I ran into a childhood friend in the park. I don’t know if she noticed how my face fell as I looked at her toned arms and lean solid form. I don’t know if she felt how our cheerful conversation full of light, catching-up pleasantries, was weighed down by my insecurities or saw the way the corners of my smile was struggling against the heavy forces of my own self-judgment. I do not think she looked at my arms and my belly drawing unfavorable comparisons to her own, as I was doing. I do not think that she said to her friend as I walked away ‘Wow, she got really fat. How sad.’ but I couldn’t get the thought out of my head.
In my early adulthood, I was anorexic. Looking at photos of myself from my late teens and early 20s I can see how unhealthy I was. I was going for that Victorian consumpted look and I said monstrous things about fat people, more specifically, fat women. Not to fat women, just to myself and my thin friends about them, and vaguely on early social media to no one in particular (This was back in the MySpace days where you were encouraged to rank your friends publicly and everyone learned basic coding to make their page as insufferable as possible). I thought this cruelty was very edgy but in truth, I was just parroting the Pro-Ana forums I was dabbling in. At my lowest weight, I developed an ulcer and had to be taken to the hospital after collapsing in the elevator of my dorm. I spent all my time focused on how to burn more calories and consume only ‘negative’ foods and I drank a disgusting amount of black coffee. My boyfriend raped me in my dorm room. I had no real friends. I did a lot of drugs to soothe my pain and anger and I starved myself more hoping to just disappear.
I don’t know how the mental shift out of it happened but just when I thought I couldn't get any smaller or weaker I suddenly decided I didn’t want to disappear anymore… If I was going to make myself large enough to be seen I needed to be someone worth seeing.
In the decade that followed I slowly recovered both mentally and physically. I learned more about feminism and body positivity, a movement that was not for every body, but for marginalized bodies.
I wanted to claim body positivity for myself, confusing the movement to respect marginalized bodies with a personal journey of self-love (I have achieved neither but I’m still trying). It took over a decade to understand that loving one's own body is not the same as “body positivity”. I came to understand that I don’t need to be thin to be beautiful, but more importantly that I don’t owe it to anyone to be “beautiful” at all.
Before, I had this idea that I was disappointing people if I wasn’t exceptionally beautiful. Every pound I put on felt like I was letting down everyone who ever thought I was beautiful.
I understand now that I wasn’t starving myself for my health. I was starving myself because I bought into the system that treated fat bodies as less deserving of space and sympathy and respect, and that told me that the greatest value a woman can have is her attractiveness to cis-het men.
Body positivity is a movement for people like me to accept bodies different from my own as not representing the worst possible thing my body could become. I was part of the problem. I still am, unfortunately. Even now as my weight has climbed from underweight, to average, to overweight and into the obese category, I am still a part of the problem. I am still struggling to find kindness for myself and live up to the principles that I believe in.
I believe weight is not a reliable indicator of health and that another persons health is 1. not my business and 2. not related to their value as a human being.
I believe fat is not an indication of a moral failing — What a person eats, or drinks, or even smokes is not an indication of their morals any more than wearing sunscreen or taking a multivitamin. Life is complicated. Everyone is just working with the tools they have.
I believe all bodies are worthy of respect, space, sympathy. Not all bodies must be beautiful and no one owes it to anyone else to look any particular way. All bodies can be beautiful.
I understand that the bodies of marginalized people need to have attention paid to their particular struggles. Just as feminism benefits men too, so does body positivity for marginalized (fat, differently-abled, bodies of color, trans)bodies help thin and average bodies.
I have worked hard to overcome the illness that made me strive for thinness at the expense of my health and the societal messages I believed in — the indoctrination that made me sick.
I do not owe it to anyone to look like anything. I’m not letting people down by getting a short haircut or gaining weight or having acne.
And yet… that sick little voice still pops up after all this time.
I believe that fat bodies can be beautiful — just not mine.
I also believe that it is not necessary to be beautiful anyway… but… well… you know.
I am a marathon runner, I workout daily, I am a vegetarian… but even if I were none of those things my fat body would still deserve respect. Yet, here I am… trying to prove that I really do deserve respect with these credentials.
I do not owe anyone “healthy” credentials.
I know that this work will never be done for me. I look at my nieces and my god-daughter and I hope that the endless work I am doing to try to overcome this indoctrination can spare them at least some of this struggle to unlearn harmful messages about weight, race, gender, ability, and class.
For now, I’m just accepting that every now and then I’ll feel that gut-punch of superficial comparisons to other women and all I can do is keep smiling through it while I keep striving to be as good inside as I know I can be.
