Top Quotes: “Things No One Will Tell Fat Girls” — Jess Baker

Introduction

“Girl, I’m Fat.

Here’s why I use the ‘f-word’ ALL THE TIME: the word ‘fat’ is not inherently bad. It’s an adjective. It’s a benign descriptor of size. ‘Fat’ means adipose tissue. Fat means ‘having a lot of adipose tissue.’ There are no other words that mean precisely those things in precisely those ways. Saying ‘I’m fat’ is (and should be) the same as saying my shoes are black, the clouds are fluffy, and Bob Saget is tall. It’s not good, it’s not bad, it just is. The only negativity that this word carries is that which has been socially constructed around it; our aversion is completely learned. It’s our association that is disparaging, and this is what we must change. We don’t need to stop using the word ‘fat,’ we need to stop the hatred that our world connects with the word. So I use it, because I’ve decided that it’s my word now. And the more I use it positively, the more stigma I smash.

Now, I don’t ever walk up to strangers and say ‘Hey Fatty!’ Because, we haven’t found a way to normalize it in the mainstream, there is a really good chance that the word is still offensive to them. But me calling myself fat? Ain’t no thang. I even find the word empowering. Someone tried to insult me by calling me ‘fat’? I just say, ‘Yep. And?’

I have a fat body, and I think it’s quite lovely.”

“We become too embarrassed to meet up with the friend we haven’t seen in years because we might have gained weight. We sabotage relationships by thinking we’re unworthy of physical affection. We hide our face when we have breakouts. We opt out of the dance class because we’re worried we’ll look ridiculous. We miss out on sex positions because we’re afraid we’ll crush our partner with our weight. We dread family holidays because someone might say something about how we look. We don’t approach potential friends or lovers because we assume they’ll immediately judge our appearance negatively. We try to shrink when walking in public spaces in order to take up as little room as possible. We build our lives around the belief that we’re undeserving of attention, love, and amazing opportunities, when in reality this couldn’t be further from the truth.

Our bodies are installation art that we curate publicly. Our bodies are the first message those around us receive. Our bodies are our physical bookmarks that hold space for us in the world.”

“I just read a really great article in Bitch magazine called ‘Pretty Unnecessary,’ where Lindsay King-Miller rightfully questions the focus on the importance of beauty within the body positive movement. She says, ‘While I’m in favor of encouraging women to feel confident and happy, I worry that today’s body positivity focuses too much on affirming beauty and not enough on deconstructing its necessity.’ A friend of hers published a Facebook post that said, ‘I’m not pretty and I’m fine with that.’ What of course followed was a barrage of comments from ‘misguided’ though well-meaning friends who insisted she was being ‘ridiculous’ and of course she was pretty. Lindsay describes her discomfort with and defensiveness about this type of forceful response: ‘Here was a woman moving away from an oppressive and harmful hierarchy, and with the best of intentions, her friends were trying to drag her back in.’”

“Globally, the statistic of women that would call themselves beautiful is 4%. Four.

Holy shit, y’all.

Now, the study uses the word ‘beautiful’ to mean ‘pretty,’ and, as we know, ‘pretty’ is a social construct. But we’re going to meet the world where it’s at and go with the terminology they use. The purpose behind this question is to ask who feels physically valid. Confident in their bodies. ‘Enough.’ With that in mind, 4% makes me incredibly sad.”

“Here’s the state of our world’s body image issues in five bullet points:

• 81% of ten-year-olds are afraid of being fat
• These ten-year-olds are more afraid of becoming fat than they are of cancer, war, or losing both of their parents
• In a survey of girls nine and ten years old, 40% have tried to lose weight
• 91% of women are unhappy with their bodies and resort to dieting
• And 5% of women naturally possess the body type often portrayed by Americans in the media”

“We can safely assume that 95% of women’s bodies will naturally refuse to become that which we see portrayed by the media as desirable, no matter what they do. Which leaves almost all ladies stuck in a cycle of trying and failing to become something they physically can’t.

What do we see happen to people’s lives because of those five stats above?

We develop low self-esteem. People have really terrible, horrible days…just because of their perception of their bodies.

As a result, we suffer employment losses. Those who have low self-esteem make considerably less money than their confident counterparts. They also take fewer risks, and I would imagine with that magnitude of insecurity they are far less successful in reaching their goals.

We put our lives on hold. How many of us have waited to do something until we’ve lost weight? I’ll buy jeans AFTER I lose ten pounds. I’ll do family photos AFTER I…I’ll start dating AFTER I…We painfully stunt our lives because we’ve decided that our bodies are simply not good enough to work with now. The progress that’s lost because of this? Tragic.

We establish poor relationship skills. When we dislike our bodies, we tend to feel unlovable and undeserving. Feeling this way can affect our relationships in a lot of ways, from not approaching those we’re interested in to staying in abusive relationships much longer than we should.

We can create or trigger mental illness. Extremely low self-esteem and self-hatred can often trigger larger mental issues, and perhaps even cause a mental disorder to develop that is significant enough to smother happiness and growth. Although many mental disorders (including but not limited to bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, anxiety, and depression) are the result of biological imbalances, we’re capable of escalating such imbalances and impeding our emotional and mental growth. Eating disorders included.

We commit suicide. And sadly, there’s case after case of this: people who would rather die than live in the body the world has told them is inferior.”

“I noticed how beautiful I was in all these old pictures — and I immediately connected this with how much thinner I used to be. I wasn’t skinny, but I wasn’t fat, and this shocked my nervous system in a way I can’t explain. I became hyperaware of how uncomfortable I felt sitting in my current body, and how I didn’t see that body reflected in any of the photos. I was instantly attacked by those cruel teachings of society that I’ve internalized my entire life. I wasn’t necessarily fat back then — maybe just bigger than some. So why did I remember always feeling like I was twice the size that I was? How was my body dysmorphia (exaggerated or imagined perception of one’s physical flaws) so extreme that I felt like I was an embarrassment to those around me? Why did I hate myself so much when I looked that great? How could I not see how beautiful I was back then? Maybe I’m even more of a failure now than I was then, and maybe I should lose weight to become like Old Me again. Maybe I would meet more people if I looked like Old Me. Maybe I would succeed more if I looked like Old Me. Maybe I would be happier if I looked like Old Me. Maybe Old Me was better.

And then I caught myself.

I realized that Old Me hated everything about herself. I can see the beauty so clearly now, but she had no idea. She loathed every part of her body and wished she could trade it in for anything else. Her self-esteem was nonexistent, though she pretended this wasn’t the case. Old Me wanted to die instead of live in that body, and I wish I could have hugged her and told her how exquisite she was.”

“We allow diet culture to treat us like we’re five-year-olds who cant make decisions about when or how much to eat.

We’ve learned to feel these things through a sophisticated system of rewards and punishments. Let’s just call it bs for short. And that’s really where my problem resides: that bs begets bs. Diet culture is bigger than any one individual diet or dieter; it pervades almost every facet of our lives. I urge you to try and imagine one single, solitary day without hearing someone talk about weight loss or calories or fucking gluten. I can’t. And I live in a feminist bubble in the middle of SF. That’s how you know something is a culture — when it’s unavoidable and you’ve stopped knowing or even caring about why there are rules, but you follow them anyway.”

“Dieting was many things to me: It was often difficult and soul draining, but it also made me feel good and, somehow, safe. I realize now dieting was my way of communicating to myself and others that I wanted to be ‘normal.’ Dieting was my way of communicating my understanding that my fat body was unacceptable and shameful. It was my way of communicating that I understood a woman’s role is to be small and totally obsessed with how little space and resources she could take up. Dieting represented a way I could create meaning in my life, but the problem is you can’t create meaning by obsessing about kale or calories or what the tag on your pants says.”

History Of The Ideal Body

“It’s said that because early humans had to move constantly for survival, it didn’t make sense to have a food ‘stash’ that would need to be guarded; the food they had on hand was only what they could carry. And because of all the travel, women were careful to have children only about every four years to ensure the youngest child was able to walk on their own with the group before another came along, limiting family size

The transition to farming was long and tenuous. It was fucking slow and messy process. Farming wasn’t discovered or invented; it evolved based on needs. Gradually, as farming was adopted more and more, the accumulation of food was possible, and with the accumulation of food came denser populations.

To put it simply: As humans had the opportunity to store food, they also had the opportunity to survive severe winters and other life-threatening situations. They could farm during the plentiful seasons and survive the harsh ones using the food they could now amass. And amass they did! As soon as food could be reserved and kept for future survival, the need to have more food for longer survival became paramount. And an acknowledgment of class distinction began: Those who had more would live longer, and were therefore more powerful. Those who had less were less powerful and had a lower chance of survival.

Because of the desire to climb to the top and the need to access resources to do so, some historians say that crops became of utmost importance, and more farmers were needed to generate more product. With this quest, women became the ‘farmer-making machines,’ and therefore coveted property. Women could now have as many children as they could feed, which allowed for large families of future farmers to develop.

As female bodies turned into property, virginity became a desirable trait (it was essentially a promise that the woman hadn’t ‘given’ any farmers to someone else), and it’s often said that this is how patriarchal rule was interwoven into the growing society. Women (property) were now at a distinct disadvantage, which is part of the reason we see the gender injustice that we do today. That loss of power and influence is why, in part, marketing and advertising specifically targets women and their role in society.”

“In the early to mid-1800s, the U.S. was in quite the predicament: Food was scarce, so people with larger bodies tended to be wealthier and had enough to eat. Because of that, they were thought to be healthier.

But that all changed very quickly.

