I guess you could say it started in high school. The change, I mean. Iâd known for a long time that I was overweight. Some said I was âjust a growing girlâ others said I could âafford to lose a few poundsâ and all but those who understood, those who knew, avoided that dreaded word âfatâ. The result was a lot of confusion and a growing sense of self-pity on my part. It didnât help that the initial cause of my weight gain was unhealthy eating habits imposed on me by poor meal choices by a guardian who didnât know how to make food that didnât involve a jank-ton of mostly-empty carbs, and who, for some reason, was against my sisters and I playing outside. At any rate, whether people were downplaying it, or advising me to be wary, discussions about my size were a frequent part of my life. I was ashamed of my weight and mostly tried not to think about it. Then, at some point during high school, I had a realization. All the self-pity I had carried for years was utterly pointless; completely wasted moments of my life. This became clear when I realized two very important facts. Fact #1 - I was overweight. There was no way around that. According to medical science, I was obese; well over 100 pounds more than what they called my âideal weightâ. Fact #2 - I wasnât doing anything about it. Now, if youâre expecting this to be some inspirational post about how I kicked myself in gear and overcame my past by working hard to âget in shape!â or found some other way to âimprove my healthâ then⌠I apologize, because Iâm afraid thatâs not what this post is about. Nor is it an SJW style post about the âevilsâ of so-called âfat-shamingâ or what have you. If youâll kindly hold onto your hats, weâll get to the point of this soon enough. I did dabble a bit with calorie-counting, portioning, and different forms of exercise, but it took up a lot of time and focus, and simply-put, wasnât enjoyable. âSoooo⌠youâre just lazy,â I hear some of you say. (Yes, I heard you through the computer, because Iâm just that awesome. ) You might also say, however, that it just wasnât a priority. I was involved in drama, writing, music, reading, church-stuff and yes, video games and television, through which my sisters and I did a lot of bonding. All the other things just put the thought of food ever at the forefront of my mind (which I really donât think is healthy) and I really didnât know why I was doing it except to see some numbers go down on a scale or on the size-tags of my clothing. If I wasnât standing on a scale or shopping in the VERY limited plus-size section, it legitimately didnât matter to me. And so, I made the decision that, if I wasnât going to do anything about my weight, I wasnât going to complain about it either. I determined not to let it define who I was as a person. It was a descriptor of my appearance, of my physical being, yes, but it wasnât who I was, who I AM as a person. After making this decision, however, I began to notice something very peculiar. Having decided not to be personally defined by it, I at first became more free with the word âfatâ. I eventually stopped because the word seemed to make people uncomfortable. Not overweight people; healthy people, skinny people. Theyâd suddenly freak out and assure me that, no, I wasnât fat, as if Iâd said some terrible thing. Maybe they were afraid Iâd become anorexic? At any rate, I changed my phrasing, colloquially referring to my âexcessive girthâ or referring to myself as a âbig-girlâ if I had to ask for a bit more room, or explain why, no, I wasnât going to be able to find anything in American Eagle. It wasnât something I talked about constantly, just when appropriate to the conversation, but still it made people uncomfortable. Even the word âoverweightâ seemed to offend these healthy-looking, or skinny people (I make the distinction, because skinny isnât necessarily healthy, and healthy isnât necessarily skinny) and I had people actually argue with me about this scientific, black-and-white term. It became a source of frustration for me, to be argued with about something that was simple fact; for it to be assumed that, if I was saying these things, I must therefore have a low self-image. To me, it said that they equated âfatâ with âuglinessâ which hurt. I later would start trying to correct this by telling a person, when they argued with me about my weight, that I had not said I was âuglyâ. My sister, the dear INFP who oft notices the things I miss, eventually helped me realize that, what had started as a personal choice to be comfortable in my own skin had become a personal campaign. I was still making people uncomfortable, and yet, doing no real good. Like Don Quixote, I had turned windmills into giants and was fighting a war that did not exist. âWhat?! No!â I hear some of you cry (seriously, could you take it down a notch? Iâm trying to type here) âhow could you let those fatophobic people win?!â And thus I let out a long groan of frustration. Aaaaauuuuuuuugh! See? There it is. I groan because, since Iâve come to this second phase of realization, Iâve begun to see something new, something which⌠disturbs me. Is it any surprise, in a world so concerned about offending others that people have come in with the intent to âchampion the underdog!â? People throw around words like âhomophobicâ âfatophobicâ âmisogynisticâ etc. the same way people used to, and often still do, words like âfatâ or âhomoâ or âretardâ, etc. Am I the only one who sees the irony here? Many of these people attempting to campaign against labels are slapping even more labels, often on people who have done nothing to deserve them. But back to the particular matter at hand, the word âfatophobic,â slung around like all these others, has even more of an irony as you look a bit deeper into what people are doing with the term. Iâve seen a lot of posts where people are⌠actually taking pride in their âfatnessâ. They glorify overweight characters in the media to the point of becoming quickly angered if someone, say, decides to draw them without the added weight. Now, thereâs nothing wrong with deciding not to let a label demean you as a person, but what I donât understand is why people are letting their weight define them, even in a positive light. How is that any different from someone taking pride in being âthinâ or for having blue eyes or a straight smile for that matter? By doing this, we are still letting a physical aspect define us, and rather than simply showing others that, yeah, weâre comfortable in our own skin, we become antagonistic, we become, essentially, just as bad as the people who would try to make us feel like less of a person because of how we look, because of some numbers on a scale or on a clothing tag. Is there a problem? Yes. Iâm not so naive or blind as to think that the issue doesnât exist. There are a lot of people who would want us to feel inferior because we donât fit the ideal mold, and yes, the industry does make it really hard to love yourself, but in slinging around labels, especially where they are undeserved, our desire to be accepted for that which is beyond the physical is drowned out by our insistence that people acknowledge the physical, and by the clanging of angry swords against harmless windmills. Please⌠donât let otherâs labels define who you are as a person, but also take care that you donât define and label others in the process. Sincerely, A girl who God created to be far more than a number on a scale.
