Latinas Talk Fatphobia in the Latinx Community & Online

Fatphobia within the Latinx community has always been a prominent issue and continues to impact generations. While it’s presented itself in different forms within the community and pop culture, it’s found its way onto social media platform, TikTok, with viral videos perpetuating fatphobic beliefs. There has been a rise in videos as part of the “big back” trend where you can find people sharing clips of themselves eating or showing their food and/or creating makeshift fatsuits to make themselves look bigger. These coupled with the casual use of the term “big back” and even “fatty” contribute to the presence of fatphobia online. More specifically on “Latino TikTok”—or the side of TikTok with more Latinx creators or Latinx-centered videos—we’ve seen people, particularly younger Latino men, referring to women as “tortas” as a way to poke fun at them. In some of these videos, men will act out scenarios of them being catfished by a “torta” or even fetishizing plus-size Latinas. The term “torta” is common within the Latinx community, particularly for Mexican Americans—an extension of the nickname culture we are familiar with in the community. While for those taking part in these trends, it’s all fun and games, what is left out of the comments and conversation is how this influx of social media content may impact those who are the subject of the jokes: plus-size Latinas.

Mexican American Naomi Tapia is an Associate Marriage and Family Therapist (AMFT) specializing in body image, eating disorders, and cultural identity. In a space where plus-size Latinas’ face barriers in having their mental health issues validated, she uses her platform to speak on these topics as they relate to the experiences of our community. Currently, her work as a therapist focuses heavily on the issues that affect Latinxs the most, including how self-esteem intersects with the experiences of Latinxs. She tells HipLatina how machismo in our upbringing comes into play with the trends we’ve seen:

“A lot of these men are growing up in these households where they’re observing a lot of the hate, whether it’s intentional or unintentional, so they grow up totally normalizing the idea that we can talk about women’s bodies. Machismo is so highly ingrained in all of this. I think that it’s now just almost paralleling growing up. When I was growing up, there was this idea that that was just normal. Like ‘you’re gorda, you’re flaca, you’re chaparra’. I think that now the men or males that grew up with that are now normalizing it for the next generation in a different way.” She continues, “Unfortunately because there is a gender binary that does exist, men are not conditioned or raised oftentimes to be in touch with their emotionality and their vulnerability. I think that there needs to be a larger change within ourselves as humans as families. Being able to teach all of our children how to be vulnerable and how to be emotional.”

Mexican American beauty and fashion plus-size content creator Elizabeth Puente agrees with Tapia’s point about upbringing in Latinx households and how fatphobia in our community can trickle down to Latinx youth:

“I feel the most for younger Gen-Z and Gen-Alpha because when it comes to fatphobia in the Latino community, I believe you experience so much of it as a child… I think experiencing it in person always comes from elders, always comes from parents who poorly teach their kids these awful behavioral patterns and they take it to school. Now as a 26-year-old person, I see it more with my nieces and my nephews. I’m always teaching them, if this happens we talk to a teacher, if this happens, I will call up the principal.”

Puente, who has garnered a TikTok following of over 36,000, centers much of her content on Latinx culture and being plus-size. One of her popular segments is her “Niche Latina Makeup Tutorials” where she takes Latinx pop culture moments and recreates their corresponding makeup look while discussing it. Throughout her page, she also shares plenty of plus-size fashion content, increasing the visibility of plus-size Latinas in a space that has historically excluded them. As a plus-size content creator, she is one of many plus-size women who have seen the persistence of fatphobia in their own comment section since the beginning of her content creation journey.

“You’re most likely never gonna face these people in person. It’s always in the comment section. If someone reposts you in somebody else’s comment section. I’ve had people call me ‘torta’ for a while. People have called me torta since the beginning of my content creation journey. Anytime I went viral you always had the ‘torta’ kids or señores. I don’t know who they are because they never have a profile pic. I’ve always been called torta ever since I’ve been online and I’ve shown my body or  I’ve shown myself getting dressed or you can see my double chin being more prominent…Then with the ‘big back’ trend I was like ‘Oh my God, it’s only going to be more amplified now’. Ever since ‘big back’ was happening ‘torta’ warriors came out of the woodworks because now they had a green light to do it even more. I think it’s more prominent than it’s ever been online.”

What Puente shares rings true to the increase we’ve seen in fatphobic rhetoric online. People consuming this kind of content online may see its popularity and perpetuate the fatphobia that terms like “big back” or “torta” enforce. What also propels fatphobic comments and beliefs are the constantly changing viral microtrends and aesthetics. Quiet luxury, mob wife, and coquette are some of the aesthetics that come to mind and with them a slew of “get ready with me” (GRWM) TikToks that grow in popularity with every trend that emerges. When it comes to these microtrends, its not just aesthetics becoming a trend but certain body parts or modifications to the body have also become a trend. There’s a growing number of videos on how to get rid of your double chin or the latest surgical techniques to get a slimmer face, most notably buccal fat removal—the removal of fat from the cheeks to make the face slimmer and more contoured. 