In the late 1800s, advances in transportation made it easier to distribute food widely. With this came an influx of large groups of immigrant workers, many of whom had shorter, stockier bodies. The visibility of stockier bodies, combined with the food influx, meant that now most Americans were able to ‘fill out,’ and the gap between the large wealthy bodies and the smaller poor bodies began to close. The upper class soon sought a way to differentiate themselves and reclaim their social power over the lower classes, and they did this partially by idealizing thinness. Adding to this, people romanticized the frail bodies of several European artists at the time who had tuberculosis, and soon Americans were grabbing onto the NEW ideal: slenderness as a form of class distinction.

No longer was it best to be fat: Thin bodies became all the rage, a sign of prosperity and style.

Previously, the medical field had warned of a link between thinness and certain disorders, and cautioned women against losing too much weight. Now, society’s tune had changed: The fashionable figure was suddenly a slender one that seemed liberated and elite, and even though at first doctors didn’t endorse the obsession with thinness (in fact, they fought it), eventually they caved to societal pressure and the chance to make money by remedying patients. But disgust with fat bodies was created by the people, not doctors. People, and, well, the U.S. economy.

One former president of the American Academy of Medicine bemoaned this flighty shift in support of the skinny ideal. In a 1926 Saturday Evening Post he said, ‘Fashion has apparently the backing of grave physicians, of food reformers and physical trainers, and even of great insurance companies, all chanting in unison the new commandment of fashion: ‘Thou shalt be thin!’

There are still countries where the fat woman or an ‘atypical’ body is still the traditional ideal, but we are a country that obsesses about dieting and weight in a phenomenal way, and it’s directly because of our history.

Laura Fraser clarifies, ‘Thinness is, at its heart, a peculiarly American preoccupation. Europeans admire slenderness, but without our Puritanism, they have more relaxed and moderate attitudes about food, eating, and body size (the British are most like us in both being heavy and fixating on weight loss schemes).’”

The New Beauty Myth: Health

“As females (and people in general) gradually find new ways to fight oppression and gain freedom from old rules, the myth of the ‘beauty ideal’ keeps evolving to keep them distracted and entrenched in self-loathing. It’s important to note that, while the focal points of the beauty ideal often change to maintain maximum control, several prerequisites have always been mandatory since the politicization of this ploy: thinness, whiteness, youthfulness, and the ‘flawlessness’ that comes from visual alteration of photos. ALL of these are still relevant today. But in addition to this, we also see a ‘social reflex,’ or a new way to suppress women and their self-esteem whenever liberation is found. This has been a historical constant.

For example: when women decided to liberate themselves from the overly feminine look, magazines endorsed the ‘nude look’ so women could look ‘natural’ while still subscribing to the standard of pretty that they were trying to avoid. When women started to reclaim their reproductive rights, it’s no coincidence that the average model weight dropped to 23% below the average woman’s weight. But, as we silly woman are wont to do, we’ve continued to liberate ourselves in new ways, year after year. In response, there’s an always-evolving ‘beauty myth’ (or definition of ‘pretty’ and ‘desirable’) that introduces a new domination technique to compensate for each of our newfound powers.

What about today? Well, my generation has become somewhat obsessed with visual diversity and inclusion. Because of this we’re starting to see more ‘alternative’ bodies in the mainstream. Most notably, we’re now seeing plus-size women in some fashion spreads. Because we’re seeing some larger bodies in magazines and online, the standard of beauty is definitely shifting, but our new alteration of the beauty ideal is so insidious that most of us don’t even realize that it’s still keeping us preoccupied, insecure, and in a constant state of self-hatred. It’s exactly as Naomi Wolf said: The beauty myth uses appearance to direct behavior. It’s not about a woman’s appearance at all, but rather the tractability of the person who tries to attain perfection.

Our current obsession is with a figure called the ‘postmodern beauty.’ Our perfect body today is a combination of thin, but not scary super-thin; athletic, but only the kind that looks like you do yoga; strong but not too muscular; feminine; having a ‘thigh gap,’ but not proportional; sexy, with boobs, but dear god not like Pamela Anderson (have some class already); poreless, but naturally so; and with a fit body that we see everywhere. Our society places the most value on a body that, without speaking, screams: HEALTH, VIBRANT HEALTH AND WELLNESS IS WHAT I EMBODY.

I’m here to propose something that I believe too few of us realize: ‘Health’ is our new ‘beauty myth.’ Health, and, by extension, fitness and wellness.

Culturally, we tend to believe all diagnoses, opinions, and commentary from all medical ‘professionals.’ We don’t fuck with or question anything about health and medicine, including our infatuation with it. This deserves questioning.

In the last few decades, we, societally, have created some space to unpack the issues around body image. We’ve now had the conversation about how extreme eating disorders like anorexia aren’t healthy so many times that some countries have started banning ‘unnaturally thin’ bodies of a ‘skeleton’ nature from runways, movies, and fashion spreads. We claim to be offended when this type of body surfaces and have no hesitation judging those bodies against the same ruler we use for fat bodies. Today, everyone seems to say: ‘Fat is horrifying, but so is the extreme opposite. It’s important for EVERYONE TO BE HEALTHY!’ This is a perfect example of how health has become one of our main obsessions.”

