Follow TV Tropes

This is based on opinion. Please don't list it on a work's trope example list.

Following

Hollywood Pudgy

Go To

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rsz_yotsuba_fatlegs.png
"And by fat, I mean 'thicker than a noodle.'"
Andy Sachs: Do girls not eat around here?
Nigel Kipling: Not since 2 became the new 4 and 0 became the new 2.
Andy: I'm a 6.
Nigel: Which is the new 14.

Many people in real life have body image issues that lead them to obsess about food and dieting, and to think of themselves as fat even if they're not.

Like Hollywood Homely characters, if you took the Hollywood Pudgy character out of her movie and plunked her down among a representative sample of real women, she'd fit in because she looks normal, even good in comparison. As an average-sized person, the Hollywood Pudgy character is or appears to be overweight by medical standards but not nearly obese. She'd have no trouble fitting through bus turnstiles or into a cute bathing suit, and wouldn't have her doctor telling her she must lose twenty pounds for the sake of her heart and pancreas.

This does not apply to stories in which a skinny woman thinks of herself as fat, but is shown to have an eating disorder or body image problem. That would probably fall under I Am Not Pretty instead. Satirical examples hang a lantern on the absurdity of calling thin women fat.

The same thing applies somewhat to men as well, albeit to a lesser degree. For example, any time a male celeb known for being Mr. Fanservice goes from a sculpted physique to a more average body type, the media will rant about his "dadbod" and how he "let himself go," and may speculate on his mental health, even if he's nowhere near overweight and might even be happier not having to maintain an impossible image. However, you're less likely to see this trope applied to men onscreen, since Hollywood is far more likely to cast an appropriate actor to play an overweight male character thanks to age-old Double Standards.

Older works and period pieces tend to contain this a lot. Since actual obesity was relatively uncommon until the last quarter of the 20th century, a person who was only twenty or thirty pounds overweight back then would have been seen as the equivalent of a modern person weighing 400 pounds.

Compare Hollywood Homely, Unkempt Beauty, Muscle Angst, and Big Beautiful Woman. Contrast Informed Attractiveness, Real Women Have Curves, and of course Hollywood Thin. Hollywood Beauty Standards are the reason this trope exists.

Note: Under the examples, PLEASE only include those who are explicitly identified as overweight despite not actually being overweight! This is NOT the page for actors of normal body type playing characters of normal body type, nor for genuinely fat actors playing genuinely fat characters. Anything that is drawn or animated is also extremely unlikely to qualify (Garfield, for example, doesn't even look like a cat), unless the depiction is intended to be realistic or the trope itself is being parodied. If the only time the character's said or implied to be fat is when another character is tossing out insults, it probably belongs under You Are Fat instead of this trope.

Also in real life when singers and band members prepare to go on tour, it is very common for them to overindulge and voluntarily take on weight. If the show is of any quality (especially for pop, rock and metal type bands and singers), they will likely lose it right back before they get back home. Of course this is paparazzi fuel.


Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Advertising 
  • Many ads for Kellogg's products, such as Special K cereal, will encourage the viewer to replace two of their meals a day with the cereal in order to lose weight. The majority of these ads will feature a woman being portrayed as overweight or too chubby to wear a particular piece of clothing they have their eye on. They successfully complete the diet plan and show off their newly-slim bodies... except just about every woman in these ads is already thin to begin with, thus making the shown weight-loss unnoticeable and also completely ignoring the "for ages 18 and over with BMI 25+ " disclaimers at the bottom of the screen. This is just one of the advertisements.
    • Especially annoying are the Special K ads which are run after Christmas, in which women who are on the low side of average size are mistaken for Santa Claus by children and Santa's sleigh team. In the former, the "overweight" woman is portrayed by the gorgeous actress Stacy Edwards. In the latter, the woman is dressed in a bulky coat, a heavy scarf, and an unflattering hat, which would make anybody look 20 lbs. heavier.
    • The ad campaign for Special K in the 1970s was just about as bad. They encouraged viewers to "do the Special K pinch", which meant to pinch some part of their midsection. The message was, "If you can pinch more than an inch, you should probably be watching your weight." The problem here is that skin, subcutaneous muscle tissue, etc. can all be pinched around the abdomen, so it's very easy even for someone who's underweight to pinch more than an inch. Even chronic anorexics can pinch more than an inch, if they're hunched over. Also, since it takes a little time for skin to snap back after weight loss, it's possible to still pinch more than an inch even just after you've lost weight.
  • An ad for the zero calorie sweetener Truvia features an extremely thin woman scarfing down cheesecake, while a cutesy jingle that's supposed to be her inner monologue laments that real sugar made her "butt fat."
  • This ad for Irish food safety/nutrition awareness group Safefood, where nobody appears to be unhealthily overweight, bar a small bulge in the belly. Made even funnier by Safefood's slogan, "Be Safe, Be Healthy, Be Well."
  • There are those series of Subway commercials showing a montage of various people eating fast food, only to have a button pop off of their shirt or fall through whatever they were sitting on. These commercials tend to be slightly aggravating given that out of all of the people in those commercials, one or two may be a little overweight.
  • Just about any commercial for a weight loss program like Weight Watchers. Such commercials will show "before and after" photos of men and women who have successfully completed the program. The problem is that, in some instances, they actually look better in the "before" photos than in the "after" photos.
    • In cases of weight loss pills like Hydroxicut, several of the men depicted are already quite fit in their "before" picture, clearly defined abs and all. Apparently that guy's sculpted physique was disgusting until he dropped a little excess weight and got only slightly more defined.
  • Australian plus-size model Robyn Lawley is noticeably more curvaceous than other supermodels, but still a long way from being genuinely fat. If she's ever modelling a swimsuit, odds are it's marketed towards women much larger than herself.

    Anime & Manga 
  • In the Area 88 manga, Greg is referred to as fat. He's stout (but nowhere near obese) compared to the rest of the rail-thin cast.
  • Sumira Hara from Assassination Classroom is occasionally labeled as fat despite only really being slightly wider than the rest of the girls.
  • Semimaru from 7 Seeds referred to himself as slightly overweight, saying that his old ways of drinking alcohol, smoking and generally being a lazy bum left him with 'a slight belly'. At no point is he ever drawn differently from the other characters, nor is his supposedly overweight stomach ever seen, until he mentions that the toll of surviving in the post-apocalyptic world has gotten rid of it.
  • Stocking from Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt has quite a sweet-tooth, and one episode shows her wearing a monitor and going on a diet, much to Panty's taunting delight. She in enraged over Chuck's hogging her beloved sweets, eats them herself, then later laments over how she'll likely be "back" to her normal proportions by the next day. Yet her physical appearance never changes, and she's still hot enough to pull off that explicit henshin...
  • Choji Akimichi from Naruto is a bit of a subversion, however he supposedly weighs less than 200 lbs (192 to be exact, or 87.5 kg), which in most men isn't really that fat. He was also quite rotund as a child, however, when he would definitely have been considered overweight. His combat style also requires him to have plenty of body fat, since his ultimate attack burns off that fat to give him temporary Super-Strength (even by the World of Badass standards of Naruto).
  • In the fourth episode of the Sailor Moon anime Serena/Usagi is worried that she has gained a little weight. Visually, she hasn't changed at all. Fortunately, in the show, nobody except Usagi notices. The old dub even exaggerated this a step further by having "Serena" freak out about gaining a grand total of...half a pound. The rest of the episode shows Jadeite preying on women with body issues by using machines that make them skinny while sucking out their life energy until they become emaciated (and it is implied that they will die after enough sessions). Strangely, the old dub also attempts to pretend the machines don't work despite the fact that all the victims are visibly skinnier and skeletal. Either way, it's still not enforcing a certain body type, but mocking the obsession with being skinny that leads perfectly attractive women to starve themselves.
    • It's still worth noting that while Usagi/Serena's family doesn't give it much importance, their comments imply that she is indeed "a bit chubby" in their eyes and that she should probably eat less and exercise more (Luna also thinks this way). While they may just mean to encourage her into a more healthy lifestyle (or playfully mock her worries) rather than to have her get thinner, they never clarify this (cue Usagi/Serena crying at hearing them).
    • Sailor Moon Abridged takes this and runs with it, having every character point out how overweight she allegedly is. Naturally, the art hasn't changed a bit; she's every bit as skinny as she is in the actual show.
    • Also happens in the Codename: Sailor V, where Minako in fact gained some weight but was almost unnoticeable. Minako freaked out so much she started doing exercise like mad under Artemis' direction, losing the excess fat... And still weighing a little too much, this time in muscles (Artemis had been trying to train Minako's strength for months, you see). The same couldn't be said for the people of Tokyo, since this was the latest scheme of the Dark Agency. Basically everyone else besides Minako, her friend Hikaru (who has a very healthy diet) and the police officer Wakagi (who hates sweets) had noticeably gotten fatter because of some special chocolates being distributed around Valentine's Day. It reached a point that "fat" was the new in-look even though everyone was going like crazy trying to lose the weight.
  • Yomi in Azumanga Daioh has weight issues, even though she's no less thin than the other girls on the show. The liner notes in one of the DVDs notes that her obsession with her weight was given to her to give her a slightly more "normal" quirk than the other girls, so its clear that this was more in Yomi's head than an actual problem. Tomo also teases her for being fat, but Tomo is also a Jerkass that spends her life tormenting Yomi in any way she can think of.
  • Fuuka from Yotsuba&! (done by the same mangaka who created Azumanga Daioh) often angsts over supposedly being too chubby, even though her body type isn't much different from the other teenage girls seen in the series. It's apparently noticeable enough in-story that her own mother and sisters frequently comment on her fat legs.
  • Likewise, Kagami from Lucky Star often complains about her weight despite not being fat, especially after indulging her Sweet Tooth. But as Konata pointed out, "You don't look any different if you gain a kilo or two."
  • In the rather obscure anime series Onegai! Samia Don (aka Psammead the Magic Genie, based on Five Children and It by E. Nesbit); Anne Hopkins, the eldest girl, is working out to be thin, and despite not being overweight at all, ponders asking Psammead help (but knowing that her wish might backfire, she doesn't).
  • Male example: America in Hetalia: Axis Powers doesn't look fat, but when he steps onto the weight scale, it actually sweats carrying his weight and he looks completely mortified seeing the numbers. Though it could also be joking about this trope as well.
  • Jeanne in The Story of Cinderella is teased about her weight by her sister Catherine. However, she seems to weigh the same as her sister. Granted, Jeanne does frequently demand that Cinderella make her food.
  • Hiro of Hidamari Sketch is also very sensitive to her weight; different signs may imply she is kind of on the fat side (like Miyako's teasing or her open preference in Renoir because he drew Rubenesque women), but it's not something we can see in the manga or anime, particularly because of the art-style...
  • Rumiko Takahashi actually did a one-shot manga about such a girl going to a weight-loss camp because of a new dress that was only slightly too tight on her. She ends up getting a better body image by the end, however.
  • Hige from Wolf's Rain is an interesting case, as he has two forms, human and wolf. He earns the nickname "Porky" from Tsume, and his canine form is indeed noticeably overweight. On the other hand, most of the time in the series the viewer only sees his human projection, and the only indication that the image he projects might be heavier than the others is that he doesn't wear skinny-jeans or tight leather pants like the others do, leaving a Hollywood Pudgy impression.
  • In Ranma ½ there was a story later in the manga about a magical gi. When female Ranma tries to wear it she learns it only fits someone with Akane's supposedly dumpier physique.
  • Subverted in Strawberry Marshmallow: when Chika and Miu start obsessing about their weight gain, Nobue points out to them that they are still growing.
  • Tsukimi in Princess Jellyfish is sometimes called chubby by people in the fashion industry, but she's really just short and has a somewhat round Japanese face.
  • Fushigi Yuugi subverts this trope with Miaka, as Yuu Watase has pointed out and shown in the manga that she really is supposed to be pudgy (though after distress galore in the book, she loses weight). In the anime, however, she's a bodaciously brawny babe who at one point fantasizes about having the body of a supermodel. Well, she got her wish... or not.
  • One story in Pet Shop of Horrors deals with dieting by following three people. The first person is a high school girl who genuinely is overweight because of low self-esteem issues (she overeats when she's upset). The second person is a boxer who needs to keep his weight down so that he can stay in the proper weight class. The third person is a model who is rail skinny as she is but asks the Count to give her a mysterious pill that her fellow model told her about. The model explains that her body is her "calling card" and gaining even a pound could mean losing a lot of expensive clients. Throughout the chapter, the animals are all very distressed and confused at the thought of someone willingly starving themselves as they know what it is like to really be without food. While the first two people get happy endings (the girl loses the weight thanks to self-esteem boosts from a training partner the Count loans her and the boxer makes his weight class), the model becomes violently sick after taking the pill for some time, until her body becomes dried up and breaks open to let an alien version of the model out. It is also revealed that the other model - who told her about the pill to begin with - had the same thing happen to her. The message of the chapter seemed to be that there was more to life than shedding a few pounds, especially since the characters that were dieting for non-selfish reasons actually had happy endings and got more out of it.
  • Happy StrikerS, the official Lyrical Nanoha four-koma gag comic shown together with the preview manga of Magical Record Lyrical Nanoha Force in NyanType magazine, uses this as a Running Gag with Teana, with her worrying that she had gotten a bit pudgy since she's been swamped with desk work recently. (Note: Link may be NSFW}
  • Cattleya from Queen's Blade has some plumpish features but most of her thickness is really just muscle. That and boobs. Still, it hasn't stopped detractors from labeling her as fat or obese and it certainly hasn't stop doujinshis and fanart from portraying her as such.
  • Tina has a mini-freak out in one chapter of Ai Yori Aoshi due to her weight. She tries to diet (which is hard when you're a Big Eater who lives in the house of a Supreme Chef). Tina looks like this.
  • Sakurai Rihoko from Amagami is a textbook example. Based on her character design, she'd just be around the upper-bound of average sized waistline and chubbiness.
  • Mio and Mugi from K-On! tend to get worried about their weight gain at the end of the year, and are envious of Yui's high metabolism. Even Ritsu can be manipulated into drum practice with this fear, though. However according to Ritsu, Mio's weight goes to her breasts.
  • Isana from Dream Eater Merry is often shown worrying about her weight, despite her very cute and slender outer appearance. Chapter 39 shows on more than one occasion that she really is physically heavy, at least compared to Merry, just not to the point of being unhealthy.
  • Ayako of Slam Dunk goes on a diet at the end of the series. Admittedly, she is drawn as curvier then Haruko and with a rounder face, but considering how many characters refer to her as attractive it's pretty obvious she's just being paranoid.
  • Highschool of the Dead: Though Saya often refers to Hirano as "fatty"/"fatass", he's hardly what one would consider overweight. In the earlier chapters, he was simply short for his body mass; making him portly, at best. But as the series underwent Art Evolution, he changed from portly, to stocky.
  • Nami in Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei is often seen dieting and several characters make jibes about her weight. With the exception of Kotonon her body looks exactly the same as all the other (stick-thin) girls in the series.
  • In Heaven's Lost Property Ikaros says she likes that Sohara is slightly overweight.
  • Saiko Yonebayashi from Tokyo Ghoul : Re. Long before she'd actually appeared on-panel, all the audience is told about her is that she's lazy and has gained considerable weight due to being a Big Eater. She's actually referred to as being "fat", but when she actually appears on panel she's a pretty young woman with a rounded face and generous bust. At worst, she's a little soft due to inactivity, especially compared to her more athletic peers.
  • Played with in The Movie of Yes! Pretty Cure 5 GO!GO! as Karen worries that eating all the sweets that the Land of Sweets offers will make them fat. Nozomi, Urara and Rin ham it up as they realize this and bid farewell to all of the candy and sweets, prompting Karen to apologize. However, the girls are reassured that they won't get fat off of these sweets and to have as much as they want.
  • Fairy Tail: Happy is strangely insistent to point out Lucy's weight. He even finds her heavier than Gajeel. There may be two big reasons for that but still...
  • Crayon Shin-chan has a Running Gag about Shin Chin's mother Misae supposedly being overweight even though she looks like she has a healthy figure for her age, with physical signs of fatness only appearing for small visual gags. In one episode of the anime where Misae took up ballet, the male instructor broke his spine trying to pick her up. The same episode has Misae freaking out over weighing 55kg (121lb) even though she's 159 cm (5'2.5) tall.
  • One Pound Gospel has Kosaku Hatanaka, who is often referred as a fat pig in spite of a very fit body, and Taro Matsuzaka, who was called a whale to his face in spite of being just slightly pudgy. There's a very good reason: they're boxers below the heavyweight category, thus with very strict limits on what they can weigh in order to compete, and seeing any visible fat on these guys would be taken as a sign of being in sub-optimal shape for the bout-hence Kosaku, who just can't help but eating a lot and tends to have trouble passing the weigh-in, being called a pig, while Matsuzaka, a natural flyweight (between 108 and 114 pounds), was fixated on fighting him and purposefully fattened himself up to reach featherweight category (between 123 and 126 pounds).
  • Tsumugi from Pochamani is kinda chubby for a girl of her short stature but the story and characters treat her like she's the tubbiest girl they've ever seen. As the series goes on, the art does a slightly better job at depicting Tsumugi and other chubby girls as being more plus sized, but never as heavy as the story claims they are.
  • The monster girls from Plus-Sized Elf all have troubles maintaining their weight, but most of their weight gain is either in the most attractive parts of their body or so minor that it's barely noticeable. If Elfuda simply went up a single dress size then her trademark muffin top would be completely hidden.
    • Averted with Oku, who is legitimately stout, as well as the few times Elfuda overeats and temporarily gains a lot of weight.
  • The titular character of Alicia's Diet Quest is obsessed losing weight even though she's as thin as a rail. The only issue is that she basically went up one dress size after attending one too many feasts, yet everyone acts as if she has a thick layer of blubber. So much so that at one point a group of obese orcs somehow accidentally mistake her for one of them.
  • SSSS.GRIDMAN's de facto Beach Episode reveals that Utsumi has a small amount of flab on his stomach, which other characters tease him about. In this case it might be more noticeably because Utsumi's otherwise so skinny.
  • In GTO: The Early Years, Shinomi is Formerly Fat, but from the "before" picture and flashback scenes of her, she really doesn't look ugly at all (definitely not gonk like some female characters) and not that fat either. Of course, the Comical Overreacting of the boys saying "Who's that monster!?" could be intended to show how immature and shallow they are.

