Was Taylor Swift wrong to use the word ‘fat’ in a video? That’s how I used to feel whenever I weighed myself | Arwa Mahdawi

Some very vocal people were outraged by the video for the new single Anti-Hero. But when you're dealing with eating disorders, sometimes there's no escaping the f-word

Want to watch Taylor Swift magically lose fat overnight? No, of course you don't - you're not a weirdo. But if you are just a little curious about what I am talking about, then have a look at Swift's music video for the single Anti-Hero from her new album, Midnights. There is a scene in it in which the musician steps on some scales and looks up sadly as her doppelganger shakes her head in disgust. This visual would be unremarkable were it not for the fact that it was hastily swapped in a week ago, just days after the video's initial release, to replace the controversial original. In the first version, Swift gets on the scales and, instead of numbers, she sees the word FAT pop up. This upset a lot of people who decreed that, by using the word fat", Swift was being fatphobic". Swift decided not to risk cancellation or prolong the controversy by explaining herself or defending her artistic choices; instead, she just quietly altered the video.

Perhaps you are confused by all the fuss over the word fat. You don't need a degree in Swiftian studies to glean that the singer, who has described the video for Anti-Hero as a depiction of her insecurities, was referencing her own body issues, not trying to offend people. While Swift has never explicitly said she has suffered from an eating disorder, she has been open about her experiences with disordered eating. In her 2020 Netflix documentary Miss Americana, she talks about how constant media scrutiny caused her to have an unhealthy relationship with her body. It's not good for me to see pictures of myself every day," she says in a voiceover during the film. There were times, she says, when the constant media commentary on her body would trigger her to just starve a little bit - just stop eating".

Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist