#fat-shaming

When I said my character was plus-sized, I hope to goodness you just missed that statement, and not that you actually think this slightly curvy, very trim “AU” of my character that you created really counts as ‘plus-sized.’

Honestly, when I search “how to draw plus-sized characters” on YouTube the search results are kind of concerning.

They're extremely limited and/or you get drawings of women who are average weights. They’re not Barbie-thin drawings, but they’re certainly not XL or larger (then again, is there actually a consistent sizing metric for that?)

What exactly are we calling plus-sized nowadays?

As a curvy girl, I still get size-shamed for ‘stretching out’ the pairs of jeans I wear, but they aren’t structured to accommodate my body type. 

The world we live in is ludicrous, but fortunately, I’m fairly used to that by now.

The truth is, though I search for plus-sized drawing tutorials occasionally, plus-sized women aren’t one of my main art struggles. I’ve been drawing them for years now and I’ve even been told I’m the “queen of drawing plus-sized characters.”

While I know that’s a stretch, learning to draw beautiful plus-sized girls has been a form of self-healing for me. 

While I’m far (far) from a Barbie girl even now, when I was in my early teens I was definitely plus-sized. I hated my body, and when I drew self-portraits, I either skinny-washed myself or made myself look ridiculous and monstrous. 

The saddest part is that artists are still doing things like this and posting this hurtful art online.

If this counts as “representation,” it’s some ‘dark empath’ variation that continues to scar plus-sized men and women around the world.

Drawing fat people takes just as much skill as drawing skinny people. It takes effort to be able to draw them “believably” and yet, many many people still choose to use their skills to mock plus-sized people, instead of encouraging and empowering them.

The decisions we make are so much more important than many of us are willing to acknowledge. 

We can help others or we can harm them.

I choose to make my art a form of empowerment. 

When I learned to draw beautiful fat people, I learned to separate my beauty from my weight. Being fat didn’t make me ugly. ‘Fat’ is just a state of being, not an insult.

While I did lose weight for health reasons (being overweight was doing a number on my hormones) I learned that beauty doesn’t have a size-restriction. 

This is the message I want to share through my art, and I hope more people will continue to help me share it. I know some people take this mission every bit as seriously as I do, but often it feels like we’re drowned out by a sea of voices promoting the exact opposite. Often it feels like we’re the minority. Often it feels like people don’t even care whose feelings they batter and bruise.

A few months ago, someone drew the female lead of my WIP novel “Rigamarole” as a gift. I specified in my description of the character that she was plus-sized, but the artist made her skinny. Very skinny. 

I don’t know if he simply misread that part of the description (I’m guilty of “skimming” paragraphs, too.) But I can’t help but feel like it was an intentional decision.

Maybe he didn’t feel like putting in the effort. Maybe he didn’t even know how to draw plus-sized women. Out of all his plot-central female characters, only one has even an ounce of body fat, and that might be a bad sign in and of itself.

I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with being trim or muscular - I love working out. The thing is, even fit or “jacked” women usually still have a notable amount of body fat when they’re healthy. 

The female body is DESIGNED to carry more fat than the male body. Just like it’s unsafe to have an extremely high body fat percentage, it is also often dangerous for women to have extremely low body fat. It convinces our bodies we’re in danger of starvation. We start building up stress hormones and everything becomes a mess.

Life is about balance, not extremes.

There is an overbearing emphasis in this world on thinness. We stick the words “pretty and skinny” together like they’re synonymous. We use photo editing and plastic dolls to create dysmorphic standards for how thin a woman's body “should be.”

It’s horrifying that after all this time, this still needs to be said:

Female bodies store fat for a reason. 

I’m Running 10 Marathons This Year And I Still Get Fat-Shamed. Here’s My Response.

By Guest Writer Latoya Shauntay Snell

Last year, I completed two 50Ks and four marathons ― three of which were done within a two-month span. And just a week before I participated in the New York City Marathon, I also completed my first 100K ― the Javelina Jundred event in the Arizona desert, which involves running roughly 62 miles.

This year I signed up for 10 marathons and a 50-miler, and I intend on running in my first 100-miler. Still, despite earning over 100 finisher medals and completing close to 200 running, cycling and obstacle course racing events over a span of five years, the internet police continue to remind me to lose some weight. I’m an unapologetic 5’3, 242-pound road and trail ultra runner from Brooklyn sponsored by HOKA ONE ONE running shoe company, and I am continuously fat-shamed.

On Jan. 3, I posted a video on my Instagram account of my fitness regimen. A day later, this same post resurfaced as a suggestion on my Instagram “Explore” page as a repost by a person followed by more than 50,000 people. Despite not tagging me in the comments, the poster expressed “concern” that while my “advanced workouts” are admirable, she “feared for the shock” that it would place on my fat body.

Perhaps this person thought I would and should feel comforted by the condolences that she (and her sizable following) offered about my “weight loss journey,” but I didn’t. Even worse, when I tried to have a private conversation with this person, she immediately blocked me.

Frankly, I’m not sure which part of the post was the most humorous to me: the part where several Google and WebMD doctors who knew nothing about my five-year fitness journey sounded off on what they must have assumed to be my unhinged eating habits or the countless people who suggested that a woman shouldn’t lift weights and should stick to cardiovascular activities.

Over the years, I’ve encountered so many people who are absolutely mind-boggled when they learn I work out or participate in a multitude of events for reasons besides weight loss. And the disapproving commentary doesn’t just happen online ― I’ve experienced it offline, too. It’s only been a bit over a year since I was fat-shamed at the 2017 New York City Marathon. But the abuse began long before that. 

“i remember when so many people mom coaches etc said i weighed too much or if i could just keep some pounds down” and I see this pictures of me and I’m just this beautiful young girl who looks healthy and in the off-season when she’s not swimming 12 hours a week weighs about 135

1. Too much fat-shaming