    Comic Books 
  • The eponymous lead of Empowered seems to suffer from this big time, as she constantly refers to herself as chubby and pudgy (as do some of her teammates, supervillains, the media, random loudmouths on the internet, etc.), though technically she should be on par with a 20-something white chick with some decent curvature. It is telling that the only female character who is significantly skinnier than Emp publicly dismisses her complaints as "grenade-fishing for compliments" and privately considers her extremely sexy.
    • This is likely done to highlight the main character's MASSIVE self-esteem issues, aggravated by being around superheroes with perfect comic book figures. It really doesn't help that she has to seriously diet and exercise to keep in shape, while pretty much all of the other female supers are implied to have gotten their figures along with her powers. Especially Sistah Spooky, who's a Big Eater and has an ongoing spell that displaces excess mass to her nearby enemies, and poor Emp is almost certainly at the top of that list.
    • Furthermore, her soap-bubble thin costume is really skintight, and stops working, cutting her off from her superpowers, whenever she hides it, even with a small mantle. As a result, she's basically naked all times, while other heroines are allowed to accessorize and highlight their best assets.
  • A throw-away gag during the first New Avengers tenure has Jessica Drew entering The Raft, a high security prison, with a bag of donuts in her hands loudly complaining about how fat she got in the previous months of inactivity, and offering to share her breakfast with whoever is able to provide her with suitable information about an impending breakout. While the villains fall for the trick (loudly asking for Jessica to surrender the donuts in exchange for their full, unbridled cooperation, implying that the usual gruel they're usually served is really foul), Jessica's implied image issues are somewhat lessened by her skintight Hot Librarian tailleur, showing off her usual voluptuous physique, busty but nowhere as fat to need dieting.
  • Carol Danvers, is the subject of a Running Gag where people (usually villains) insult her by saying she's fat. Like Jessica, her build is usually indistinguishable from 99 percent of the other superheroines published by Marvel and DC. The source of the joke may be Carol's bottom, which is canonically large. It's also a likely a result of her original costume, which many artists use to highlight her curves.
  • Ultimate X-Men makes constant jibes about Beast/Henry McCoy's weight, but, like the rest of his comic-book brethren, he is drawn as being quite fit and muscular, albeit perhaps larger and more muscular than the others.
  • Tarot's mom, from Tarot: Witch of the Black Rose. As expected from a mother of two, now in her late forties-early fifties, she's grown noticeably fatter than her smoking hot daughters. However, instead of looking pudgy and fat, she looks exactly like a wider version of Rowena, her youngest daughter and the titular Witch of the Black Rose.
  • Can apply somewhat to Gert in Runaways, as it depends on the artist. Under main artist Adrian Alphona's pen, Gert actually is fairly chubby, but other artists tend to draw her as just having slightly more hips and waist than Nico or Karolina, and even Alphona drew her that way to start with. Here, it may not be so much a case of warped values as it is comic artists just not being used to drawing women with that sort of body. Also, Marvel's official stats list her at 5'1'' and 125 pounds. The Alphona version, if she was 5'1", would probably be at least 140. Likewise, in the Hulu adaptation, while the actress playing Gert is certainly curvier than the other actresses, she's not actually all that big.
  • The "Palomar" half of Love and Rockets points out how ludicrous this is with Doralis, one of Luba's daughters who stars in a hit TV variety show. She started out as a back-up to an anorexic blond who insults her for her incredibly voluptuous figure. The blond ends up getting edged out of the show and Doralis gains millions of male and female admirers.
  • The First American in Tomorrow Stories has a classic Heroic Build, but is referred to frequently by other characters as though he were fat. He does have rather slovenly eating habits, but he's sculpted like Michelangelo's David for crying out loud! Subverted, in that a couple of panels strongly imply that his "sculpting" is due to support underwear and that he actually is fat.
  • From the Threeboot continuity of Legion of Super-Heroes, Saturn Girl and Invisible Kid after Francis Manapul did redesigns of the characters. He made Imra more hippy and Lyle a bit rounder than a typical skinny kid, but neither could be called fat. Although Imra complains that people consider her "dumpy".
  • Cornfed from Livewires, who was designed to look like a big Farm Boy because his frame is meant to store extra amounts of smartware in his body, primarily in his beer belly. But beyond that he's as muscular as Hollowpoint Ninja, and taller.
  • In All Fall Down, Portia laments having gained nine pounds since she lost her powers (and her superhero metabolism).
  • Renee Tempete in I Hate Gallant Girl is subjected to constant disparaging remarks about her weight and figure because she has, like, 3-5 pounds on GG. Part of the point here is that whatever physical flaws Renee has, they're blown ridiculously out of proportion by the superhero old guard; like Gallant Girl, she was a beauty queen before becoming a superheroine.
  • Cloud 9 from Avengers: The Initiative. She thinks of herself as being overweight, but really isn't; she's just the only girl in the cast with a halfway realistic body shape.
  • Wonder Woman: Although Etta Candy started as a rambunctious and sweets-addicted fat girl in the Golden Age Wonder Woman comics, her more modern depictions can be this trope, Depending on the Artist of course. In George Pérez's reboot, she started overweight, but then worked out and had a military muscular frame. In Gail Simone's run, the artists usually just had her looking slightly thicker than Diana, but otherwise being an average, curvy blonde woman (the change from her old self was eventually explained as being from her government training). The New 52 reboot bypassed this, as that Etta was more conventionally slender and nobody ever commented about her weight. That got some criticism from some fans (similar to the protests about the New 52 Amanda Waller being slimmed down and youthened to become a generic sexpot) and the Rebirth Etta went back to being moderately heavy.
  • Volcana, a minor super villain introduced in Secret Wars is constantly referred to as fat despite being drawn with a curvy hourglass figure. This continued through Secret Wars and into its sequel, which continually mentioned her love of doughnuts and other food. This may be a case of Values Dissonance as at the time skinny superheroines was the norm and Volcana was indeed bigger than usual, even though her curves were very tasteful. Eventually she began being drawn as somewhat overweight. Although her boyfriend, the omnipotent Molecule Man likes her just the way she is.

    Comic Strips 
  • Discussed in Calvin and Hobbes when Calvin is complaining to Susie how lucky she is to be a girl and not be expected to play sports, to which she comments, "On the other hand, boys aren't expected to be 20 pounds underweight."
  • In Garfield, Jon occasionally complains about his body, saying he's chubby or even fat. It was a little more understandable in the earlier comics, when the strip was drawn more "realistically" (i.e., Garfield walked on four legs, everyone's proportions were generally more accurate, etc.); in those cases, Jim Davis would give Jon a slightly pudgier belly to justify his complaints (although he never reached fat, or even overweight, by any stretch of the imagination). But as time went on, Jon looked more and more like a noodle person, so the self-criticism makes no sense. Davis apparently agreed, as he gradually phased out the "Jon goes on a diet with Garfield" strips and had the fat cat taking them on alone.

