---MANGA SPOILERS AHEAD---
This is an idea that I've had in my head for a while now. I should start by providing the Wikipedia definition of Dwarfism: Dwarfism occurs when an organism is short in stature from a medical condition that caused slow growth. This idea first came to me when we saw Big Mom's silhouette:
Something didn't appear quite right to me with her physical proportions. She looks almost like a midget here (I mean no offense by using this word) while obviously being far too large to actually be one. I dismissed this idea after we got a better view at her, as she simply appeared to be a very large, obese woman. Even so, her body appears abnormally larger than her comparatively stubbier limbs. There was still something bizzare about her proportions, but I still dismissed the idea. After all, many people in One Piece are just as large as Big Mom without being giants themselves.
However, recent events in the Manga have lead me to revisit this idea. In this theory, I will not only attempt to explain her bizzare stubby proportions, but her actions and motives in general.
Let's start with Mama herself. First off, we know that Big Mom has had a feud with the people of Elbaf for a very long time. At first I assumed this feud would've been caused by Lola refusing to marry Loki, but upon closer examination, Big Mom had had bad relations with the people of Elbaf long before Lola and Loki:
Why did Big Mom and the Giants have poor relations? Before I attempt to explain, let's keep going:
Big Mom aspirations are quite frankly werid, she wants to unite all of the world's races together. That seems like an extraordinarily admirable goal for a character that is supposed to be an antagonist. However, when I was revisiting this idea, I noticed something extremely peculiar about Mama's word choice in this panel here:
Notice her extremely specific word use of "At Eye Level.". But what's particularly strange here is that she doesn't just want to make a nation where everyone is equal, she wants to make a nation where everyone is Giant.
What's also VERY interesting about this panel is that while telling us her literal dream, Big Mom doesn't mention One Piece or becoming the Pirate King at all. This could tell us that while One Piece and the Pirate King title are important to her, it won't in fact give her life the fulfillment she is looking for. Keep this in mind for later.
Big Mom highly values equality, but even more so, she seems to highly value size. In fact, everything about Big Mom indicates that she desperately wants to actually become physically bigger. She is constantly eating despite being incredibly obese already. This appears to be out of more than just a simple hunger for food, as her occasional sicknesses cause her to go on eating rampages:
Interesting isn't it? Her brain is hardwired to actually make her go on eating rampages even though she is huge already. Even moreso than this, Big Mom is extremely devoted to the idea of turning her family into giants.
Not only did she send Capone and Pekoms on a rescue mission in order to keep her Giantification research going, but she also devoted her time and resources into having her men build Caesar a lab from scratch so that he could fulfill this promise to her.
There is something deeply psychological about Big Mom's fascination with becoming larger. She possesses a physical illness that leads her to stuff her face with food, she is insistent that Caesar turn her family into giants, and she wants to create a land where she takes every race in the world and actually makes them physically giant.
So we've established the idea that Big Mom seems to have a fascination with Giants/Giantism. Now the question is: Why? Before I answer that, I need to present an idea about Elbaf itself.
Not very much is known about the Kingdom of Elbaf at all, aside from the fact that they seem to be a prideful warrior race that highly values strength. What is interesting about the people of Elbaf, though, is that they seem to be a bit uncivilized. I had trouble finding the specific Manga panel with this information, so I'm just going to quote the One Piece Wiki here:
According to Jaguar D. Saul, not all giants are from Elbaf, and that he did not share the beliefs of the island's residents, to which he deemed "barbaric".
Barbaric. An interesting way to describe the beliefs of a prideful warrior race. There had to be some kind of explanation for such a statement other than the fact that the giants don't seem to be technologically advanced. It's highly possible that the giants of Elbaf don't only value strength, but size as well. This could lead Saul to dislike them for their rather uncivilized opinion of bigger=better. For the purpose of this theory, I will assume that the giants of Elbaf do in fact value size.
Okay so now to put all of these pieces together. I think it's possible that Big Mom was actually originally from Elbaf, but she was shunned because she had Dwarfism and looked abnormally small. Thus the other giants viewed her as inferior or possibly even as some sort of mistake/monster, like the people of Ohara viewed a young Robin. It's possible that Big Mom's own family even shunned her as well, judging by her word choice in the panel above ("My Dream is for all people and races around the world to be a family, and sit at the table at Eye Level"). This would cause Big Mom to have a childhood filled with pain.
Because of this, Big Mom either ran away or was simply exiled from the island. This caused her to have a distorted view of life, and she now believes that:
1. Greater size leads to a better life. Had she herself have been bigger, she would not have been exiled by her people and family. Therefore, she must become bigger in order to have the life that she has always wanted.
2. Since the only way to solve all of her problems is to enlarge herself, she must also enlarge her family (Gigantification) to spare them from pain as well.
3. She herself is inferior to the giants of Elbaf, and because they caused her so much pain by exiling/shaming her, she wants to create a nation of equality instead of one like the one she experienced.
4. In order to have true equality and "happiness," everyone under her protection must in fact be giant, since that is what Big Mom believes that it takes in order for one to be truly happy in life.
5. When Big Mom can one day look the people who shunned and exiled her at eye level, they will finally accept her, and truly give her life meaning and happiness. By making everyone giant, she will have given their lives fulfillment as well.
This could also explain why she wants to kill Lola. At first it appears she wants to kill Lola simply because Lola robbed her of a powerful ally, but the issue could be deeper than that. What's interesting about the whole LolaxLoki ordeal is that Big Mom was actually willing to attempt to fool the giants in order to gain their allegiance. Is this out of simple hunger for power? Or was Big Mom just that desperate to gain their approval? Moreover, the wedding being canceled actually worsened her relationship with the Giants of Elbaf:
This would make Lola a special kind of heinous to Big Mom. Not only did Lola rob her of an opportunity for the Giants to finally accept her, but she actually brought Big Mom even farther away from her goal of true happiness.
Moreover, losing the marriage to the giants made Big Mom so angry that she now hates Chiffon just out of sheer association to Lola:
Sure this can easily be explained as Chiffon reminding her of the one who cost Big Mom power and the One Piece, but remember, when telling us her actual dream, Big Mom doesn't mention power or the One Piece. This could easily be explained by Chiffon being a constant reminder of the person who robbed Big Mom of the true happiness she has always been looking for.
Lastly, Big Mom doesn't appear to be quite right in the head. She is not rational, and she seems to act quite childlike at times. I believe that being shunned and exiled as a child could've contributed to this. It's possible that she adopted a mentality like "No child could've suffered as much as I did when I was a child. Therefore, I am in fact still a child, and it is not possible for me to grow up until I have found the happiness that every child deserves" or something along those lines. This also matches the idea of the definition I posted above: Dwarfism is physical slow growth. But by partially believing that she is still a child, she would be experiencing Mental Dwarfism, or slow Mental growth as well.
Alright I think I've gone on enough for now, what do you guys think?