“We’ve always had bodies that need maintenance, and we on a fundamental level want to take care of them! The difference between then and now is that our obsession with worth in relation to health is at an all-time high. Never before have we judged people’s value, morality, and meaningfulness by their medical charts and their ability to run marathons.

‘Healthy is the new skinny’ is EXACTLY the issue. Plus-size workout companies also push this concept. We have replaced Slimfast and melba toast with the paleo diet, CrossFit, and juicing. Now, don’t misunderstand. There isn’t anything wrong with ‘clean eating,’ strengthening exercises, or juicing. It’s our worshipping and utilization of them in order to become the ideal and ‘worthy’ body type (and the guilt that comes if we don’t) that is the issue.

It’s fascinating how we’ve been fooled into feeling like we’re reclaiming power by saying DON’T WORRY ABOUT YOUR SIZE, ONLY YOUR HEALTH! But really, what we’re doing is taking the exact same process of body oppression and giving it a new name.”

“Thanks to this new ‘beauty myth,’ far more people are unable to achieve not only the body that we say is acceptable, but also the lifestyle that we demand. It almost feels like we’re looking at the most extreme form of elitism yet.

There’s a recently named eating disorder called orthorexia nervosa aka ‘the health food eating disorder.’ When we call something a disorder, it’s because we’ve crossed a line and that ‘thing’ has started to affect our lives to the point where it’s tremendously harmful. Eating an organic farm-to-table salad every day doesn’t necessarily fall into disordered behaviors, but not being able to travel when you want to because you’re worried about how clean the food will be? That may be. Limiting the types of foods you consume because it makes you feel good may not match the description, but feeling SO guilty for your ‘transgressions’ when you don’t follow your healthy eating rules that you spend the entire day loathing your existence? Maybe it’s time to check in with yourself.

It’s not the individual actions, but rather a pattern of obsession and the inability to function that becomes concerning. And understandably, these extreme behaviors are easy to adopt when you fully believe that your value, worth, and right to exist relies on how ‘healthy’ you are.

Related to orthorexia is the fascinating term that professionals have started to use in conjunction with the trend of clean, raw, paleo, and health food movements: ‘righteous eating.’ This very clearly associates type of food with virtue, and even notes the religious tone now connected with what we consume. This is a perfect example of how we, as a society, have become devout members of the Wellness Church.

Hallejuah and praise the Kale.”

“Many women are concerned about their urges to engage in traditional rituals that are directly connected to our ‘beauty ideal. They often ask me: ‘But what about wearing lipstick? Is that bad?’

Here’s my personal opinion: We will always be influenced by the culture we grew up in. It’s inevitable, and I don’t think it’s totally a bad thing. What’s important is that we are conscious of this fact, cognizant of what that means, and aware that we have options outside of the norm. When we know these things, we are then able to make the very personal decision of what feels good to US.

Mentally pick up each rule of beauty standards that you’ve been taught and ask yourself: Does this bring me joy?

Lipstick? Yes. Dieting in pursuit of being skinny? No. It destroys my soul and will to live. Well, okay then. DISCARD. Dresses? Yes, so much joy. Tanning? No. Shaving my legs? Yes. Stilettos? No.”

“Black women have always found ways to live in our skin with a dignity the world has not afforded us. When Black women’s bodies are acknowledged, it’s usually to pathologize them. A Google search of ‘black women’ and ‘body image’ leads to scores of hits on the ‘obesity crisis’ in Black communities. When the word ‘Black’ is removed, the same search generates article upon article of white women embracing body positivity.

In Western culture, white womanhood is held up as the epitome of beauty and desire. Part of the machine of size discrimination is stripping white women of that status as punishment for fatness.”

Hate and Trolls

“Whatever we choose individually, we as a country have made ‘fixing our bodies’ our main obsession, and we let it consume our lives. This is the case for most of us, whether we choose to acknowledge it or not. We live to give our all to the quest toward impossible perfection (marketed as happiness).

So THEN, after all of this, when a fat chick who hasn’t done the work, who hasn’t ‘paid the price’ by trying to fix her body, who doesn’t have any interest in the gospel we so zealously believe in, stands up and says: I’M HAPPY…we freak the fuck out.

Because: That bitch just broke the rules. She just cut in front of us in line. She just unwittingly ripped us off. And she essentially made our lifetime of work totally meaningless.

I’ve been there, and I was pissed too.

The obvious problem with body currency is that thinness doesn’t necessarily equal happiness. Our thinness quest just equals money in the pockets of companies who sell us insecurity to make sure that we’re repeat customers. It’s a real shitty move on their part, and leaves anyone in the scam SOL, which then makes them angry without really knowing why. So they direct all their anger toward those who cheated the system and found the pot of gold (happiness) without doing any of the goddamn work.