    Films — Animation 
  • In one scene in The Incredibles, Helen sees herself in the mirror when she's wearing her new superhero outfit, and lets out a sigh, clearly not pleased with the Hartman Hips she's developed over the past 15 years. Word of God confirms this trope was deliberately invoked as she is being overly critical of her own physique: for a mother of three she's in great shape, especially compared to how out of shape her husband got, but at this point she's also afraid her husband is cheating on her and likely believes it might be because of her physique.
  • Not an in-universe example, but some people consider Moana chubby, especially compared to other cartoonishly thin Disney females, although Moana is more sturdy built realistically.
  • Parodied in Sahara. Rita, who acts as a dance instructor/director for Omar's snakes, describes Eva as "a little on the chubby side." Eva is actually very slim, while Rita is the chubbiest snake in the movie. It's clearly meant to be in-character Hypocritical Humor rather than a genuine attempt by the writers to call Eva fat.
  • Peter B. Parker of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is the butt of multiple jokes about his weight gain. He's actually in pretty good shape, just sporting a very minor pizza gut which only seems to become noticeable when someone points it out. His real problem is wearing a costume that's skintight and hanging around people who have unrealistically chiseled physiques.
  • Tom and Jerry: Back to Oz: The Cowardly Lion tells the Hungry Tiger than "your paunch is pretty puffed" during a song of Volleying Insults, but she actually has an Impossible Hourglass Figure.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • This is one of the problems with the film Avanti!! where Juliet Mills was asked to gain about 25 lbs. for the part and even then she was hardly big enough to warrant any cracks about her weight.
  • Hayley Atwell was considered this by Miramax when she was filming Brideshead Revisited with Emma Thompson, who hit the roof when she found out and threatened to resign if they forced her co-star to lose weight. Here's what she looked like at the time.
  • In Bride Wars, there's a scene that's pretty much lifted from Mean Girls, in which Kate Hudson's character is somehow tricked into eating five pounds worth of chocolate and can't fit into her wedding dress. In his review of the movie, Film Brain points this out:
    The whole "I'm fat" joke doesn't really work when you haven't really put any weight on. Oh, and I think Kate Hudson would actually look healthier if she put some weight on.
  • Bridget Jones: She weighed nine and a half stone (136 lbs). Yup, real whale there. Although the point might be that she obsesses about her weight so much, not that she's actually fat. Renée Zellweger at her Bridget Jones weight was considered too fat for the cover of Harper's Bazaar. Zellweger as Bridget Jones was supposed to be a UK size 14 (which is a US size 10). She gained only enough weight to reach a size 6, but even this spawned dozens of newspaper and magazine articles on her weight gain. Though during interviews at the time, she claimed to enjoy being heavier, she lost the weight as soon as filming was done and when it came time to film a sequel, she refused to gain weight until the studio literally paid her for every extra pound she put on.
  • One of the cheerleaders in the original Bring It On is told that her ass is enormous by a cheertator and is told to skip meals. Of course, she's thin and gorgeous. One of the cheerleaders in the sequel Bring It On: All or Nothing is supposedly fat, and is pressured to lose weight and is made fun of. By any normal standards she looks just as thin and sexy as the other cheerleaders. This is a deliberate criticism of the phenomenon, as the character who makes these comments is an Alpha Bitch and it's played for a Kick the Dog moment.
  • In Camp Nowhere, Gaby's mom wants to send her to a weight loss camp called Camp Slenderella, and remarks at the end of the film that Gaby looks thinner. Actress Melody Kay was quite visibly not overweight at any point during the movie; the filmmakers opted to put her in shapeless, frumpy clothes in the movie's first act (and having her act against Marnette Patterson, who was usually in painted-on outfits) to try justifying the claim.
  • Minnie Driver's character in Circle of Friends actually refers to herself as a "heifer" at one point. This mirrors reality somewhat; around the time of the film, talk shows were abuzz with excitement that an actress as plain and chubby as Minnie Driver could land a role as Chris O'Donnell's love interest.
  • Played with on Date Night. The girls in a sex club make noises of disgust when Tina Fey asks for a size 8 costume.
  • Played with in Death Becomes Her, when Madeline insults her husband by calling him "flabby"; said husband is played by Bruce Willis, and his "flab" is (at most) realistic middle-aged softness. However, this is in keeping with Madeline's character, as she's an extremely vain actress (and a rather hateful person to boot).
  • Dual: Sarah lives an unhealthy lifestyle and comments on how her double doesn't have her "love handles," yet actress Karen Gillan herself obviously has the lanky physique of a former model. Later, Sarah's Double (also played by Gillan) pokes at her belly while hunching over, prompting her boyfriend to comment that she's gaining weight, though she still looks as lean as ever.
  • The brunette "ugly stepsister" Jacqueline de Ghent in Ever After played by the lovely Melanie Lynskey is chided by the Wicked Stepmother for eating too much and being overweight. The Baroness isn't at all a nice person, so cutting comments like that are to be expected, but no comment to the contrary is given, although the man she ends up with is the charming, snarky captain of the guard and will probably eventually become Baroness de Ghent.
  • The First Wives Club. First wife Brenda obsesses over her weight and is taunted about it by her ex's new girlfriend. She couldn't be anything more than a size 10 or 12.
  • Jan, one of the Pink Ladies in Grease, is constantly talking about how she should be dieting, but she's hungry. This could be put down to adolescent body image, except other characters ask her if she really wants to eat that, and Putzie asks her out, "romantically" saying that there's more to her "than just fat." The actress is not even slightly pudgy. No double chin, nothing but looser, less-flattering clothes than the other Pink Ladies and continuous mentions of her fat in the script. The original script actually calls for a chubby actress.
  • Harry Potter: Dudley Dursley looks to be somewhere between normal and slightly pudgy, but he's supposed to be a Fat Slob (by the fourth book, he's said to be wider than his height). This is Adaptational Attractiveness, since he is genuinely fat in the books. Actor Harry Melling began studying ballet, and had to wear a fat suit for his brief appearance in Deathly Hallows Part 1. Ultimately the films make less a point about his weight than the books to sidestep this issue, and the books lay off mentioning his weight in the later books, saying his love for bully- ahem, boxing made him fit.
  • Invoked in Hollywood Ending when Lori, played by Debra Messing of all people, complains she's getting fat as an actress; her waistline is 25".
  • Perhaps played intentionally in Hook, where Peter Banning (the former Peter Pan) is mocked by the Lost Boys for being "old and fat", and Captain Hook himself calls him a "pitiful, spineless, pasty, bloated codfish." Robin Williams wasn't out of shape, but he certainly wasn't as lean and fit as his former, adolescent, action-hero self.
  • In Into the Woods, Little Red Riding Hood is supposed to be quite plump, as repeatedly noted by the Wolf (and shown by the fact that she's constantly snitching food). While the original Broadway version cast the genuinely pudgy Danielle Ferland, the Disney version chose young actress Lilla Crawford, who has a round face but is in fact quite thin. It is mentioned that she ate half the bread and cakes that the bakers gave her for Granny, so the Wolf could be referring to water weight, but of course that isn't visible either.
  • Discussed in The King's Speech when Elizabeth complains to Bertie about how his brother's lover Wallis Simpson calls her the "Fat Scottish Cook". Elizabeth is played by the petite Helena Bonham Carter, and Simpson is portrayed as a horrible person, so it's apparently not meant to be taken seriously.
  • According to Word of God on the DVD commentary for Kinsey, Laura Linney ate donuts for six weeks and gained about twenty pounds to look more like an average person from the 1940s. It's not noticeable at all.
  • In The Legend Of Wolf Mountain, three kids are lost in the woods, on the run from criminals. One of the kids, Casey, is subject to a barrage of insults from the other two regarding his weight, such as "blimp-boy", "lump of lard", and "porky", despite the actor being no heavier than the other two kids. It's like they wrote the part with a heavier actor in mind, cast an average-sized child instead, and for whatever reason didn't change the offending lines. It's downright surreal at times.
  • It's a Running Gag in Love Actually for someone to mock Natalie's weight, calling her chubby, and for the Prime Minister to be absolutely baffled by it. This appears to be a Take That, Critics! to the British tabloids, who were obsessed with Martine McCutcheon (who plays Natalie) and her weight. For reference, this is what Martine McCuthcheon looks like in a bikini. Would we call her chubby?
  • In The Madness of King George, King George III and Queen Charlotte both gave their son, the Prince of Wales, a hard time about getting fat. In real life George IV was rather portly, but when portrayed by Rupert Everett, not so much.
  • Margaret Dumont is constantly mocked for her weight by the Marx Brothers. While consistently the largest women in the Marx films, and among the largest in period film, she's average for modern America and only slightly above normal for current actresses playing characters her age. Her height helped in the characterization, since all of the Marx brothers were fairly short and slender, making her look larger in comparison.
  • In Mean Girls, Regina is tricked into eating nutrition bars to gain weight. The weight gain isn't that noticeable, but it gets her kicked out of the Plastics. Presumably it's a mockery of this trope, as Regina is considered fat because she can't fit into a size 5 dress.
  • Toni Collette in Muriel's Wedding put on 40 lbs. to play Muriel and ended up with a voluptuous pear shape that is obvious in this scene where she's wearing black leather.
  • Nine (Musical). Saraghina in the original film and musical is portrayed as a Big Beautiful Woman. In Rob Marshall's film, she's played by Fergie. She apparently had to gain about seventeen pounds for the role (as did co-star Penelope Cruz) but it doesn't quite have the same effect.
  • Discussed in the Eddie Murphy in The Nutty Professor (1996) when Prof. Sherman Klump is having dinner with his family, much of whom, like Sherman, is obese.
  • Katie of Paranormal Activity is undeniably of a larger clothing size than a typical female Hollywood protagonist. Makes sense, since both Katie and Micah are supposed to be as average as possible to make the movie seem more real. Of course, after the movie's opening weekend, cue Internet discussions about Katie being so fat.
  • An hour into Romy and Michele's High School Reunion, Romy is referred to as "the chubby girl", even though (a) she is nowhere remotely close to chubby in either flashbacks or the present day, and (b) another character is far more deserving of the "chubby girl" distinction, in both flashbacks and the present day.
  • Simon Pegg plays the lead in Run Fatboy Run. The role was originally envisioned for Jack Black. There are a few shots that attempt to show that Pegg has something of a gut. In spite of the title they ultimately seem to go for "out of shape" rather than "fat." Word of God says that Pegg had just finished filming Hot Fuzz and had to be in superb shape to play Nicholas Angel. Quite difficult to put on a lot of weight that quickly.
  • In the Sex and the City movie, Samantha eats to distract herself from thoughts of cheating, and when she flies out to New York it's considered a big deal when she sports a wee bit of a gut. It's said later that it's not so much that she's gotten 'fat', as according to Charlotte she would look great at any size, but that such weight gain is extremely out of character and indicative of some underlying problem. Granted, this felt a little shoehorned to try to avoid being accused of an 'if you aren't thin there's something wrong with you' implication, but at least they tried, if however half-halfheartedly.
  • In Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda, Simon's friend Leah is overweight, stating flat out that she prefers people to call her fat than dance around it, and it's hinted that it contributes heavily to her insecurities when comparing herself to Abby. Meanwhile, in Love, Simon, Katherine Langford might be curvy, but she's hardly plus sized. May be considered a case of Adaptational Attractiveness, though in the book Leah's not unattractive, she's just not skinny. For comparison: Leah on the cover of ''Leah on the Off Beat'' vs the actress playing Leah.
  • Yancy from Sleepover, played by Kallie Flynn Childress. Yancy is picked on because of her weight several times over the course of the movie, although it's mostly from the Alpha Bitch. She also attracts the attention of a boy at the High-School Dance, establishing her as a Big Beautiful Woman.
  • In Strip Search, an interrogator tells Maggie Gyllenhaal she could stand to lose a few pounds. However, it's not clear what the character actually believes. He is an interrogator trying to break her will.
  • In The Truth About Cats & Dogs, Janeane Garofalo's character being overweight (on top of being ugly) is brought up multiple times - but while the actress may not be as slim as Uma Thurman, calling her fat (... or ugly) would be a stretch.
  • Yours, Mine, and Ours portrays Susan as a compulsive overeater, and she's said to be fat, but she is not noticeably any bigger than her siblings. When she loses weight, and Helen sends Frank a photo documenting her progress, there isn't much visible difference.
  • In the Israeli film Yossi, the titular main character is incredibly self-conscious about his weight and mocked for it by one of his dates. Ohad Knoller gained 10 kg (22 lbs) to play the part and - it's not all that noticeable. Not to mention that it's still Ohad Knoller, who is regarded as one of Israel's sexiest actors.

    Literature 
  • Tris of Tamora Pierce's Circle of Magic series is described as being chubby or plump. While this is very true in the text (she is frequently teased by unkind people), precisely zero of the book covers that feature her show her as even a little bit chubby. At most, she's just wearing baggy clothes.
  • Andy, the protagonist of The Devil Wears Prada, gets an interview to work for Runway magazine. She attributes being even remotely considered for the job to the fact that she'd only just recovered from a severe gastrointestinal illness, and even at that she's still heavier than many of the other staff at the magazine. Subverted, however, in that none of her coworkers actually calls her fat - they actually assure her she's thin and gorgeous, while obsessing that they're overweight and hideous.
  • In Ether Ore, a tall young woman who's said to be about 120 lbs is described as though her build is very solid and curvy - not fat, but far from skinny. A woman who's over 5'6" and weighs less than 120 lbs is almost always underweight. Somewhat justified in that the viewpoint character is a younger woman who's 90 lbs and boyish, so maybe it's just relative.
  • Lampshaded in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, when Vernon Dursley describes Molly Weasley as "dumpy." Harry thinks to himself that he has a bit of nerve commenting on Molly's weight, since Vernon's son, Dudley, has become so fat that his school doesn't even make uniforms in his size. (Molly also has the excuse of having seven children.)
  • In the Nancy Drew series, chum Bess is described as "pretty, but slightly plump", or in the 80s-to-90s era Nancy Drew Files, as pretty, but perpetually obsessed with losing the five pounds she believes are standing between her and physical perfection. Despite this, she never has trouble attracting male attention. This is finally and thankfully subverted in the newest Nancy Drew series, Nancy Drew: Girl Detective. The closest mention of Bess's weight is the occasional throwaway line referring to a dress flattering her "curvy" figure.

  • MAD played with the trope in their parody of Moonlighting. In their storyline, Maddie and Addison go undercover to investigate a circus. Maddie says she'll be the circus "fat lady." When Addison asks how that can be (because Cybill Shepherd!), Maddie replies that "every girl thinks she's too fat."
  • The protagonist of the Danielle Steel novel Big Girl. Despite her constant insecurities about her weight, it's mentioned that she's a size 12. While not thin, she's got a few more sizes to go before being considered fat or obese.
  • In Julia Bell's novel Massive, Carmen's mother constantly calls her fat, a boy who feels her up informs her he "likes his girls meaty," and Carmen herself thinks she's tubby. However, she reveals about halfway through the novel that she's 5'3" and 114 pounds, which is objectively not fat. Partially justified in that her mother has an eating disorder, and Carmen develops one over the course of the story, so this may be a case of an unreliable narrator.

    Live-Action TV 
  • A non-human example in 2 Broke Girls: in "And The Reality Check," a stable-owner tells Caroline that her horse Chestnut is out of shape. That would be perfectly realistic, of course, since Chestnut had been living in Max's tiny backyard and had not been getting proper exercise. The problem is that the horse who plays Chestnut is, of course, very well cared for and is in great shape. This clearly falls under Acceptable Breaks from Reality.
  • Parodied on 3rd Rock from the Sun:
    • The world was being invaded by aliens disguised as supermodels, and Dr. Allbright was considered a larger woman for being a size 8.
    • Again when Dick struggled with his weight for an episode. The ultimate solution: larger pants.
  • 30 Rock:
    • In one episode, Liz, who is regarded as frumpy in New York, meets a woman in Cleveland who asks her if she's a model and says "You are so skinny! You really should eat something."
      Liz: "And in Cleveland, I'm a model!"
      Jenna: "Yeah, we're all models west of the Allegheny."
    • The first few episodes of season two run this trope through the gamut. Jenna Maroney (played by the slender Jane Krakowski) plays the lead in a musical stage adaptation of Mystic Pizza over the summer, which requires her to eat thirty-two pieces of pizza a week. When she returns to television, she's gained weight in her stomach (and only her stomach—everything else looks exactly the same). Though she's heavier than before, she still looks gorgeous, but everyone treats her as though she's become monstrously obese. When she covers for a mistake in an sketch by shouting "ME WANT FOOD!," she's quickly turned into a caricature, with the writers giving her nothing but "fat woman" roles to play and NBC making T-shirts emblazoned with her new catchphrase. Eventually, Jenna embraces her Big Beautiful Woman status, but only because it's making people pay more attention to her. She eventually loses the weight when Jack lampshades this trope, remarking, "She either needs to lose thirty pounds or gain sixty. There's no room for anything in between on television."
  • This is used in Absolutely Fabulous, where the entire cast describes Eddie as being "fat" (including Eddie herself), when she's in fact completely average. It isn't clear whether the writers were trying to garner a few laughs from the ridiculousness of it, or lampooning thin people who think they're fat. Possibly Justified, as Eddie works in the fashion industry where yes, she would be considered fat.
  • A non-human example in All Creatures Great & Small (2020): Tricki Woo is, according to the narrative, so overweight it is badly affecting his health. Derek, his canine "actor", is a perfectly normal Pekingese. Given the very real health risks to a dog of Tricki's actual body condition, though, this one can be chalked up to Acceptable Breaks from Reality.note 
  • America's Next Top Model, at least once per season. There is always the girl who everyone refers to as "curvy" or other euphemism. Host Tim Gunn once got into minor trouble for describing one girl as "zaftig." In reality, those girls are maybe average weight. This came to a head during the season where the "plus-sized" girl actually won. Many people felt it was disingenuous of Top Model to continually praise themselves for crowning a "plus-size model" when the girl in question, Whitney, barely looked heavier than the rest of the girls. A comparison of her and the runner up. She's the one in pink; the runner-up, in black, is not plus-size.
  • Mrs Slocombe of Are You Being Served? is frequently the target of snide comments from her coworkers about her weight. In actuality, she's perfectly average for a woman of her age—a few pounds overweight, but nowhere near fat.
  • Arrested Development:
    • The lanky, rail-thin Portia de Rossi, playing Lindsay Bluth, is constantly criticized for being fat by her mother, Lucille Bluth, and keeps referring to as eating enormous quantities. Quite Harsher in Hindsight when de Rossi revealed her battles with anorexia. Of course this is very clearly just Lucille being a terrible, hyper-critical mother; no one else ever refers to this.
    • Buster is also occasionally referred to as fat by Anyong and other kids, despite quite possibly being the tallest and thinnest of the Bluths. Presumably, this is just childish meanness.
    • Ann also gets a bit of this along with the Hollywood Homely jokes.
  • Raj from The Big Bang Theory is very critical of his own physique, which, at worst, is a little doughy in the middle. It does, however, tie in with his girly tendencies.
  • A male example from Big Wolf on Campus. Tommy's enhanced appetite starts getting the best of him in "The Wolf Is Out There" and he begins gaining weight, although he simply developed a noticeable belly rather than becoming huge. He manages to lose the weight by the end of the episode through dieting and a Time Skip. The viewers complained that they didn't understand why people were treating Tommy differently, considering he's a football player and they tend to bulk up. Even better, he was bulking up as a wolf-like reaction, since most animals will gain some extra girth during the winter. Not only do humans generally do the same thing (often called holiday weight,) so do football players! Since winter is the off-season for football players, many will lighten their exercise regimen and pad out a little. It's especially bizarre considering that two of the people calling him fat are his football teammates Tim and Travis, who are themselves prime examples of Big Fun and Stout Strength.
  • Occurs accidentally in Blackadder the Third, where several people describe Prince George as fat. The historical Prince George was actually fat, but here he's played by the tall and lanky Hugh Laurie, so the insults just seem to come out of nowhere. Which of course just serves to make it even funnier.
  • Definitely played for comedy in Bottom (especially in the live shows), where Richie is apparently monstrously obese.
    • This is part of some pretty cruel humour involving the shallow, neurotic Patsy, played by the tall and slender Joanna Lumley, who is obsessive about weight and body image and clearly shown to be a drug addict as well.
      • Averted in French and Saunders where Saunders makes fun of the definitely dumpy Dawn French, describing her own figure as "tall and womanly"
  • Boy Meets World: In the season 7 episode "She's Having My Baby Back Ribs", Topanga worries that she's fat so she goes on a diet, which hilariously leads Cory (and everyone else) to misinterpret her actions and think she's pregnant. The end of the episode involves everyone telling Topanga she's not fat and Mr. Feeny delivering the aesop about living in a world of unreasonable standards. This episode apparently came into existence because the press flipped out about Danielle Fishel's very slight weight gain during the run of the show (basically, she went from a skinny pre-teen to a curvy adult.) On the other hand, the other characters act as though Topanga was developing an eating disorder when she never did anything more radical than try to stop eating junkfood.
  • Boo in Bunheads is said to have "a bit of a tummy". Justified in that it's her ballet instructor saying it and ballet has very rigorous shape standards.
  • An episode of The Cosby Show had Claire frantically trying to lose several pounds to fit into a fancy dress. She's shocked at the realization that she even needs to lose weight (though her husband Cliff smugly enjoys this, given the way she's always haranguing him about HIS eating habits), and ridiculed by her aerobics instructor, even though Claire is noticeably slimmer than many of the other women in the class.
  • Discussed in Crashing (US) when Pete Holmes starts getting spots at the Boston comedy club. Jason, who runs the club tells him to either lose the little belly that he has, or gain more weight to be considered a "fat comic".
  • Creepshow: "Stranger Sings" has this invoked In-Universe. Sara is slightly overweight, and it's mainly because of this that she has been ghosted by several potential lovers. She's really more attractively voluptuous than anything, though the men whom she's seen disagreed apparently.
  • Dancing with the Stars pros Cheryl Burke and Lacey Schwimmer have been called overweight by fans. Granted that they might be a bit heavy by the standards of professional dancers by any other standards they're both knockouts. Plus, since, as working dancers, they're in a constant state of exercise it's more likely that their "overweight" is a case of heavy bone structure and/or being (for dancers) overmuscled.
    • By the standards of the ballroom/Latin world, which is less fixated on a hyper-thin look than ballet (especially Latin and American Rhythm, where if you don't have curves, your costumes add them for you), neither is notably heavy at all. By television standards, they fit this trope to a tee — many professional ballroom dancers, despite being insanely fit, would be considered the "pudgy best friend" type at best in Hollywood.
  • Nicola Coughlan, who plays Clare on Derry Girls has been outspoken about being body-shamed. She even penned an article calling out professional critics for focusing on her weight rather than her performance.
  • One episode of Designing Women had the four ladies attending a spa. Julia and Mary Jo were allowed to eat what they wanted, but Charlene and Suzanne had to stick with the diet plate. Delta Burke gained some weight during the show's run (though she wasn't that big even at her heaviest). Jean Smart was never particularly large, although she might appear so beside the tiny Annie Potts. Here is a photo of all the Women in their full Eighties glory, with Smart at the right. The sack dresses with giant shoulder pads don't help much.
  • Desperate Housewives:
    • In season 5, a great deal is made of Gaby becoming "fat and frumpy" after losing her wealth and giving birth to two children. The costume department nailed the "frumpy" part, but even with an unflattering wardrobe (and light padding), it was painfully obvious that Eva Longoria was no heavier than in the previous seasons.
    • Another episode featured a number of "What If?" sequences, including one where Susan gains weight due to comfort eating (for which Teri Hatcher wore a Fat Suit). A number of writers commented that Teri actually looked better with a realistic middle-aged "softness" than as her usual Hollywood Thin self.
  • Mellie of Dollhouse is played as being the heavy, homely neighbor-with-a-crush. It doesn't help that most of the other female characters are dolls, specifically chosen in-universe to be gorgeous and sexy, but one doubts that most people who like women would kick her out of bed....
    • Mellie is a doll as revealed later in the series, so she's chosen in-universe to be gorgeous and sexy.
    • No one besides Mellie herself considers to be overweight or in any way unattractive. She's played less as the heavy, homely neighbour, and more as the Betty to Echo's Veronica - the sweet, pretty next-door neighbour as opposed to the beautiful, dangerous Doll. At least at first.
  • The New York Times had an article on the Lifetime series Drop Dead Diva praising it for having a realistic attitude towards women's weight, but accompanying it with a picture in which the "fat" protagonist is obviously, by any realistic standard, not fat, and right next to her is Margaret Cho, who has been the epitome of the "fat Asian" caricature. Uh huh....
    • This can be justified (in-show, at least) with the series' protagonist, as she was formerly a very petite aspiring model. Not so much with Margaret Cho, however.
  • Empty Nest: Carol spends the entire run of the series obsessed with her weight and convinced that she's fat, to the point of denouncing herself as "a fat pig" should she weigh more than 120 pounds. This borders on body dysmorphic disorder, as not only is she not fat, for all their relentless teasing of her, none of the other cast members tease her about her weight.
  • Kirstie Alley — whose weight has famously fluctuated between nearly-emaciated to clearly obese, finally settling on the high side of zaftig — has famously criticized this phenomenon, both in a notorious appearance in a swimsuit on Oprah, and in her brutally satirical and quasi-biographical Showtime series Fat Actress. Tellingly, the series only lasted a single season, and she has since started trying again to lose weight. Notable here, as she's receive a mountain of criticism, if not outright insults, from Oprah, other celebs, and fashion industry gossip mags even when she was down to a normal weight. Some of these comments, such as Leah Remini referring to herself as "Kirstie Alley fat" are examined on the series. While it's all Played for Laughs, the Cringe Comedy can be hard to watch.
  • Frasier: Frasier himself gets this treatment quite often. Many episodes mention him being on a diet and quite a few episodes have characters making fun of Frasier's "fat ass", including a rival radio host and Frasier's Sitcom Arch-Nemesis Cam Winston. While Kelsey Grammer is no fitness model, he was, at worst, a few pounds overweight and nowhere near obese.
  • Firefly: Jewel Staite was asked to gain weight to play Kaylee, in order to look like 'the kind of girl who enjoys a burger once in a while'. While her figure is not as waifish as River, she's still fairly slim. Behind the scenes, Staite hated being 20 pounds heavier than usual: she lost the weight when the show ended and did not gain it again for the movie Serenity. Official comic art naturally tends to endow Kaylee with a very skinny figure, ignoring both the comparative curves of the character, and the bagginess of her habitual clothes.
  • The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air:
    • Uncle Phil is subject to hundreds of fat jokes throughout the entire series, particularly by Will and Geoffrey. While he is quite a Big Eater, they almost always make him out as morbidly obese. It's also made clear that much of his bulk is also muscle and he could snap most people in half if he wanted (which is also true of his actor, former Navy man James Avery).
    • Also, when Will's Girl of the Week is played by Queen Latifah. Although he hits it off with her and clearly enjoys being with her, he can't get over his hang-ups about her weight. While she's certainly zaftig, she's not obese or even overweight and completely undeserving of the nasty comments leveled at her by several of Will's friends — "I bet she's tons of fun.", "Two pizzas? Okay, we have your date's order, what about you?"
  • Friends:
    • In one early episode, the gang comments that already Hollywood Homely Chandler has put on weight—Phoebe even mockingly pretends that she can't put her arms around him to give him a hug and Monica spends the episode putting him through Training from Hell to lose weight. In reality, Chandler was played by the thin Matthew Perry and had no weight gain at all. This episode becomes Harsher in Hindsight due to later seasons seeing Matthew Perry's weight genuinely fluctuating due to his rehab battles with addictions that stemmed from an accident he was in that occurred some time after this episode.
    • The "Fat Monica" flashbacks are also an example of this. While Monica is overweight, she clearly isn't as large as the show makes her out to be. (Certainly not enough to "break a porch swing" or "be mistaken for an Alp".) This is partly due to Values Dissonance, as with Monica's fat years being the 80s, she would have been seen as obese. Back then the percentage of obese Americans was just 11%, so while modern viewers see Monica as being just slightly overweight given the current standards, she was genuinely seen as being quite large back then.
  • A Very Special Episode of Full House has D.J. invited to a surprise pool party for her best friend Kimmy. She panics at the thought of being seen in a swimsuit and decides to lose weight by skipping all of her meals and overexercising at the gym, to the point of nearly passing out. Candace Cameron did have a somewhat round face as a preteen, which is to be expected before going through puberty, but she was definitely not fat, or even overweight, by any standard. It's somewhat lampshaded in-universe, with her family pointing out that she doesn't need to lose weight and that her friends like her because she's a kind, nice person, not for her size. It doesn't help that Andrea Barber, who played Kimmy, was quite lanky and often given form-fitting clothing as costumes—anyone would have looked heavier standing next to her.
  • Played for Laughs in Galavant, when Gareth (The Dragon) refers to Isabella as "the pudgy one." King Richard (who is, at least in theory, still the Big Bad) is offended on her behalf.
    Richard: Pudgy!? She's a hundred pounds soaking wet!
    Gareth: I know, but I like 'em skinny. Like, really skinny. Unhealthily skinny.
    • It's later revealed that he also likes really heavy women, just nothing in between.
    • After Magdalena dumps him, Galavant describes himself as gaining twenty pounds and a beer belly, and Isabella mentions his "muffin top." Joshua Sasse, who is in excellent shape, looks exactly the same pre- and post- breakup.
  • Averted and played with throughout Gavin & Stacey in which Ruth Jones' character Nessa is distinctly overweight, in a BBW sort of way - but averted by the character being a fairly OTT comic grotesque. It's also heavily implied that she is a vigorous, passionate woman in bed. Nessa's on-off partner Smithy (James Corden) is plain fat by any standards, and there is a running subtext about how no-one can really understand what either saw in the other.
    • Ignored with Alison Steadman's character, who is portrayed as an attractive middle-aged woman.
  • Glee:
    • Finn is nervous about playing Brad in the Glee club's performance of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, where he'd have to strip to his underwear. But then we actually see him in his underwear, and it's hard to picture anyone kicking him out of bed. His "weight problem" is a running gag on the show.
    • To some extent, Rachel. In the first season, her character is said to be chubby and is teased by mean girls. In the second season, she herself mentioned she had some "baby fat". Rachel is played by Lea Michele, who has always been skinny. The actress however, did become noticeably skinnier after the first season. Season One vs Season Two.
    • Karofsky, called "chubby" and "Manimal" by Kurt and Artie, is certainly heavier than the rest of the principal guys on the show, but is noticeably slimmer than other members of the football team. Max Adler just seems to be naturally huskier than the other cast members. Besides, he's a lineman, he's supposed to be bulky and that most of that bulk is muscle is shown in the locker room fight with Sam, Mike and Artie.
      • It becomes an "issue of the week" in Season 4, when Mean Girl Kitty taunts Marley about having "the fat gene." Marley's mother is very overweight, but it becomes ridiculous when Kitty starts taking in Marley's stage costumes and Marley develops an eating disorder, despite her other clothes and the scale not changing at all. The actress who plays Marley has visible hip and collar bones.
    • An example in Season 4, episode one, also a pretty cruel subversion. Cassandra July berates her class by telling them "If you don't have body dysmorphic disorder, you don't want (success) badly enough." And then she pulls over a student, calling her "Muffin Top" and tells her "it's rice cakes and ipecac, or cut off a butt cheek, because you need to drop a few." The student is played by an actress with visible collar bones.
      • Amusingly, Muffin Top is actually explicitly credited in the script as "Normal Sized Female Student"
  • Often used on The Golden Girls, in which Blanche and Rose are frequently the target of barbs about their weight, even though they look exactly the way two middle-aged women who have had several children should look. Though Rose gets to subvert that in the episode where the four women engage in an impromptu dance-off, where Rose does a pretty fantastic job dancing topped off by doing a badass split on the floor. And Blanche? Well, there must be a reason why she's portrayed as being the siren of the foursome, the woman all the (silver-haired) guys want and with a little black book to rival any femme fatale's.
  • Aziraphale in Good Omens (2019), who gets body-shamed by the Archangel Gabriel himself. Michael Sheen has a round face and a realistic build for a middle-aged foodie (unlike his co-star, the notoriously lanky David Tennant), but since nobody else seems to have any issue with Aziraphale's body type, it seems likely that Gabriel's injunction to "Lose the gut" was intended to convey Heaven's unreasonable standards and make Gabriel look like a Jerkass. Interestingly, fanart often does make Aziraphale attractively chubby, probably for more visual contrast with Crowley.
  • On Grey's Anatomy, Chyler Leigh's (Lexie) real-life weight gain due to pregnancy was rather ham-fistedly written into the plot: the very thin Lexie was made a stress-eater kind of out of nowhere and began wolfing down snacks when Mark and Derek were in a long fight. Meredith referred to her ass as being "huge," which it really wasn't, but at least they kept up the storyline and brought in back in season seven, when Mark tells Jackson to ply her with peanut butter cups to get her to talk about her feelings.
  • Many "jokes" about Carol's weight on Growing Pains, which certainly didn't help Tracey Gold's anorexia any.
  • Al from Home Improvement is a male pseudo-example. He's only moderately overweight by real world standards, but in the show people talk about him as if he were morbidly obese, with all the behaviors that would go with it. The teasing mostly just comes from Tim, but the show also utilizes prop gags at his weight's expense. For example, Tim had invented a reverse laundry chute and sent a pair of Al's boxers up it to Jill, who unfolded them. They would've fit a sumo. Cue the laughtrack. Poor Richard Karn is the poster child for the idea that the camera adds 30 lbs. In real life, he's got a moderately stocky frame but not even the suggestion of a gut.
  • If this hadn't been averted in Huge, the show would have been a crowning example of Comically Missing the Point. Thankfully all the fat characters were played by larger individuals and the body image aesop remained unbroken.
  • In I, Claudius, Julia is often derided as being fat after her marriage to Tiberius, her general indulgence in pleasures of the flesh includes her always eating onscreen, and she complains that her doctor told her to stop eating so much. Although Frances White did have a fuller face than the actors playing Livia and Antonia, her "fatness" was usually depicted by having her lying down in most of her scenes, with her clothes bunched around her middle.
  • I Love Lucy:
    • Ethel Mertz was called a "fat old bag" by her husband, despite Vivian Vance not being noticeably heavier than Lucille Ball. When casting the role, they deliberately cast a thin woman, since a husband calling his thin wife "fat" is funny, while a husband calling his fat wife fat makes you feel sympathy for her. In later seasons, Vivian Vance gained some weight, changing the dynamic. It got so bad that an Urban Legend sprang up claiming that she was contractually obligated to remain 20 pounds overweight. Ironically, she became a star by playing sexy vamps in Cole Porter musicals on Broadway. She was a knockout!
    • In one episode, Lucy goes on a crash diet so she can fit into a costume (made for a thin dancer) and sneak into an act of Ricky's show. She loses so much weight that she has to go to the hospital once the show is over. (And it's all played for laughs, of course.)
  • Joe, Sal and Q (especially Joe) of Impractical Jokers are treated as though they are 600-pound life overweight even though they range from stocky to mildly overweight. Even Murr, the trimmest and fittest of the four, got this treatment in one episode after he had apparently gained a couple of pounds.
  • Played with in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia:
    • Dee's mother constantly insinuates that Dee is fat, even though Kaitlin Olson is quite lanky and slender. Her mother, however, is a horrible person. The gang have fat shamed her several times too, but they (along with Dee herself) are also just as awful.
    • In "The Gang Exploits a Miracle", Dee insinuates that the vain and athletic Dennis is putting on weight. He freaks out and begins starving himself. When he seems close to death, she finally admits that she was just messing with him, because he's a horrible person.
    • Invoked in "Dennis and Dee's Mom Is Dead" where the guys are trying to find more friends and at one point the idea of having a funny fat guy for their group is mentioned. Charlie says he always thought of himself as the funny fat friend, but Mac and Dennis say he’s neither fat nor funny.
      • Played straight with Charlie a couple episodes prior: He claims to be in good shape, and Dee snarks back that it's only true if he's a short fat person, not an actor. When Charlie gets offended at the latter she backtracks to say husky, then chunky, further offending him.
    • The trope was later famously inverted by Rob McElhenney, who, prior to the seventh season of the show, deliberately gained fifty pounds of fat (though he did also exercise to generally bulk up his body) to combat the trend of actors generally getting into better shape as their shows become more successful (as they're able to afford things like personal trainers with their higher salaries). Within the season, Rob's character Mac thinks of himself as a now-muscular bodybuilder who's considerably beefed up...but he's really just plain fat.
  • On a Just Shoot Me! episode where one of Nina's former colleagues shows up having gained considerable weight. When Nina finally confronts her with this, she says she has no problem with her weight and actually worries about how Nina is still so obsessed with looks after so many years.
    • Also played with: Maya is thin, but since she works at a fashion magazine her colleagues don't typically think of her that way.
      • Discussed in one episode, she dates a man who likes bigger women. She enjoys eating what she wants and not exercising, until sees his ex, who's considerably overweight (although well dressed and groomed), and realizes the man is fattening her up. He then tries to convince her to gain weight for him ("Come on, fifty pounds and I'll buy the stretch pants!"). She points out that trying to make a person change to be fatter is just as negatively critical and psychologically detrimental as trying to force the person to be thin.
  • Invoked, possibly, on Keeping Up with the Kardashians, when Kourtney tries to get Khloe to stop reading blogs that refer to her as a "whale," stating that the people making the criticisms are probably overweight themselves. Shortly thereafter, the audience is treated to Khloe in a miniskirt and heels.
  • Las Vegas had a rather grating example of this in the season 5's episode "Three Babes, 100 Guns, and a Fat Chick" with the downright skinny Danny McCoy (Josh Duhamel) and Delinda Deline (Molly Sims), where both characters were repeatedly derided for their sudden weight gains. Delinda was simply pregnant so it's obvious she'd naturally gain a pregnancy belly, but even in this state she looked surprisingly thin. The lightly-build Danny seemingly had a bit of padding tucked underneath his shirt coupled with a suit jacket that's obviously too tiny even for his build, both of which were completely gone by the next episode. Both characters were suddenly treated as if they were grossly overweight.
  • Law & Order: UK's DS Ronnie Brooks is relentlessly teased about his weight and Big Eater habits even though he's moderately overweight at worst and looks basically like your average middle-aged man. In Real Life, his actor, Bradley Walsh, gained weight for the part.
  • A lot was made of Sara Rue being a "full figured" woman on her ABC sitcom Less Than Perfect; indeed, the show's title was supposedly in reference to Rue's character's appearance. In reality, of course, Rue was a mildly zaftig size 12, and gorgeous as hell. Unfortunately, the press got to her, and she went on a crash diet that backfired horribly, leaving her needing to join Jenny Craig just to get back to about her Less than Perfect size.
  • Harriet Olson is the butt of several fat jokes on Little House on the Prairie, though multiple episodes feature larger characters to teach us that fat people have feelings, too.
  • Peggy Olson of Mad Men gains weight throughout Season One. We're led to believe it's because she's trying to avoid being treated as a sex object at work - it's actually because she's pregnant.
  • Rhoda Morgenstern on The Mary Tyler Moore Show was considered fat, even though her build was scarcely different than Mary's. They would dress her in baggy outfits as opposed to Mary's more form fitting clothes, but no reasonable person would look at her and label her overweight.
    • This was finally inverted in a Season Three episode where Rhoda admits to having lost 20 pounds. Despite the constant compliments (even from Phyllis), she still can't see herself as attractive until she ends up winning her company's beauty contest.
  • A Running Gag on BBC's Merlin is Arthur's weight, although this is mostly teasing on Merlin's part and it's clear Arthur himself does not believe that he's fat.
  • Averted on Mike & Molly. Victoria Flynn, played by Hollywood Pudgy Katy Mixon, is the sexpot character who always wears revealing outfits and gets lots of dates, with no mention (at least so far) of her weight or whether or not she should be considered hot because of it.
  • Trudi Malloy on Mistresses comments on how she needs to go on a diet and "my rear end wobbles when I walk!" Not only is Trudi played by the positively stunning Sharon Small, she looks like this on the show. Yeah.
  • Kim Sam Soon's supposedly problematic weight was a constant point of ridicule in My Lovely Sam-soon. The actress playing the role was a shocking! 50! kilos! (i.e. 110 lbs).
  • A running joke on New Girl is Schmidt (and sometimes Winston) calling Nick 'chubby', 'unfit' out 'out-of-shape'. The character, and the actor Jake Johnson who plays him however appear to be a healthy weight.
  • Our Miss Brooks: Mr. Conklin is referred to as fat on several occasions throughout the series, although he wouldn't be noticeable in a crowd.
  • Christopher Tietjens in the British miniseries adaptation of Parade's End certainly qualifies. In the book, Tietjens is always being described as fat while Benedict Cumberbatch isn't at all. They gave the naturally slim actor a fat suit and cheek plumpers, but he just ended up looking like he was of an average weight.
  • In Pretty Little Liars, Hanna is supposed to have been fat a year before. But in the flashbacks early in the show... she's played by the same actress wearing frumpy and baggy clothing. As the show progressed, the costumers and makeup artists got much better about depicting Hanna as having been fat in the flashbacks, but even then, she still looks like a fairly average-figured girl with unfortunately sized clothing and what looks to be a pillow stuffed down her shirt.
  • On the fifth season of RuPaul's Drag Race, finalist Roxxxy Andrews kept referring to herself as a "big girl". While she may have been overweight in the past, on the show Roxxxy looked like an average man out of drag, and in drag she was curvy but not fat, especially compared to previous contestants who were considerably heavier. Since she lost over 70 pounds before the show, why she was so eager to take that label is a mystery.
  • On Scream Queens, Libby Putney aka Chanel #5 (pictured above) is constantly called out on her weight.
  • Scrubs:
    • Retroactively done when a first season episode revolves around Turk having recently put on a bit of weight (as a surgical intern with limited free time is apt to do). Carla and J.D. taunt Him for it and he asks Dr. Cox for fitness advice. It ends with Turk resolving not to worry about his weight, since he would rather spend his free time with his loved ones than at the gym (and Carla agrees). Irritatingly, however, Turk is later described by Cox as having been "a fat load", which Turk seems to agree with, even though his appearance has barely changed in the four years between episodes.
    • Elliot's mother would often tease her about supposedly getting fat even though Dr. Cox and Jordan have made it abundantly clear that if anything, she's actually underweight. It is established however, that her mother is a very horrible person, and may also explain why, for years, Elliot was such a neurotic mess.
  • Insinuated in the appropriately-titled episode of Seinfeld "The Non-Fat Yogurt," where Kramer quite rudely comments that Jerry and Elaine have put on weight (due to eating supposedly fat-free yogurt that in fact does contain fat). Later, Elaine's current date appears to develop an aversion towards her due to her (alleged) weight gain. One would think they had become morbidly obese overnight due to the reactions of others around them, instead of experiencing a normal fluctuation in size. Elaine's supposed "weight gain" in that episode is not even made to be in the least bit noticeable. However, Elaine alludes to an incident where she supposedly sat on a chair and it broke due to her weight. Unless the chair was made of balsa wood, such a scenario would be have been highly unlikely.
  • An MTV pilot about sorority life, entitled, quite creatively, Sorority, featured a house that had a weight requirement. The crux of the pilot is that the sorority accepted the main character, but rejected her best friend based on the weight requirement (she was stated at 105 pounds...and actually looked thinner than the main character!) The sorority also features a Big Eater sister who keeps the weight off by purging.
  • Rodney McKay of Stargate Atlantis is occasionally referred to as fat by other characters, and frequently in fanfic and discussion, and he typically can't keep up with other characters in their running, jumping, and climbing up trees. To be fair, he does show noticeable "wattle", and most of those he interacts with on Atlantis are in prime physical condition, either being USAF or alien Super Soldiers.
    • This is lampshaded in "The Tao of Rodney" when Ronon comments (behind Rodney's back) that he looks like he's gained weight; Rodney overhears and makes a point of announcing to everyone that he is the same weight he's always been.
  • Eli on Stargate Universe is treated as if he's obese; in fact, he's at most slightly overweight for his height.
  • Done deliberately as a gag on The Strange Calls. A running joke involves various people calling the main character fat, even though he's clearly of average build and no fatter than anyone else on the show.
  • Parodied on The Suite Life of Zack & Cody when London and Maddie were led to believe by a rude friend of the former that they were too fat and too thin respectively. Brenda Song and Ashley Tisdale were quite thin at the time, but not dangerously so; London could have endangered her health with a crash diet and compulsive exercise, while Maddie had no reason to binge and could have set herself on the path to obesity. Moseby tried to talk some sense into them, telling them what anyone who isn't brainwashed by this trope (and its inverse) already knew: they're both gorgeous and don't need other people to tell them what to look like; it doesn’t sink in until a certain amount of time later, where London is on the verge of passing out from lack of food, and Maddie is so bloated from constantly gorging that she can’t fit in her dress (with no actual prosthetics to show any such weight gain).
  • Played ridiculously straight in an episode of Supernatural where a demon targets large women. We only get to see two of his potential victims and suffice to say the worst you could call them is "realistically middle-aged" and "not Hollywood Thin"!
  • That's So Raven actually deconstructed this trope in one episode. Raven (portrayed by the curvy Raven Symone) is told she isn't skinny enough to model the clothes she designed for a fashion show. She and the twig-thin model then team up and both wear the outfit on the runway. Also deconstructed when both of them chew out the magazine owner that's sponsoring the show, saying that no one is as skinny as they look on the magazine.
    Raven: Nobody looks like that!
    Girl in the picture: I don't even look like that.
  • Total Divas references this a few times:
    • "The Fat Twin" has Nikki Bella discovering a fan calling her fat on Instagram, and she spends the episode getting fat-shamed by Brie. Likewise Brie panics before a photoshoot and tries to do a thirty-day juice cleanse - essentially drinking nothing but juice for a month. Nikki has said in interviews that she is naturally much bigger than Brie and had to do daily ab and cardio workouts to match her sister's body type.
    • Eva Marie frets about a photoshoot after being injured for a while, and goes crazy in the gym trying to lose weight. It's revealed that she has massive body image issues.
  • Ugly Betty, as the title implies, featured America Ferrera as the titular "ugly" character who, in addition to braces and frumpy clothing, was often derided as fat by the fashion magazine she worked for. There's a bit of Truth in Television to this, as in the fashion industry, "fat" = "having natural boobs and hips/being bigger than a size four." In real life, America Ferrera was at most a size 10, and thinner now, but you still get people on the IMDB boards calling her a bad role model for being obese. Of course, this is IMDb we're talking about here; most of the people on those boards live under bridges.
    • Ugly Betty also had a woman everyone called "Fat Carol" who really wasn't, which was the whole point of the joke.
    • For Hypocritical Humor, Amanda commonly jokes about how much Betty eats while chowing down on anything she sees.
    • Ironically, in the original Yo soy Betty, la fea one of the points about the ugliness of Betty is that she is thin as a toothpick, and in an attempt to disguise that she ends wearing clothes better suited for her heavier mom. But then, they had the Big Eater gossip hen Bertha, who was genuinely overweight (about US size 18, and when the actress - and her character - got pregnant, even bigger) but received a far less amount of fat jokes than a character of that type would receive, and all the remarks she got were from the vainest evil characters.
  • In an episode of Undeclared, the character played by the extremely not-fat Monica Keena is portrayed as eating so much and getting so fat (i.e. wearing looser clothes) that her friends even stage an intervention. It isn't until two nerds start hitting on her that she realizes she must be extremely unattractive if they think she is in their league. She swears to never eat a carb again and gets back to being very thin (i.e. tighter clothes again) by the end of the episode and the {[Nerd}} doesn't dare to hit on her anymore. Note that in the real world, being gorgeous is not a very effective way to repel nerds.
  • Parodied in an episode of Unhappily Ever After. Ryan tampers with the bathroom scale to read an additional ten pounds, to make Tiffany think she has gained weight (largely, she thinks, to a recent zit), to her horror. Jack doesn't approve of this until Jennie weighs herself and freaks out as well. Both women struggle to lose the imaginary weight, despite not looking any different before the tampering.
  • Isabelle on Weeds is at most very slightly pudgy and that could be because of the way the show dresses her but she is a plus-sized children's model in the show and her admittedly Jerkass mother acts as if she's two or three hundred pounds.
  • Will & Grace:
    • There's more than one episode in which Jack taunts Will for being a "fattie" or some similar disparagement. This is Eric McCormack we're talking about, here! Justified in that Jack is a neurotic Gym Bunny (who's so weight-conscious that he wears a girdle under his clothes) and he's the only one who says this about Will.note 
    • Occasionally, Karen made similar jabs about Grace. In one episode, while decorating her mother's apartment, Karen warned her to "leave plenty of money in the budget for Egg McMuffins, 'cuz Heavy G like tah eat!" These, along with the jokes about Will, were usually played for Values Dissonance, since it was painfully clear that neither Eric McCormack nor Debra Messing were overweight at all, and in fact Karen herself was rather voluptuous (and Messing was extremely thin: her flat-chestedness was a running gag, and one of her onscreen boyfriends described her as "awfully skinny", asking "don't you want to look a little...fatter?"). This became clear when several critics mentioned that the fat jokes leveled at Grace weren't funny anymore when Messing was pregnant.
    • Another unfortunate case from the series is Karen's cousin Barry, who receives a makeover from Will and Jack in Season 5. Pre-makeover, he has an average build and a rather thin face (hidden, respectively, behind baggy clothes and an unkempt beard). To hear Jack and Will talk, however, he's a whale — in fact, we're told they sent Barry to "fat camp" in the time between his first appearance and his second.
  • In the glory days of You Can't Do That on Television, the show's host, Christine McGlade, and her cohort, Lisa Ruddy, would constantly taunt each other as being "fat." While it can be argued that Lisa was slightly chubby sometimes, Christine can hardly have been described as having a weight problem. However, given that Christine was much older than the rest of the cast but being passed off as the same age, "she's heavier" made sense to a lot of the child audience for why she looked different from the other kids.

