I feel you, girl. I feel you so hard. I was a fat kid, and then a fat teenager, and then a fat adult woman. I was depressed, and troubled, and bullied, and hated myself. And I, too, made a decision to lose weight. But before that, I made a decision to love myself and my body.
I feel you. I’ve been where you were. But I also need you to know one extremely important thing. Other peoples’ assumptions about your body, your attractiveness, and your health do not determine your value as a human being.
We live in a society that hates fat, hates fat people, and teaches us to hate our fat selves and our fat bodies before we are even old enough to know what “fat” really is or means. As teenagers, we are fragile and self-conscious, and we internalize the body-shaming and bullying we experience at the hands of others. As women, we are held to impossible standards of thinness.
I don’t condemn you for wanting to lose weight. I don’t hold your weight loss against you. You made a decision about your body. I understand that. Just like your body, your weight loss journey belongs to you. But as a society, we need to acknowledge and address the fact that losing weight will not fill the “never-ending void” cited in that CNN piece as your reason for weight gain. Neither will excessive exercise or disordered eating habits.
Instead, perhaps this all could have been avoided if you’d been supported by a community that sees women as more than consumable bodies. Perhaps if the adults in your life had been more focused on your emotional well-being than your physical appearance, or if that teacher had taken the time to find out what was making you feel too hopeless to participate in physical activity, you’d know that you are more than just what people see when they look at you.
I condemn our body-shaming culture, the media, and the adults in your life for teaching you that your body is your only source of value in this world. I condemn our society for making fat women feel invisible at best and monstrous at worst. I condemn a culture that praises girls and women who literally kill themselves trying to achieve a body that is seen as desirable, and ostracizes those who don’t.
You are strong. You are brave. You are (and were) beautiful and valuable and worthy of affection. I hope to goddess that as you grow into womanhood, you find a way to truly work through the trauma of growing up fat in the society that has so completely convinced you that happiness is only attainable through thinness.
bitchycrocker 