Virgie Tovar recaps it ever so eloquently:

‘Fat’ is just the current catchall word for all the things that we as a culture are afraid of: women’s rights, people refusing to acquiesce to cultural pressures of conformity, fear of mortality. [People who hate fat people] see body love as a move toward people taking charge of their lives and choosing what they want to do, no matter what the culture says. This is really scary to a lot of people. The anger they express is actually toward themselves. A person who hates seeing a happy, liberated person wishes they had the strength to do that, but they are too entrenched or ‘bought in’ to the way things are right now to see it as a beautiful thing. So they see it and they hate it…People have invested a lot of time and a lot of resources into this game that says ‘thin wins.’ So when people see exceptions to that rule, they feel personally invalidated, personally stolen from, personally affronted.”

“Happy people don’t try to purposely hurt other people. People who love their bodies don’t try to purposely make other people hate their own.

Unfortunately, it’s no wonder we see hostility online. Why? Because so many in our country (and beyond!) spend their time tirelessly attempting to run toward an empty dream. Because body currency is a frustrating farce. Because all of those people have learned to hate their current bodies, and most have no idea that they can think differently. But you can. Body love isn’t just for fat people, it’s for every person. Everyone has the right to self-love.

After all, we’re all in this bs together. Throughout my ‘travels’ online and IRL, I have yet to meet a woman who doesn’t have something she’d like to change about her body, and men are in a similar boat except they’re absolutely forbidden to talk about it. We’ve all been fed the same lies, and while that doesn’t give anyone the right to purposely hurt others, it does give us that crucial starting point for understanding.”

“If there is a fat person on TV trying super hard to lose weight, crying about how hard life is, and talking about how they eat to cope, etc., then everyone is at home crying and cheering them on. Put that same person in a crop top while they smile, and the pitchforks come out.’

What is problematic is when we see fat characters, they fall into these negative stereotypes more often than not.

Thanks to these common and prevailing tropes, we are repulsed/humored/angered by fat people because our reality has no other frame of reference in which to sort them out. For the most part they’re not positively represented in media, so when we see fat people happy, in love, feeling worthy, achieving success, or engaging in any positive activity…our brains break. A FAT PERSON WHO ISN’T MISERABLE OR TRYING TO BECOME UN-FAT? We don’t know how to process this information. We feel confused…and this often leads to mockery, anger, and yes, hate.”

Men and Body Image

“Decades ago, researchers found only a small percentage of males felt uncomfortable with their bodies. Now that number is closer to 90%, half wishing they were bigger and half wishing they were smaller. All wish they had more muscle definition and are especially concerned with how their bodies look from the waist up.”

“Many women I speak with believe only gay men struggle with body image and eating disorders. Truth is, only about 15% of males with eating disorders are gay. That leaves millions of straight men with eating disorders and body image issues. Unfortunately, only a minuscule percentage of research focuses on males with eating disorders.”

Health and Weight

“Fat bodies aren’t inherently unhealthy, and skinny bodies aren’t inherently healthy. That’s a far cry from the FAT=BAD and SKINNY=GOOD paradigm we’ve been raised to think of as gospel. It also means we have to remove weight from the health equation and look at other signifiers of health. It also means a lot of mean people are sad that they can’t play the role of Doctor and Concerned Citizen while judging people’s state of health just by looking at them. God, I’m such a downer.

It’s actually a documented fact that being fat isn’t an indicator of being unhealthy, and being thin is no assurance of good health. But you’d never believe it based on diet, health, and weight-loss ads.

I’m NOT saying that everyone walking around the world is in perfect health no matter their body size (not that perfect health is a prerequisite for loving ourselves). What I AM saying is weight is NOT the health determinant that we so desperately want it to be. I’m saying that weight is not the number-one way to diagnose a person’s ‘wellness.’ I’m saying that judging a person’s worth based on her body is fucked up, especially when it comes to health.

Some people may tell you this is bs. Professionals who clinically study and disprove common health myths (like fat=bad) often talk about how they can present pages and pages of scientific studies that show our assumption of weight and health isn’t what we think it is, and this still doesn’t change people’s bias. We are SO invested in and bombarded by the idea that thin means fit and fat means death that for some, updating their mindset is seemingly impossible. And let’s be real: There is a lot of money being spent to ensure this continues.

Self-esteem isn’t a crime. Self-love isn’t something to be earned. Most importantly, loving your fat body as it is is not delusional and does not amount to self-deception. But believing that you are a less of a person just because greedy assholes said so? I propose that is, and does.

The majority of opinions about fat people and health still fall into two general camps that go something like: 1) Fat isn’t healthy, you Obeast! and 2) You may not need to be a size 2, just be healthy and fit.

Now let’s talk about the connection between our obsession with health and our belief that all doctors are reliable consultants when it comes to defining this important factor. Because the world believes the ‘obesity crisis’ is going to cause an apocalypse (and the only way to survive is by working out every day and eating shit tons of carrots), we need to question the mouthpieces that most people refuse to contest and ask ourselves: Where is this definition of health coming from, and is it accurate?

In short? It comes from people who are susceptible to bias as the rest of us, so not really.