    Music 
  • The main character in the video of P!nk's "F***ing Perfect" is deliberately a poster girl for this trope. At one point she's carving 'Skinny Bitches' as graffiti into a changing room door.
  • A line from The Arrogant Worms song "Hollywood Girl" references this trope: "Is she pregnant, or did she have breakfast?"
  • Furnaceface's She Thinks She's Fat
  • Japanese "Marshmallow girls" group Chubbiness. Wow, how do they all fit in the picture?
  • Meghan Trainor's song All About That Bass is a tribute to curvy girls, and although the girls featured in the video are definitely chunkier than most people you see in music videos, by real-world standards they are of average size.
  • When she first gained popularity as a teen singer, LeAnn Rimes was criticized for her weight, even being noted in the Barenaked Ladies lyric "Big like Leann Rimes," from "One Week." She was a healthy weight and grew into a slim adult, even appearing scary-skinny at times.
  • Britney Spears at her infamous performance at the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards. While Spears was definitely thicker than usual, people were criticizing her like she was extremely overweight with Spears herself saying she was a "fat pig." In reality she merely looked like an average, healthy person with a very slight bit of a belly.
  • John Lennon had severe body image issues after The Beatles became world-famous, even saying that he wrote "Help!" because he was "fat and depressed". While John was certainly the heaviest he'd ever been in 1965, he wasn't fat by any stretch, merely healthily robust by most people's standards. Not long after that, he started taking hard drugs and lost a dramatic amount of weight in only three years - by the time the Beatles separated, he'd taken on the hawkish, angular look he's most famous for. He then proceeded to lose even more weight over the course of the 1970s, not helped by his obsessively following any number of fad diets. Pictures of him in the last years of his life look like a man much older than one pushing 40.
  • Eminem:
    • In "No Apologies", Eminem makes a crack about how he's "got jelly, like Beyoncé's pot belly" which he backmasked due to not wanting beef with her then boyfriend (later husband). This was a reference to an uptick of stories in celebrity rags about how Beyoncé was fat in 2002 — well forgotten by the time "No Apologies" was released (in 2006). Beyoncé, in 2002, looked... well, like Beyoncé, healthy and extremely beautiful.
    • Eminem's video for "We Made You" features 'Fat Jessica Simpson' (played by Trisha Paytas), who cavorts in Daisy Dukes with Slim Shady and guzzles down burgers. This had been intended to satirise a then-current tabloid teardown about Jessica Simpson's weight. Eminem admitted, both on set and in interviews, that he felt awful about doing it because Jessica Simpson wasn't fat and he was contributing to her media bullying; he was also protective of Trisha, who was pudgier but not by much, and praised their body and beauty to try to mitigate the fat-shaming. His discomfort with this note  was likely a factor in his Creator Backlash against the novelty celeb-bashing songs that had once been his signature. He has never done a song or video exactly in this style since.
  • 50 Cent was widely mocked on social media for his appearance at the 2022 Super Bowl Half Time show, in which he performed "In Da Club" while hanging upside down like in the video. While being upside down had the effect of making him look a bit puffed up and he wasn't as cut as he'd been in 2003, Fif was in fact in excellent physical shape, as demonstrated by the fact he'd been able to do upside down crunches (and effortlessly lift himself onto the ceiling bars in the first place). He later came on social media to laugh at the comments he was recieving with the remark, "Fat shaming only applies when your ashamed of your fat. LOL.".