As social media trends perpetuate a “thin is in” standard, fatphobia online can become a more concerning issue with trends continuing in that direction. Talking about being plus size in the context of social media and how trends popularize certain beauty standards is important. While trends like buccal fat removal don’t explicitly body shame women, it does subtly present that idea that “a thinner face is better”. Tapia shares insight that the mental health toll of these changing trends and beauty standards are especially noteworthy: “Trends are always changing, beauty standards are always changing. That in and of itself is confusing for plus size people and Latine folks. Realistically we’re never gonna be good enough. Because of these constant changes, we’re always going to be chasing something we can’t reach.” 

“Torta” beyond a social media trend or term is also, as Miriam Lara-Mejia calls it, a “socially-acceptable and sexist form of body shaming”. Mejia, known as La Gorda Feminista, is an educator and activist who uses her platform to discuss fatphobia and body positivity. Through her lens, she shares with us that this kind of nickname culture that intertwines misogyny and fatphobia is not new and runs deeper than just a “cute” nickname: “I’ve heard Latina women in larger bodies be called all kinds of things, especially women with larger middles, which torta first started describing. So in comparison with ‘cuerpo de perro callejero,’ torta seems almost cute. For me, using torta to talk ABOUT women, specifically Mexican women, exposes the deep misogyny of fatphobia and its roots in white supremacy. Osea fat women are seen as objects and as ‘lesser’ than but it also associates Mexican food with ‘lesser’ than.”

With how layered the experience of plus-size Latinas is, the question remains, what can we do to not only navigate fatphobia in our comunidad but also the inescapable reach and presence of social media?

Tapia speaks to the importance of setting boundaries and having hard conversations about what you need. Sometimes that can mean removing yourself from a situation, like attending a family party, or attending the family party with the addition of boundaries that make you more comfortable. Seeking empowerment through community and spaces that make you feel seen are also important to healing by having someone in your corner. She explains, “Taking full breaks from social media or from certain people is really important because we need time to breathe. If we’re chasing something, we’re giving these industries a lot of money and we’re distracted and not thinking about the larger issues at hand.”

Puente also highlights the importance of checking in with yourself and using functions on social platforms to your benefit: “I strongly advise people to use the keywords. Both TikTok and Instagram have these features where you can block certain words. Whenever someone wants to comment those things it triggers the system to not allow the comment on your page or for you to see it.”

There’s also power in not letting fatphobic terms have power of your self-esteem and that’s why many choose to reclaim these terms. Like we’ve seen with other terms, some plus-size Latinas have used “torta” as a way to describe themselves to take their power back from the words used to harm them.  “I know a lot of plus-size people are kind of taking their power back in that. They’re going along with the joke and I’ll never judge a plus-size person for going along with the joke because sometimes you don’t want to face the impact of it,” Puente shares.

Mejia shares another perspective on this, discussing the difficulty of reclaiming “torta”: “The way that women have started using torta to describe their own fat bodies (and often not really fat, just ‘fat perceived’) points at the need for shared language to describe larger bodies. And it goes back [to the fact that] fat liberation and fat acceptance movements have not found ground in the Latinx community in the U.S., despite the clear need for it. So while us fat activists use fat and gorda to describe our bodies in neutral ways —reclaiming a word used to harm us— Mexican women in the U.S. have started using torta. Reclaiming words that are used to harm us is part of the liberation work but it doesn’t work for torta. Because torta is not neutral.”

Addressing fatphobia in our community and online is a work in progress but there are steps that we can take to move along. From setting boundaries to looking for community online, there are ways we can look out for ourselves in a world where we won’t be looked after. While Puente spoke about the potential of social media platforms hiring more people of color as a way to combat the trends we’ve seen, these platforms also feed off virality like the “big back” trend which can make it hard to prevent.

There’s a long way to go to fight fatphobia while trends and beauty standards continue to point against us. For plus-size Latinas dealing with fatphobia and unrealistic beauty standards, Tapia wants you to remember that you deserve to take up space:

“I just don’t really give a f*** about what people are saying and just now being on the other side after so many years of processing and s***. I’m like, people should feel free and be able to set boundaries with their families and with their loved ones and just feel like the bad b****** they are. That’s why I got here.”

In online spaces where we are often expected to be a certain way or in the Latinx community where we often hear we shouldn’t wear certain things because we’re plus-size, Puente wants to remind plus-size Latinas to be their most authentic self, however that may look like:

“They are more than worthy of living their best life and living a life that makes sense for them or that they want. If they want to step out and wear a miniskirt and go get a matcha and take your pictures, do it unapologetically. If they also want to be introverts and just live a comfy cozy lifestyle, do it!”