In 2013, hundreds of doctors gathered at the annual AMA meeting to vote on organizational policies. One of the policies up for a vote was a particularly brief resolution: ‘That our AMA recognize obesity as a disease state with multiple pathophysiological aspects requiring a range of interventions to advance obesity treatment and prevention.’ Even though many AMA professionals already know what we do — fat bodies aren’t always unhealthy — it passed anyway. This was followed shortly thereafter (2015) with a new guideline for all medical staff: Treat the weight first.

Now, of course, like every industry that’s ever existed, monetary gain is always a key motive. There’s a lot of money to be made by ‘treating’ fat people in general, and there are compensations as a result of that 2013 decision: Now that obesity is officially a ‘disease,’ doctors can write the diagnosis on their chart and get compensated by insurance companies. Fact. Is unbiased health always the priority for medical professionals? No fucking way.

Now, is every fatty who shows up at the doctor going to have a clean bill of health and no weight-related issues? No. Will some people benefit from weight treatment? It totally depends on what they believe is best for them. Should we discredit everything that comes out of a doctor’s mouth? Not necessarily, but let’s at least ask questions. Is weight the only contributing factor to health issues? Nope. Does our medical system operate under this premise? Fuck no.

Now, when fat people do have medical issues (and use those tax dollars everyone likes to bitch and moan about), it’s important to think about why it can happen since we know it’s not always because of weight. There’s two particular issues that I feel are especially relevant that don’t draw a direct line to the scale.

1. Dieting

Tell me what the cause of this list of symptoms sounds like to you: ‘Increased all-cause mortality and…increased mortality from cardiovascular disease…Increased risk for myocardial infection, stroke, and diabetes, increased high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, increased systolic and diastolic blood pressure, and even suppressed immune function.

Sounds an awful lot like what we get all shamey about and pin onto fat bodies, doesn’t it? Well I’ll tell ya what: It’s not a list of risks associated with ‘obesity,’ but rather those that come from weight cycling, or yo-yo dieting.

There’s a shit ton of research that talks about this. One well-known and still relevant stat is that 95% of people who diet will gain their weight back within 3–5 years, and it’s very common that they gain more than was lost.

Those symptoms listed above? Pretty rotten side effects that severely impact a person’s health. I find it SO odd that we have decided to shame large bodies without knowing anything about their health, and then applaud anyone who diets when doing so can be physically harmful in a big way (and costs tax dollars, too). We treat fatness like it’s always a death sentence (it’s not) while encouraging every person to ‘better themselves’ by dieting, which in fact causes its own list of ailments. It’s backward as fuck, y’all.

If we were REALLY concerned about someone else’s health we wouldn’t emphatically encourage dieting like we do. Seeing that 75% of women have disordered eating, 116 million American adults are dieting at any time, and 80% of ten-year-olds have already started dieting, I’d say it’s time we stop congratulating others for harming their bodies in pursuit of fabricated perfection.

2. Aversion to Healthcare Because: Goddamn Discrimination

Weight-biased healthcare isn’t anything new. We like to assume that medical professionals we come into contact with are honest, nonpartisan, and well…professional. This is not always the case. There’s a boat load of documentation that explores how these professionals feel about fatties, and it’s not very awesome.

It’s been heavily documented that doctors share the same high level of intolerance and disgust of fat bodies as the general population. One study showed that over 50% of PCPs viewed fat patients as ‘awkward,’ ‘unattractive’ and ‘noncompliant.’ A third of these physicians described fat patients as ‘weak-willed,’ ‘sloppy,’ and ‘lazy.’ In another study, 45% of a sample of physicians agreed they have a negative reaction to fat individuals. It’s so common for fatties to go to doctor’s appointments with a particular non-weight-related issue and leave with a prescription that will ‘help’ them lose weight.

A recent government survey indicated that more than half of the ‘overweight’ adults being told they’re unhealthy by doctors are metabolically healthy, and nearly one in four ‘normal-weight,’ metabolically unhealthy adults are overlooked by doctors. So a majority of fat people are being told they’re not ok when they are, and ‘straight-size’ bodies are automatically assumed to be up to snuff and don’t receive proper medical attention. This simply goes to show that medical weight bias negatively affects us all.

All of this, understandably, can make fat people really hate going to the doctor. So much so that they often don’t. And I DON’T FUCKING BLAME THEM. Not only is so much of our worth attached to our ‘health’ and what the doctors say, there’s more than a 50% chance that the mouthpiece of that info is gonna be a dick. Fat people are surrounded by judgmental dicks all day long. We certainly don’t want to pay to see one.

As a general rule, avoiding doctor’s visits isn’t the best thing, and can, of course, lead to other (yep, costly) ailments.”

“The myth that our weight is our exclusive control is more damaging to women than almost any other social fallacy. Despite the fact that every conventional beauty standard that exists is defined fundamentally by its rarity and level of difficulty to achieve, the myth that humans are in control of their own body size propels women into the belief that their inability to attain such standards is their own fault, rather than the fault of the institutions that create them.”

