I can’t begin to count the number of times I have been told how beautiful I would be if I were skinny. If I just “lost a few pounds.” Every time I begin to lose weight, I am lauded for being an “inspiration.” I grew up watching my mom try numerous fad diets and continuously struggle with her weight and self acceptance. I resorted to using extreme measures to lose weight- laxatives, vomiting, starving, over exercising, cut out meat or dairy or bread. And these all worked for me short term. But at the end of the day, I looked in the mirror and I still hated my body. Which is now expected of women, we are supposed to think we’re fat. I always got so offended when people would call me fat. But recently, I have accepted it. I have embraced my body for every inch, every jiggle, every stretch mark that is me. We live in a world that values the thin girl who is also curvy but not jiggly and no stretch marks and must be beautiful naturally. The ideal woman is unrealistic and airbrushed. Big women are continuously pushed under the rug and forced to try and reach this ideal. Big girls are beautiful. Big women can love makeup, we can be athletic, we have fashion sense, we have feelings, we deserve to live and take up space. When people see us eat they seem disgusted, even when we are doing a task required for our existence. We are underrepresented in media, and oftentimes the representation we do garner is as the “funny” girl or the before picture. I am talking Fat Amy in Pitch Perfect and Melissa McCarthy in Tammy. We are portrayed as messy and stupid and funny and unkempt and undeserving of love. If a character who is fat is confident in her sexuality her confidence comes off as undeserved and is often used as a comedic relief. Big girls have sex. Shocking, I know. People actually find us attractive-not in the fetishizing way either. The chubby chaser fetish makes men feel like heroes for sleeping with us lower class Fat Girls. When we reject somebody’s advances for whatever reason, the suitor turns immediately to insulting our weight. We live in a world where fat is the worst word to describe a person.

I recently began working at a plus size clothing store. Before starting there, I always saw bigger clothes as frumpy, old lady looking type clothing. But here, girls are encouraged to show off their curves and be confident in every inch of their bodies. This has also recently become a social media trend with the dawn of the era of the “fatkini” and body positivity movements. These movements are amazing for girls like myself who grew up being told that because we are fat we aren’t allowed to feel sexy or confident or happy and that we belong in the background of everyone else’s world. Growing up, fat felt like second class, it meant being everybody’s last choice and people snickering because somebody mentioned the possibility of somebody liking you. Fat meant boys were afraid to be around you too much because the other kids would tease them. And growing older, college boys think that fat means easy because we are grateful for any attention we can get. The body positivity movement changes all of this. It allows confident girls to show themselves off which inspires more people to be more confident. Instead of being told we don’t deserve to be seen or be comfortable, it encourages us to embrace our bodies and show the world who we are. After years of being shoved to the back row and stepped on, fat women are finally getting our chance to shine. Fat yoga, fat athletes, fat models, are all in the spotlight. And these women are criticized for promoting their “unhealthy lifestyle.” With the rise of confidence, there are people constantly trying to push us back to where we belong- the bottom of the totem pole. These people are ignoring the fact that it is completely posisble to be fat and healthy. It is also completely possible to be thin and unhealthy. Drug addictions, disease, metabolism, genetics, can all lead to being thin or fat. There are plenty of skinny people who eat like garbage and still weigh 90 pounds. There are plenty of fat people who eat nothing but green vegetables and constantly exercise and cannot lose a pound for whatever reason. That’s why body positivity and fat representation is so important. Regardless of size, everybody deserves to be happy in their own bodies. Everybody deserves to feel beautiful. Everybody deserves to be loved.