising men for being interested in them, men fetishizing sex with bigger Latinas, bigger girls feeling like they need to compensate for being “tortas” and women using the term torta to describe their undesirable, bigger body pre weight loss.
Other terms like “pan dulce” (sweet bread) and “tortilla” are also being thrown around as more body types, though the clarity of their parameters is still in the works. The general consensus is that pan dulces are chubby and tortillas are flat, adding nuance to the “fit vs. fat” dichotomy. These added terms lead people to rank the attractiveness of Latina bodies even more, objectifying our race, body and gender.
There are body shaming comments on videos that say something like, “you’re not a churro, you’re a pan dulce” or “you’re not pan dulce, you’re a torta”. Responses range from, “no, she’s not pan dulce. She’s body goals,” to “you’re the biggest torta”.
Regardless, there are a plethora of problems that lie within all of these body-shaming jokes. Big back associates one fast food meal with unhealthy eating obsessions and obesity, headphone waists promote baffling body measurements and septum arms refuse to find all parts of a woman beautiful. Churros, tortas, pan dulces and tortillas police Latin bodies and define how fat they are and in turn, how successful they’ll be in the dating scene. Furthermore, comparing Latinas and their bodies to food is just dehumanizing entirely.
Now, you might think these conclusions are overreactions, but for many fat, plus-sized individuals, these jokes are used as insults. These jokes resonate with negative experiences we have had in the past. Seeing thin people feel guilty and “big back” for eating takeout can evoke the same body shaming forced upon bigger people simply for eating fast food without any room for getting to know their real lifestyle.
It’s time to stop using cultural food, plays on words and tech gadgets as jargon for body types and time to deconstruct the body-shaming use of the word “fat” to mean ugly, horrifying and unworthy.
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