Because Gabriella Lascano’s opinion piece in The New York Times made me think, I found myself returning — once again — to the question I have carried for most of my life.
Well, I have always thought about the why of me being fat, and I use that word without insult, without shame, simply as a fact. For years, that word carried enormous power over me. It entered rooms before I did. It colored conversations. Today, it no longer holds that authority.
But going back to the issue, for as long as I can remember, I was told to lose weight. Sometimes gently, sometimes harshly, often disguised as concern. For health. For beauty. For discipline. For love. For opportunity. The reasoning shifted depending on who was speaking; the message itself never did. Then Dr. Kleber looked me in the eye and said, “You will never lose weight without help — medication or surgery — because you have Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome.” Instead of relief, I felt disbelief. I even laughed.
After all, no one had diagnosed me correctly in thirty years. He himself admitted uncertainty. So why such conviction? And why did that sentence unlock reflection rather than resignation?
Naturally, I went back to the beginning.
Was it because, from the age of five until twenty-one, my mother placed me on restrictive diets? Because my father feared I would be fat like him and urged her to question every doctor about how to make me lose weight? Consequently, after each failed attempt, I was left hungrier — physically, yes, yet also emotionally — and increasingly disconnected from my own hunger cues and, in time, deeply unsettled about my relationship with food?
Or did it begin when my parents removed me from the sport I loved — the one I excelled at, the one where I was even scouted to compete — simply because they did not want to drive to competitions? Because my mother felt overwhelmed by my coach’s requests? When movement disappeared from my life, something else inevitably filled that space.
I tried other sports afterward; however, each attempt was quietly discouraged, as though my effort was inconvenient, as though my commitment required too much. And little by little, the message settled in: do not take up space, do not demand support, do not want too much.
Perhaps it was the tension around clothing. The sighs before shopping trips. The irritation at having to “find something that fits.” The subtle, persistent message that my body was not merely different, it was inconvenient.
And then there were the comments. Constant. Casual. Cutting. From strangers. From relatives. From people who felt entitled to narrate my body aloud. I remember my mother looking at a photo of me at the beach — a beach it had taken tremendous courage for me to visit — and saying she could not believe how fat I was. In that moment, something inside me contracted, even if my body did not.
So yes, I understand the argument in Lascano’s piece, and I agree with it. Nuance matters. We should be able to discuss weight loss without collapsing into extremes. Complexity deserves space.
At the same time, I cannot discard the body positivity movement entirely, especially when the return of extreme thinness as an aspiration — almost an obsession — genuinely scares me. I have lived through what that pressure does. I know how quickly it becomes a moral language: smaller is better, thinner is worthy, discipline is virtue.
For me, acceptance was never complacency; it was foundational. Before I could even consider losing weight, I had to stop despising myself. I had to face my reflection without flinching. I had to untangle the worth from the size. In other words, I needed to believe I deserved dignity exactly as I was.
That movement gave me language when I had none. It gave me permission to exist publicly without apology. It gave me the courage to live in the present instead of postponing joy until I became smaller. I am allowed to be — even if I am fat.
And only now do I truly realize how cruel people were to me because of my size. What was framed as concern was often humiliation. What was called motivation was frequently shame. I did not see it clearly then; I had internalized too much of it. Now, with distance and truth, I can name it for what it was.
I am not seeking privileges. I buy two seats on a plane because that is what I require. I recognize the professional limitations that can accompany living in a fat body. Awareness, however, does not accelerate weight loss. Shame did not transform me. Fear did not sustain change. Self-contempt certainly did not heal me.
What gradually made a difference was acceptance. Therapy. The steady presence of friends who love me without conditions. The difficult work of asking deeper questions. The discipline of naming wounds. The humility of forgiving — my parents, who were acting from their own fears; the doctors who overlooked the signs; and, most painfully, myself.
This is not denial. It is integration.
It is acknowledging the hormonal realities, the emotional history, the relational scars — and choosing to do the work anyway. Not from self-hatred, rather from self-respect. Not from pressure, instead from readiness.
It is not easy. I will live with this — and struggle with it — for the rest of my life. Even so, it has to come from a place of truth and acceptance.
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