“We have to acknowledge that many factors tie into body size and bodies are significantly impacted when there just isn’t enough, when living conditions and storage techniques affect what can be kept and what can’t, when government food programs give only so many options, when people are forced to choose foods that will last longest, when people have no access to good healthcare or any healthcare at all, and when people live in ‘food deserts.’ These are just a few of the factors that affect many people, their bodies, and their self-esteem.

It’s fucked up. And messy. And covered with so many layers of difficulty; meanwhile, society continues to pile more hardships onto people who find themselves in this situation by placing additional layers of guilt and shame around body image and health on top of everything else.”

“We all deserve the same amount of opportunity, respect, healthcare, education, life, love, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness regardless of our size, shade, shape, sex, gender, level of ability, and health records.

Regardless of your health and body size, know that you’re worthy of body love.

Yes, people love to ask if I’m glorifying obesity by promoting body love.

To that I say: It’s so so SO much bigger than that question, but if you’re really concerned about health, you’ll ignore the largely irrelevant factor of weight and focus on more significant issues like making sure people can afford nutritious food and have access to education that allows them to provide for their families. You might also focus on providing unbiased healthcare, and helping to destigmatize mental illness so people can find resources and feel supported, which then allows for physically healthy lives.

But REGARDLESS of health: I believe in glorifying all bodies. All of them. Because every single person in the entire world deserves to feel good about and love themselves. It’s that simple. Fat and thin, healthy and unhealthy.”

Re-Conditioning

“The more bodies I saw, the more stretch marks I saw, the more skin shades I saw, the wider range of physical abilities I saw…the less strange they started to become. In fact, after a while, they started to seem normal to me. And then they were normal to me. The ‘off-screen’ people around me suddenly seemed normal. I wasn’t shocked by bodies in real life anymore; my ‘accidental gawking’ was a thing of the past. My appreciation of all bodies grew, and I started to see the beauty in EVERYONE. And guess what? Eventually this turned into acceptance of myself. After a while I no longer cried when I looked in the mirror. I started to run my hands over my dips and curves without thinking I was a fuck-up. My body almost seemed…normal.

All from changing my Tumblr feed.

When we walk past magazine stands, go to the movies, and see ads on subway walls, our brains are subconsciously receiving the message that there’s no singular way to look that’s considered ‘normal.’ Obviously, most of us won’t be included in that definition. And whether we acknowledge it or not, that harmful message sits in our core and becomes internalized. Soon we are letting it dictate how we feel about ourselves. So let’s reclaim our power and offer ourselves images that cover the diversity that exists in the real world. We can do that so easily, it almost seems like a bummer not to.”

“Changing negative attitudes about body size might be as simple as changing what you see. When British women were shown photos of plus-size women in neutral gray leotards, they became more tolerant…‘Showing them thin bodies makes them like thin bodies, more, and showing them fat bodies makes them like fat bodies more,’ says the leader of the study.

Of course, because our conditioning runs as deep as Plato’s thoughts, in that same study there was still weight bias among the participants — they ‘still preferred thinner-than-average bodies, but their preferences did move up or down depending on what they saw.’ Meaning: We are retrainable. Our brains are re-conditionable. All is not lost, and nothing is fucked. If we actively feed ourselves visual proof of the diversity that exists in our world, we WILL learn to appreciate all bodies for what they are: A-OK. Awesome. Maybe even perfect.”

“As of the printing of this book, Southwest has a ‘Customer of Size’ policy. The idea behind it: You purchase two seats (to be sure they don’t overbook), and after your flight you request a refund for the extra one. That means more worry-free room at no extra charge! However, if fronting the money for two seats isn’t possible for you, there’s another way to make the system work for ya! For the super budget-friendly option, purchase one seat, and when you check in speak to the rep and ask if there is any extra room on the flight, and if so, request the ‘extra-fat-girl seat.’ Or call it the ‘Customer of Size seat’ — they’ll know what you mean. If there’s room on the flight, this extra seat will be free, and they’ll print out a special little boarding pass for you that says ‘Reserved.’ When you show your special Reserved pass to the gate people, say, ‘Someone told me I should come up here so this can be included in preboarding.’ When you preboard, you’ll have your pick of seats. Sit down and place your Reserved pass next to you and don’t let anyone sit on it.”

“You’re not a better person if you eat carrots, and you’re not a fuck-up if you eat pie. DOES ANYONE ELSE THINK IT’S WEIRD THAT WE ASSIGN MORAL IMPLICATIONS TO FOOD? Newsflash: Food isn’t damnable. Food isn’t virtuous. It’s just delicious (most of it anyway), so let’s keep the convo around it positive.

So what do you do if you personally stop demonizing and glorifying food, but your friends (or those strangers on the cafe patio) don’t? I counter it with a sigh and a ‘That’s so BORING.’ It works rather well. Some people find this rude and cruel and have suggested that perhaps I should try a softer (and more tactful) approach, and that’s TOTALLY an option (probably a better one), but if you really wanna shut that shit down, tell them it’s boring and there are so many other things you can talk about.

