Growing up as an overweight girl, I’ve always felt a little bit out of place in this world. I grew up in the era of skinny women with small butts, breasts, and stomachs. I have never looked like that. I was what the media told us was disgusting and unacceptable. I was never like the slender, pretty girls with silky blonde or light brown hair at my school. I had big arms, beefy thighs, chubby cheeks, and thick, black, wavy hair. I’ve always been more filled out than the other girls. I stook out.

In second grade as I sat in chapel, these two skinny girls sitting in the pew in front of me turned around and asked me, “hey, how much do you weigh?" As they giggled, I knew I couldn’t tell them what I really weighed, so I lied. I told them some double digit number, but they knew I was lying. They just snickered and turned around, whispering. Maybe about me, but I didn’t dare ask. In third grade when I had just started a new school, I was at the water fountain, minding my own business, when a girl from my class came up to me and said “you should lose weight.” I will never know what possessed her to say such a mean and unnecessary thing to me when I had never even spoken to her before.

I’ve heard countless arguments from people who believe that if you tell an overweight person they are beautiful as they are, you are enabling an “unhealthy lifestyle,” when that simply is not the case. Say it with me, friends: an overweight person being body positive is not normalizing being obese or unhealthy. So maybe, that means people are allowed to feel good about themselves, even when they don’t look appealing to you. *gasp* What a crazy concept! Fat people are allowed to love themselves. You don’t know what an individual person has been through, and you are not their doctor. You don’t get a say. I can’t tell you how heartbreaking it was for me to deal with someone who believed I was not worth much because I am overweight. I had a coach in high school who underestimated me, and never cared to put in the work to encourage me, because since I was overweight, he figured I was a lost cause, and I deserved to hear about how I couldn’t be successful AND overweight. (You see how crazy that sounds, right?) A person’s worth is not for you to decide. And it is not your decision to tell an overweight person something they already know. YES I AM FAT. WE GET IT, AND I’M STILL FABULOUS.

I think people fail to realize that you can be more than your weight. That my body is not for your eyes or your pleasure. I personally have chosen to lose weight, but why should I hide in a hole until I’m skinny enough for society’s acceptance? I’ll do me, and add twenty years to my life, and love myself along that way. Let people love themselves, regardless of what they look like or what you think is appealing. Besides, if you aren’t my doctor, you should just keep your mouth shut if you don’t have anything constructive to say. Work on your heart before you come tell me how I should treat my body or my mind. It's not really any of your business anyway.