    Pro Wrestling 
  • LuFisto (then known as Lucy Fer) was ridiculed for being too small and too fat when she started out as a wrestler, this being the same Lucy Furr who had a little fat that slightly obscured a six pack.
  • Defied by executive veto. While he was booking for WCW, Vince Russo frequently booked angles about female wrestlers such as Madusa being ugly or otherwise undesirable. Russo was blocked by none other than Ted Turner himself however when he wanted to run angle centered around how fat WCW's women wrestlers were.
  • In 2002, shortly after her Face–Heel Turn in WWE, Molly Holly's gimmick became that she was overly sensitive about her huge ass. Which wasn't really huge; she had bigger curves than most of the Divas, certainly, but she wasn't large in any sense of the term. This didn't stop Trish Stratus from making fun of her, though - and she was supposed to be the face. It was mostly played for comedy, considering Molly was a heel at the time. In her shoot interview, she talked about how depressed she got during this time period. She claims she initially okayed the idea, finding the jokes Actually Pretty Funny - but they got old really fast. Making it more uncomfortable was the 2019 revelation that she'd been battling an eating disorder while she was on the road (an addiction to processed sugar to be specific).
  • A similar angle started in 2009 and carried over into 2010, this time featuring Mickie James (a face) in the role of the Hollywood Pudgy gal while Michelle McCool and Layla El (heels) ripped on her for being fat, even going so far as to give her the nickname "Piggie James". Mickie would give a speech about how all women were beautiful - which also mercifully avoided the back-handed thin shaming that usually comes with such a thing.
  • Candice Michelle was attacked by Diva Dirt for being "out of shape" and "tubby" when she was in the middle of rehabbing several injuries, and therefore immobile. This is Candice's "Fat Picture". Thud.
  • Although she later stated it wasn't the case, a big rumor on the internet was that WWE Diva Cherry (Kara Drew) was fired for being overweight.
  • In a bit of a twist, some fans tend to rag on male wrestlers if they gain a bit of softness around the middle. On the one hand, when your ring attire consists of tights, trunks, spandex or a bathing suit, any bit of chubbiness will be more noticeable can turn to Fan Disservice. On the other hand, it sure as heck can't help wrestling's ongoing steroid problem. Matt Hardy has become a particular target of this after he gained weight following a burst appendix that wrecked his digestive system. It didn't help his cause though when in a YouTube video he was seen eating steak fries and still has a large belly two years after his injury. This is Matt Hardy recently. Either some of the barbs about him are supposed to be ironic, calling him fat has become some kind of bizarre affectionate nickname like Teddy Long's "Peanuthead", or the idea of this trope being an Always Female double standard is officially dead.
  • In an odd aversion, Samoa Joe who actually is big, doesn't get any crap from people (Well Scott "HE'S FAT!!!" Steiner called him fat, but he's legitimately nuts), probably because he's Acrofatic and a hell of a wrestler. Samoan wrestlers have historically been quite "stout"; then again, most of them come from one family. Joe is an exception, but the cruiserweight-shaped Usos aren't, however.
  • Vickie Guerrero had a lot of fat jokes hurled at her after she gained weight. Although she lost the weight in 2010, there would still be the occasional segment where she was mocked for it - particularly by faces who were supposed to be role models. WWE seemed to realise their mistake and dropped the jokes - portraying Vickie as a cougar instead and even having her compete in a swimsuit battle royal (that was not portrayed as Fan Disservice either).
  • Maria Kanellis has said that when she was first in WWE, she was told she was too fat. Back in the Diva Era, the women were frequently told to lose weight. Rosa Mendes likewise - who has never been anything resembling fat - was told to.
  • Nikki Bella who has never been anything remotely resembling overweight, was highly offended on episode of Total Divas when someone referred to her as "the fat twin" on Instagram. It got even worse when Brie noted how much of a Big Eater her sister was and got paranoid about an upcoming photoshoot. She attempted to get her sister to do a ridiculous magazine cleanse - having nothing but juice for 20 days - and calling her fat thinking "tough love" would motivate her sister. Instead she gave a Moment of Awesome speech on how the two of them both look fine and don't need to put their bodies through so much hell for the sake of 3 or 4 pounds.
  • In 2012, Irish Airborne Dave and Jake Crist teamed up with Sami Callihan to form Ohio Is For Killers in CZW. While the CZW fans loved this and began to chant "OI4K" whenever they showed up, some other fans of the Crists weren't too happy and started calling them "Oink" based on the perception they had gotten fatter and degenerated into being skewered for a living. Technically true but grossly overstated, as they still didn't look fat.
  • While not to the degree of Matt Hardy, Chris Hero was the subject of many fat jokes after he got released from WWE, a persistent rumor being that he was at first taken off NXT shows due to a lack of devotion to physical conditioning. In Dragon Gate USA, Trent Baretta insisted Chris Hero would have been headlining WWE with Kings Of Wrestling partner Claudio Castagnoli if he had only eaten a salad. Well, he has a page here. You take a look at Hero why don'tchu? Even if he was taken off of NXT for weight issues, he looked exactly the same as he always did when they let him back on and at the time of his release, which was unrelated. No really, this is Chris Hero "fat". Ironically, there was much less noise when he actually did get pudgy in 2015, possibly because it still didn't stop him wrestling three hours at SMASH to raise money for ALS treatment.
  • Speaking of Dragon Gate, Punch Tominaga's softer physique is often the subject of derision from his enemies, as the company deals almost exclusively in handsome, lean fitness fanatics. Mondai Ryu was heavier for some time, and much was made of that, too. Jimmy Kanda's weight and size are never pointed out, though, despite his being the least aesthetically built guy on the roster.
  • Rich Swann and Jessicka Havok threw these weight and diet jokes at each other in an attempt to gain an edge and Allysin Kay called Havok fat when declaring she had no more use for her. For the record, all three looked perfectly fine...though years after the fact Havok would go through what fans called a "Chris Hero phase".
  • During the Pure Wrestling Association Carrot Cup, London and Kendrick were announced as having a total combined weight of 3000 lbs.
  • Another male example is Sting. Six-foot-three and in better shape than most men half his age gained some happy weight before coming to TNA, leading for many smarks online calling him fat. He lost the weight in fall 2006, gained it back later, lost it again, gained it back...
  • Dana Brooke is yet another recipient from this from Smart Mark fans as her physique has softened up since her debut. Breaking Ground depicts her dealing with an injury that kept her out of the ring for a while.
  • The Undertaker developed a bit of a gut during his "Bikertaker" stint, causing fans to mock him for being out-of-shape (the fact that this is the Audience-Alienating Era of Taker's career and that his workrate declined during this period doesn't help much). He lost the extra weight around the same time that he returned to his Deadman persona.
  • Nia Jax - who had a career as a plus sized model before WWE - has constantly had to deal with fans questioning her weight. From the second she debuted, fans were even speculating as to whether WWE had made her gain weight themselves. Breaking Ground shows that she's just as agile as her smaller colleagues. Jax's size became a storyline with Mickie James, ironically, being one of the people bullying her.
  • Dave Meltzer came under controversy in 2018 for making comments about Peyton Royce being more attractive in her NXT days because "she was a lot lighter then". Unusually for instances like this, numerous women in the company came to her defence. Peyton herself had to say:
    "What would you have me do, Dave? Starve myself? This is how nightmares for young women start."
  • Kazza was previously overweight in her teen years, before getting into shape during her twenties. Despite this she's been constantly attacked over her weight, even when it's clear her figure does not affect her wrestling ability at all.
  • Katey Harvey likewise was once dropped from a promotion for refusing to wrestle in less clothing - because she was concerned about her physique after several knee injuries. She was also very annoyed when a fan publicly said she wasn't "in the best shape" compared to some of the other women in Ireland. She also took the time to slam a reviewer of her return to the ring in 2019 for commenting on her appearance - when the reason she'd been out of action was a career-threatening injury that left her unable to use her arms for months! Even before she started weight lifting and developing a more muscular physique (which was preceded by years of her stressing about being thin enough), she received a "you look pregnant" chant from a crowd. She later said in an interview that at a WWE tryout, she was told that by wrestling standards, she was overweight and should either lose weight to fit the 'Diva Look' or gain more to become a Wrestling Monster.
  • Layla ended up gaining a little bit of weight when she was rehabbing her torn ACL in 2011, as she had previously been working out twice a day to maintain her figure. People apparently asked if she was having health problems, although most fans barely noticed.