There are a LOT of other things to talk about besides someone’s appearance. And more often than not, appearance is a triggering subject that often leaves the subject of your commentary with an unhelpful internal dialogue that lasts much longer than the actual conversation. So, when in doubt? Talk about something else, especially with strangers.

But what if you WANT to compliment someone you know on how they look, and you know the person would appreciate it? That’s cool. Just be careful how you say it. Blogger Bevin nails it here: ‘I like to create an environment in my life that is about substance over small talk, where compliments are genuine and weight is value-neutral.’

Weight is one of the most loaded subjects, so if you want to compliment someone, I’d suggest complimenting something other than their body size. ‘That outfit is sexy as fuck,’ or ‘Your hair is amazing’ are compliments that don’t minimize or magnify body issues and commentary. You can even go for the non-appearance compliment and say, ‘God, you’re brilliant tonight’ or ‘You’re so radiantly YOU tonight…I absolutely love it.’”

“What if your friend brings up her weight or the fact that she’s lost it? Bevin says that if people talk about their weight in a positive manner, a good way to contribute would be to say, ‘ I think you look great at any weight, but I’m really glad you feel good in your body right now.’ If they’re negative, try, ‘I think you look great regardless of what size you are. And I mean it,’ and move on to another subject.’”

“‘The Underpants Rule’ just means that ‘everyone is the boss of their own underpants.’ Meaning, you’re a big kid wearing big-kid underpants, and thus you’re capable of living your own life according to your own rules. So ‘it’s not your job to tell other people what to do and it’s not their job to tell you what to do.’

If someone’s considering saying something that starts with

• People should
• Everyone ought to
• What people need to do
• We should all
• Nobody should
• You shouldn’t

then there’s a 99.9% chance they’re about to break The Underpants Rule.”

“In an incredibly adorable viral video a few years called ‘Jessica’s Daily Affirmation’ a four-year-old stands on top of a sink, looks in the mirror, power punches while dancing, and yells the greatest gratitude list I’ve ever heard, including things she was grateful for: her parents, her home, her hair, andt hat she was good at all the things.

Then, she hops off the sink and runs down the hallway singing. Yes, I’m thinking I need to make a list of affirmations like this to sing every day. Affirmations are a wonderful tool to give to both adults and children. I recommend trying to facilitate a conversation about (or making a list of) affirmations that might work for your little ones. Perhaps even role modeling by creating and doing your own would be beneficial for both of you.

Another thing parents can do with their kids is normalize other body shapes and appearances. Children most likely won’t be getting this from the outside world. If your child asks you a question like, ‘Why is that man wearing a wig?’ you have the chance to say something neutral — or, even better, positive — that directs your child toward accepting things that look ‘different’ from what they see on TV or what is presented as standard in their outside world.

Other tips and tricks from the magic body love kit: Stay away from calling ‘fat’ a feeling (‘I feel so fat!’) and always connecting skinny with healthy. You can teach your kids the correct definition of ‘healthy,’ which has nothing to do with body size! Compliment little girls on things other than saying, ‘You look so pretty!’ Look through magazines and have discussions about altered photos and talk about what Photoshop is and why it’s used. Teach kids that bodies come in all shapes and sizes.”

“I started traveling. Loving. Engaging. Giving. Receiving. Saying yes to the excellent and no to the less-than-average. I started to love myself unconditionally.

Sure, there were the usual ebbs and flows of dating, which for me usually looked like a couple of months of OMG SO MANY DATES THIS IS SO FUN followed by months of Jesusgod THERE IS NO ONE in this town I wanna stick it out with. But after a (long) while, a very sexy guy came into the picture, and we clicked so hard it hurt. It was all there. We had chemistry. We knew how to respect others. We were both capable of epic communication. We gave only genuine compliments. We had fun nights followed by serious nights followed by ridiculously silly nights. We discussed progressive and hot topics and would also entertain ourselves for hours acting out what we thought my cats were thinking. There was patience, balance, human compassion, and really fucking hot sex. Our Venn diagrams overlapped PERFECTLY.”

“Opposite action doesn’t work if you’re trying to get rid of an emotion that’s actually justified in the moment. Rather, it’s a tool to bring you out of an unwanted emotion that’s unjustified in the situation by replacing it with an emotion that’s opposite — through action rather than trying to directly change what you’re feeling. For example: If we’re feeling shameful, our inclined action might be to stay indoors and sit with our shame alone. If we know this isn’t healthy for us, but we feel unable to change our feelings, then we can decide to change our actions. The opposite action being to leave our house and perhaps interact with a friend. By doing so we won’t escalate or heighten our feelings but rather help the feelings decrease by putting a countering action in their place.

Our goal isn’t to subdue our feelings, but instead to bring about a slow and steady change in those feelings by focusing on the actions themselves. If you’re having a hard time with self-love and you just can’t feel good no matter how hard you try…try changing the action you’re naturally inclined to take.”