I am what some would call “big boned,” “plus-size,” or more commonly, “fat.” And I am. I have a full figure. I have a gazillion stretch marks and a lot of awkward rolls, and I don’t fit into 85% of the clothes sold at the mall because I am too big. Hell, my doctor even says that I need to “lose weight and try to get my dieting together” and “start working out three to four times a week.” And I definitely agree. I would love to be a size 6, or even a size 10. But I have not attained that goal yet. And THAT IS OKAY. I have seen a lot of posts made by fashion sites and ads for products lately that will “shave off that extra layer of body fat and make your life sooooo much better!” I have read the comments sections on those posts and advertisements where people claim that you have to eat 10 calories a day and you will lose weight and that’s all you have to do. These people believe that the body positivity movement is the grossest and most sickening thing in the world. I just want to tell those people that think they know it all that they don’t. People hate the body positivity movement and they think that is encourages people to sit on their couches and eat a million bags of potato chips and whatnot. But it doesn’t. They call people like me (who are obese) lazy and suicidal because they don’t think we take care of ourselves and we want to die rolling around like those characters from Wall-E. NEWSFLASH: obese people who are body-positive don’t want to become Violet Beauregarde, and in fact, it is through the body positivity movement that we take care of ourselves. Here’s what I mean. I have a thyroid disorder that causes me to have a slow metabolism. I eat moderately healthy foods and balanced meals, and I have still gained weight. I have done 10 weeks of training for, and ran, an entire 5K and I have still gained weight. I have changed my diet completely-- cutting portions, counting calories, and even skipping meals, and I have still gained weight. This has been my life for the last 9 years. Have I been “fat” my entire life? YES. Have I tried to change that? YES. Has it worked yet? NO. When I was a freshman in high school, I ate one meal a day. I would make a lunch, take it to school, and give it to a friend of mine. Then I would come home and eat a huge dinner. I said that I wasn’t hungry, and often times, I wasn’t because I had gotten used to not eating. Looking back on it now, I see that I had a very unhealthy relationship with food, and now, as a sophomore in college, I am still trying to redirect my mentality towards eating. But I found the body positivity movement and I realized that it was okay to be big-- that just because I didn’t look like a beanpole did not mean that I was ugly or unlovable. I want you to think about this: is it better to be fat, appreciate your body, and get to a place where you are comfortable with making changes, or is it better to starve yourself and be thin because nothing else worked and you're sick of being big? Because personally, I believe that the body positivity movement encourages those who are struggling with an eating disorder or bad relationships with food to start loving and accepting themselves. I don’t know if it has worked for tons of people, but it did work for me. The movement isn’t a push for women to climb out of their waist trainers and unbutton their jeans like it’s Thanksgiving every night at the dinner table. It is making a foundation of love and self-acceptance so you can get to a place where you are willing and motivated to be more kind to your body and start losing weight. I love my body and all of its awkwardness and do I wish I was thinner? Yes. But I am no longer starving myself or avoiding mirrors because I have more meat on my bones than what society tells me I should. Being fat is hard. For me, being fat meant that I could only date tall, burly guys and that I shouldn’t get seconds at a restaurant because I’m already too big. The body positivity movement encouraged me to be comfortable walking into a store and trying on a pair of jeans that I like without fearing that I would have a panic attack in the dressing room. Long story short, people have to start somewhere. Whether that be regarding weight, mental health, a video game, a book, or just getting up in the morning. If you don’t understand what it’s like to have to make a decision to start working towards a goal and then making that happen or learning how to achieve it, you can’t appreciate the progress that's been made. I wouldn’t appreciate the fact that I ran, and I don’t mean walk, a 5K if I just got up and did it. I started by running for 30 seconds with 1 minute breaks and struggled, and when I hit that finish line on May 9, 2015, I cried with my mom because I made improvement. So please, before you comment on one of those “Plus-Size Women Try to Style Bralettes For A Week” or whatever videos from Buzzfeed and complain about how big people shouldn’t wear *insert item of clothing here*, ask yourself if it is terrible for someone to feel good and if it is a bad thing to encourage people to start loving themselves so they can start making changes later on. You don’t know how far someone may have already come, so don’t insult them or talk down to them because they don’t look the way you think they should. And to the people who are unhappy with their appearance, it is okay to be a work in progress. No matter where you begin or what you want to work towards, as long as it comes from a place of self-love and not because some guy on Twitter said you were too big. The Cynic
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AuthorGabrielle Willingham is a young Arkansan woman who sees the importance of simultaneous cynicism and optimism. Gabrielle is currently working on a MA in Communication with a focus in gender studies and political science. Archives
January 2021
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