    Theatre 
  • Averted in the case of Magda in Tanz Der Vampire, who's intended to be the village sex symbol, but is also meant to look appealingly zaftig, to the point where petite, thin actresses have to draw on fake cleavage and pad out their chests and hips in costume and full-figured actress looks like a better fit for the character than a thin one.
  • Playwright Neil LaBute consciously averts this in his play Fat Pig. The title refers to the main character, a heavyset woman; the script expressly calls for her to be played by someone genuinely large, as opposed to Hollywood Pudgy.
  • There have been productions of Hairspray that, bizarrely, do this with main character Tracy Turnblad. Tracy is supposed to be a rare female example of Big Fun—she's short and heavyset, but still loves to dance and live life to the fullest. As such, the actress who plays Tracy is supposed to fit that type, and several, including the original Broadway star Marissa Jaret Winkour and the 2007 film version's star Nikki Blonsky—do so. However, some companies will instead choose to put a thin girl in a fat suit as opposed to, you know, doing what the script says; or at worst, Not even doing the fat suit method (As in cast a non-fat/chubby girl for Tracy). This is somewhat inevitable in some High School/local theater productions of the musical.
  • In Heathers Veronica is told by Heather Duke that she “could lose a few pounds”. Barret Wilbert Weed, however, is very thin. This is likely meant to demonstrate the shallowness of the Heathers or reference Heather Duke's own body image issues as a bulimic.
  • Westeros: An American Musical: Robert, whose significant weight gain is mentioned as early as the opening song, is played by an actor with a fairly average body type.

    Video Games 
  • Neptunia: Neptune gets called out on her weight and eating habits a few times, but you can't really tell due to her oversized jacket and the only time we can see her tummy besides her requisite pretty Super Mode is when she wears swimsuits, portraying her with a realistic build. Presumably, being an goddess gives her a little leeway in terms of metabolism.
  • The Sims:
    • The Sims 2 provides 2 body type options in the Create-A-Sim tool. The "fat" body type is barely any different from the "slim" figure.
    • For some undecipherable reason, The Sims 3 allows males to get MUCH fatter (at least much more realistically so) than females, who are adamantly maintained into at least a rubenesque figure.
  • Filia from Skullgirls is 5'4, and weighs 142 pounds, and is 16 years old, which is fairly heavy for a girl her age, and is about 0.6 BMI from being considered medically overweight. This is Filia, by the way... the parasitic monster on her head might have something to do with that, though.
  • In Tales of Hearts, Innes Lorenz is subject to repeated jabs about how squishy her belly and butt are. This is Innes.
  • Many players of World of Warcraft consider human and orc females to be on the heavy side, and tauren and dwarf females are apparently disgustingly fat. Granted, draenei and both night and blood elves have slimmer waists than the aforementioned races, but seriously now.
    • Since Wrath of the Lich King went live, and some time before, female humans and female dwarves have gained a decent number of defenders lashing back at the people who insist that any model thicker than draenei and the elves are oxen. Female orcs and tauren do have some defenders but they're notably fewer, the fact that female orcs are all muscle with maybe .1% body fat being gleefully pointed out at every opportunity.
    • The Dwarf example is odd in that it's frequently referenced in-game that the Dwarven standard of beauty is for stout women, and compared to the men the model is very skinny.
    • Parodied by the Pandarens. One of the female jokes mention they could stand to gain a few pounds, and one of the male jokes is a condolence since you look like you've lost weight; "That's terrible! Have a dumpling."
  • In Dungeons & Dragons Online, female elves and drow are quite skinny. Female humans are noticeably heavier, and while still by any reasonable standards quite fit, the fact that you spend most of your playing time looking at your character from behind does make them seem relatively pudgy. Female dwarves are even wider and shorter to boot.
  • Final Fantasy X-2 decided that Wakka had been gaining weight since the last game, but his in-game model had not been changed in any way. Due to the lack of any visible change, the jabs at his growing belly come off as this trope. note 
  • Players of Tactics Ogre usually would make jokes on how Sisteena Foriner is a fat amazon, due to how her sprite is drawn (which had her wear rather loose long clothes). She has a slimmer builds in official arts (while still wearing her long clothes).
  • In Portal 2, GLaDOS repeatedly mocks Chell's weight, and Wheatley calls her 'healthy' in a way that's obviously a euphemism for calling her fat. Lampshaded at one point when GLaDOS calls Wheatley out on calling Chell 'Fatty-Fatty-No-Parents' by saying "Just look at her, you moron. She's not fat." GLaDOS also observes in the co-op mode that for some reason, humans frown on weight variance, and so, if you want to upset a human, you can try telling them that their weight has varied positively or negatively. In an interesting twist on this trope, the game designers said that they actually made Chell's figure slightly more rounded, as if she had put on a few pounds since the previous game.
  • Your daughter in Princess Maker 2 can get too fat for certain sets of clothes (the basic set will always fit, but fancier ones won't). However, the difference between her "fat picture" and "skinny picture" is about two pixels in width.
  • Chrono Cross has some bizarre character descriptions in regards to weight. Janice, who is 5 foot 7 inches and 104 lbs. is described as having "plumpish" body build. Her character model is in no way noticeably pudgier than those the game deems "slender". Speaking of which, eight pounds is apparently enough for that difference. On the other end of this skewed spectrum we have Macha, a rotund housekeeper. She is 5 foot 6 inches and 150 lbs. which is about the same height-to-weight ratio as Christina Hendricks, but Macha's character model has wider waist than chest. If you use the Japanese standard for determining "underweight" (a BMI of under 18.5), a third of the human cast are underweight, including nearly two-thirds of the female cast, but this has no correlation to their listed body type. (Trying to determine proper weight ratios for the non-human cast is probably an exercise in futility.)
  • EarthBound (1994): Ness is considered "chubby", "chubs", or called other names poking fun of his weight by several characters, such as being called "fat boy" by a cop, although Ness doesn't look noticeably chubbier than any of the other kids in the series. As a matter of fact, due to the art style, everyone looks the same, albeit somewhat chubby. Though, Ness does happen to know a certain fat jerk named Porky Mitch.
  • SNK vs. Capcom: SVC Chaos:
    • In Kim's pre-fight intro with Dan, he notices Dan has a beer gut and offers to help him lose some weight. Dan's actual in-game sprite is just as muscular and athletic as those of the other Shotoclone characters, and shows no signs of being overweight.
    • Likewise, Dhalism makes a comment to Mai about losing some of her unwanted fat, and implies that she lies to herself about her true weight. Like the above instance, Mai appears no heavier than any of the other female fighters in the game. In fact, she's usually considered one of the most attractive female characters in the history of fighting games.
  • Super Mario Bros.: Not an in-game example, but Mario will often be depicted as either "portly" or "chubby", although his current design has shown that he's slimmed down considerately over the years. If Super Mario Odyssey or Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 is anything to go by, when shirtless, he lacks a noticeable gut, he just appears round by design. While he was visibly chubbier in some of the older games, older artworks and in the cartoons (as he was originally designed to be a plump shape by Shigeru Miyamoto to make him appear better on-screen with the 80's hardware) in the newer games and renders, he seems to have a decent physical appearance of average weight and size and if anything, is only slightly pudgy at best rather than overweight. Now Wario, on the other hand...
    • In Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle The Phantom of Bwahpera, a boss who sings a degrading opera about Mario, mentions Mario's weight by stating how is Mario able to "slither down pipes, despite his plumb-shaped body type". Although Mario's not even that fat to begin with, especially considering the Phantom's own corpulent appearance.
    • Heck, compared to someone like Waluigi, who is horrifyingly slender (and probably the skinniest humanoid male character in the entire cast), even Luigi would look chubby standing next to him.
    • Speaking of Luigi, it would more of an inversion; in the games he's often considered "skinny" by many characters although he looks to be about the same weight as Mario, he's just taller.
    • Princess Daisy of Sarasaland is sometimes considered "fat" or "chubby" among the fandom, especially in comparison to Peach or Rosalina, where she'll be the "chubby girl" of the group (most fanart usually depicts her this way), although she really isn't and looks to be in good shape. Because she is shorter in stature and has a rounder face than the other two princesses, who are taller and have a more oval-shaped face, Daisy probably looks more thicker compared to them, but she certainly isn't fat as some people make her out to be. Some go as far as to say she has a noticeable potbelly, although she really doesn't. If anything, she's just curvy and has slightly bigger hips.
    • Rosalina herself gets this by the fandom, due to being in the heavyweight class in Mario Kart (although the weight class has nothing to do with body weight at all). Even considering her weight, her being heavy has to mainly do with her being a tall space amazon goddess.
    • In many of the RPGs, characters will tease Bowser for being "tubby" or "overgrown" and while Bowser is large in size, he isn't particularly fat.
  • Lollipop Chainsaw: Juliet regularly complains about her "Huge Fat Butt". Even when her boyfriend compliments her about her (extremely fit) butt, she thinks he's just trying to make her feel better.
  • Star Wars: The Old Republic offers players four bodytypes to choose from: 1: very thin, 2: slim, 3: tall and muscular, and 4: fat. For the males, body type #4 is noticeably bigger than the others, but the female model appears barely plus-sized at first glance (and even then only in relation to the other body types), and a closer look reveals that it's just the boobs and butt that are bigger and the face is slightly rounder - the waist is still quite slim. Even the male model, while having a gut and rounded face, is more huge in general than fat; without a shirt he's so heavily muscled he looks like he could break the "muscular" model in half.
  • In Sonic Generations, when Knuckles is rescued by Classic Sonic, he asks if he has gained weight, only for Sonic to look at his stomach and sadly rub it.
    • Classic Sonic is considered chubby by design, although he is only designed a round shape because he's based off of classic cartoon characters. Real hedgehogs are also round. By Knuckle's logic, that would make classic Mickey Mouse fat too because he has a more pear-shaped body compared to modern Mickey.
  • Michael in Grand Theft Auto V is often called fat, although we can see during his shirtless scenes that he's doing very well for a middle-aged man who has, allegedly, spent most of his time watching television and lounging around. But remember that he lives in the verse's version of Hollywood (and Trevor was just being an asshole), which would explain it.
  • One of Carmen's quest of Rune Factory 3 include a (strangely personal) questionnaire. She reacts most positively if one of your answers is that you prefer chubby women. For context, here's a picture of her in her swim suit.
  • Misha from Katawa Shoujo appears to be somewhat pudgy and a Big Eater, but has been turned by the fandom into an all-devouring spherical landwhale.
  • Elli from Harvest Moon 64 has a complex about her weight and is supposedly meant to be chubbier than other characters but looks the same weight as the other bachelorettes. The Alternate Universe Harvest Moon: Back to Nature changed her from a baker to a nurse and did away with any references to her weight without changing her design at all.
  • In The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt one quest has Geralt directed towards the maidservant of a noblewoman who goes on to describe her as 'portly' even though her character model is just as slim and attractive as almost every other woman in the game.
  • Red Dead Redemption 2 gives players the option to make Arthur "fat", although fat Arthur doesn't even look overweight all that much; if anything, it makes him look even more muscular and imposing. He is also still undeniably a Hunk.
  • Thanks to being a glutton for dango as well as being prevented from hunting monsters due to a leg injury, High Rank Hunter Ayame from Monster Hunter: Rise complains about gaining weight and draws attention to how tight her pants are getting. But since she comes from the same body template as other female hunters, she looks slim and athletic as opposed to somewhat fat and out of shape.
  • In Team Fortress 2, all of the classes insult the Heavy as fat in their domination taunts, the Spy even calling him "morbidly obese". Heavy does have a bit of overhanging gut but is otherwise a Top-Heavy Guy with a hugely muscular torso and Stout Strength to spare. The Engineer and the Pyro are both considerably chubbier, especially for their smaller size (and Engineer even has cosmetics to give him fatty rolls and a beer gut), but oddly nobody insults their weight.
  • Shantae and the Pirate's Curse: Sky is twice mocked for being fat, once by her own mother and once by Risky and considering how she claps back at her, seems to believe it as well. Sky has the exact same figure as Shantae, which is a rather thin and attractive body type.

