2 posts tagged “fat activism”

This is required viewing.  For everyone.

For the record, I am 195 and 5'2".  I am fat.

But you know what?  I'm through giving a shit about it.  I eat generally well, compared to even a lot of skinny people I know.  I am not a couch potato (admittedly, I'm not as active in the winter, but neither are a lot of people).  I'm actually healthy, and my doctor will vouch for that if you ask her.  And despite all that, I'm 195.  It's just a number.  It's not the end of the world.  In fact, far from it.

Like Joy, my quality of life has not suffered because I'm fat.  I've been married twice (and the divorces had nothing to do with my fatness).  I've had boyfriends and lovers like whoa - a few times, several at a time, men fighting for my attention like I was Angelina Jolie or something.  I've had decent jobs.  I've had - and still have - some of the best friends a girl could want, and who have always involved me in their major life events (like weddings), regardless of my size.  I go hiking, and camping, and scramble all over the place in hard-to-get-to places to take pictures of nature's beauty.  I've traveled.  In fact, my size hasn't stopped me from doing anything that I've wanted to do.  I could go on and on, but the point is this:  how much of this happened when I was thin?

None of it.

More and more, I'm finding myself not just accepting my size, but liking it.  I take up space.  (And indeed, a thin friend, some time ago, said that she wished she took up more space, making a bigger impression on the world around her.)  I'm a big, colorful presence, and you. will. notice. me.  Do I think I'm perfect?  Not quite there yet, but I'm working on it.  That's honest.  So is this:  not everyone who's fat is trying desperately to get thin!

Furthermore, I find it extremely insulting when people talk smack about a woman who's fat, in my presence, and then backpedal when I call them on it, saying, "Well, you're not fat!"  I'm not fat?  Are you blind?  Do you really think I'm that stupid?  What kind of idiot are you?
A lot of us, us fat women, don't point that out because we're fishing for compliments.
We point it out because we want you to think about what you're saying, and stop being such a goddamn jerk.

Fat doesn't equal lazy, or stupid, or unlovable, or white trash, or whatever.  It's an adjective.  All it means is that I don't fit into some people's narrow little minds.

I'm going to print that out and tack it up on my wall, here above my desk, to be read daily.  It's part of a rapidly-growing collection of similar ideas, a shrine to the radical idea that diets, arbitrary exercise regimes, magazines, models, the media as a whole, are all crap.

My lungs are filled with sludge... yep, this cold is progressing exactly as it always does.  Probably by this time tomorrow night, I'll be coughing up things in colors that should never happen in the human body and my face will be swollen from so much nose-blowing.  Sexy!  Tonight, however, will be creative sleeping time - unable to lay down, I'll have to sleep on the couch, propped up with many pillows and a pair of cats.  Fun!

On a much lighter note, today is my "baby" brother's 26th birthday.  I note this mostly for my own benefit... read:  remember to call him later.  We have to iron out the details of his visit, anyway - I'm guessing that the entire visit will be a sort of Battle of the Cameras (ok, so his camera can whoop my ass, but considering the inferior technology I'm working with, my composition and improvisational lighting skills still top his, so...).  I seriously can't wait to see him again.