    Visual Novels 
  • The title character of Melody tells the protagonist early in the story that she likes to watch her weight. Lampshaded by the protagonist, who correctly points out that Melody is not remotely overweight.

    Web Animation 
  • Played for Laughs in RWBY Chibi. One segment had Yang realize she looked a little fat (despite looking normal) and perform a strenuous exercise routine. She seems proud of being fit until she sees Nora pack away an entire cake and burp it all away, which pisses her off. Another segment had Ren comment on how Jaune needed to lose weight. The problem in both cases is that neither Yang nor Jaune look any fatter than their normal shape, or any different than the other character models.

    Webcomics 
  • Spinnerette gives us the villain Greta Gravity, who actually is quite overweight for her height... except all that weight is in her derriere and ample bust. Possibly justified by one strip which implies that she uses her gravity powers as shapewear.
  • Davan is often referred to as at least pudgy by himself and others rather often when as drawn he looks about average.
  • Questionable Content's Marigold. The author was harshly criticized for its use and became so wracked with guilt that he stabbed his own (non-drawing) hand. Faye occasionally laments her weight, though just as often flaunts her curves. Marigold, on the other hand, suffers from self-image issues of all types. In both cases the body types are portrayed as the line between average and slightly pudgy, and is never considered unattractive. Case in point.
    • One of the stranger examples to object to, as Marigold's lifestyle is clearly unhealthy and, for her level of activity (does nothing but play video games, does not exercise, eats mostly fats and starches) she very clearly is actually overweight where Faye, who is drawn with the same body type but shown to be fairly athletic and active, is not.
  • In Homestuck, Caliborn constantly insults Jane by mocking her weight. Jane is usually depicted as a Noodle Person like most of the characters, and was drawn by a contributing artist with only a modest pear-shape figure, so it's safe to say this trope is used just to show how much of a spiteful douchebag Caliborn is.
  • Sydney, in Grrl Power is a 'normal' person (with Artifact of Power), working alongside a team mostly made up of superhero-types, in a universe where being a superhuman automatically grants the Most Common Superpower to women and makes men look like bodybuilders. She complains "I never knew it was possible to feel fat and skinny at the same time."note 

    Web Original 
  • Gaia Online made fat jokes about... Sasha, whose present shop image drew fire from the fans for being implausibly thin, and whose old shop image wore a skimpy bikini top and low-hung wrap skirt. Subverted and justified when a 4koma revealed that she had been morbidly obese in high school, and the fat jokes are lingering evidence of her Old Shame.
  • Nobody Here: "Fat" has Jogchem question if he's getting thinner, or just used to being fat. In the accompanying animation, he doesn't look particularly overweight.
  • The "dadbod" craze that started sweeping the internet in late 2014, taken to ridiculous levels where men who aren't remotely overweight are said to have a dadbod simply because they lack a six pack and pecs.

    Web Videos 
  • Twig on Fallout: Nuka Break zigzags this. In real life he would be considered mildly overweight. In his old Vault, where all the inhabitants are morbidly obese, he was considered scrawny, thus his nickname. In the Wasteland he's considered seriously fat, which due to his upbringing in the Vault he considers a compliment.
  • Humorously deconstructed in a CollegeHumor video, which features a college-age woman complaining about her size as Hollywood Pudgy characters tend to do ("Look at these love handles! I'm a muffin top!") while her friend reassures her that she's not fat at all. The twist is that the two actresses are notably plus-sized and attractive women, which creates an interesting clash of visuals and words.

    Western Animation 
  • Adventure Time: Fionna, Finn's gender-swapped counterpart. She was designed to be "chubby cute" according to her designer, Natasha Allegri, and certainly appears to be thicker in the concept art, but she looks a lot slimmer in the show. In concept sketches by Natasha Allegri and Rebecca Sugar, she looks genuinely plump, but she looks very average in the show.
    • Also fits with Finn and Flame Princess.
  • Bojack Horseman:
    • BoJack has a beer belly and gets flak from both others and his own brain for his fatness, but is actually in okay shape considering he's a middle-aged alcoholic who struggles with even light exercise.
    • Hollyhock's got a bit of a girth, but considering her type of body, it's barely noticeable. Doesn't stop her from becoming self-conscious about it among all the skinny Hollywoo girls. Nor did it stop Beatrice from secretly slipping her some weight-loss pills. By the end of the season the pills have resulted in her visibly losing weight and her clothes not fitting properly along with eventual amphetamine addiction.
    • Little Beatrice is said to be overweight by both her father and her bully, but due to Generic Cuteness and the fact that said father and said bully are established to have unreasonably high standards when it comes to feminine beauty anyway, she doesn't look like it.
  • Code Lyoko: In "Tip-Top Shape", Sissi is told by the nurse that she's 5 pounds overweight, but she's just as skinny as always. (The scale read 110.7 lb [50 kg]. If she was 5 pounds overweight she'd have to be 4'7" [137 cm], but she is a bit taller than Ulrich who is 5'1 [156 cm].) Lampshaded by Aelita.
  • In-Universe on Daria, when Sandi breaks her leg and, due to lying around all day, gains quite a bit of weight. She's by no means fat at first, but according to the Fashion Club's strict guidelines (which Sandi devised) she has to resign. She winds up gaining more weight (becoming legitimately pudgy) before Quinn helps her restore her usual appearance. Daria lampshades this at one point, asking Quinn if she's going to stop being friends with Sandi now that she "can't squeeze into a size 0."
  • In some episodes of Care Bears (the 80s Nelvana series), Cheer Bear was referred to as fat by the other care bears, in spite of being drawn to exactly the same shape as the rest of them.
  • Daddy Pig from Peppa Pig is often made fun of by his family for his weight. However, his body isn't any bigger than the other adult men in the show, which implies that this body shape is the average for his age.
  • Played for Laughs on South Park—when Cartman is sent to juvie, the boys conclude that Clyde is the next fattest character, even though he's basically the same size as everybody else. They spend the rest of the episode mocking him as though he was as fat as Cartman.
  • Toot on Drawn Together. She's a parody of Betty Boop and, while heavier than the other female characters, really isn't fat enough to justify the total Flanderization she would undergo. One episode even lampshades this by showing her complaining in the confessional, noting that "I'm only slightly overweight!"
  • Angel's Friends: In episode 4, Urie worries about her weight despite being drawn with the same skinny-build as her friends. Raf and Miki are understandable confused by this. However, Cabiria gladly makes fun of her.
  • Weirdly invoked by the laws of physics in The Critic. Jay does indeed carry more fat than is probably healthy for his height, and in-universe is often derided as though he were morbidly obese. Where it gets weird is when he's shown breaking the ice in a skating rink by stepping on it in the opening, or breaking through multiple floors of the building where he works. Despite being arguably overweight, he's also very short and can't possibly be much north of 200 lbs.
    Helicopter Pilot: I don't understand. This thing is supposed to be able to lift a tank.
  • Dolphin-Boy from Sealab 2021 is legitimately pudgy, more so than a kid his size probably should be, but everyone at Sealab treats him like he's morbidly obese and harass him over it.
  • Arthur has the episode "Arthur Weighs In" in which Arthur has gained enough weight that he now has to wear husky clothes, even though he is the same size as he's always been.
  • The Simpsons:
    • While clearly overweight, Homer Simpson is often treated like the fattest thing on the planet. At 6'0" and 239 lbs., he is obese, but not morbidly sonote  as he has even described himself.
      • A couple noteworthy examples come from the episode "Brush with Greatness," where the B-plot focuses on Homer's weight. At the start of the episode he weighs 260 lbs., which would put him just above the morbidly obese line. However, this is even taken to an extreme as Homer ends up clogging an enclosed tube in a water slide and a man says the clog is "too big to be human." Near the end of the episode, Homer reaches his 239 lb. weight, and it's then that Mr. Burns says Homer is "the fattest thing I've ever seen, and I've been on safari."
    • A very straight example is in the episode "Sleeping with the Enemy". The B-plot has some of the girls of Springfield Elementary start making fun of Lisa for having a big butt, making Lisa become anorexic at the age of eight. Her body type is nigh-identical to most of the other kids.
  • Velma on Scooby-Doo had been regularly implied as pudgy because of the bulky sweater she wears, but there have been instances where when she is in other attire (Scooby-Doo! Frankencreepy for example) she shows off a rather nice figure.
  • In Gravity Falls, when listing the members of their favorite boy band, Candy says that Deep Chris is "the fat one." Despite this, he has the same fit body type as the others (who, incidentally, are genetically identical clones engineered to the be perfect boy band). Even more oddly, another member is named "Chubby Z" despite not being the designated pudgy one.
  • Kaeloo: Kaeloo is roughly the same size as the other characters in the show, but is repeatedly mocked by other characters for being fat.

Top