From a very young age, I’ve always been slightly overweight. I’ve never been heavy enough to be considered obese, or to make my doctor look at me with increased concern during my yearly visits, but I’ve always had a little bit of jiggle to me. So, you know what I’m talking about...I’m the blonde girl on the right, not really fat, but not really skinny either. This means that my younger years were plagued with the “fat” comments — I distinctly remember a girl, who was as overweight as I was, look at me when I was 9 and say, “That’s why no one likes you, ‘cause you’re fat.”
The pressure to be skinny — to be considered beautiful — has always hovered over me. Even when I’d managed to slim down to an average weight for my height, I’d still identify myself as “fat.” I’ve made many decisions in my life around trying to avoid the “fat” stereotype, from abstaining from eating large amounts of food in public so as not to be labeled a “pig,” to wearing a sweatshirt every day of sixth grade so no one would see my fat rolls when I sat down. So much of my time has been spent hiding any part of my body I felt did not look “thin.”
There are people out there skinnier than me, healthier than me, who will put themselves in the same category — people who have never been an ounce overweight. I’ve met people who can’t weigh more than 110 pounds soaking wet, try to look at me and tell me they’re fat.
Lately, it seems those that fall into the “thin” category think the way to encourage their plump counterparts to take up their same lifestyle is by putting them down. Nicole Arbour and her “Dear Fat People” video is a prime example of one thin woman thinking that using her influence on the internet to shame an entire group of people would encourage them to join a gym or stop eating out. Instead, she seems to have faded from popularity and even lost the opportunity for the position of choreographer for an upcoming movie over the video.
Just last month it was released that plus sized models, Ashley Graham and Robyn Lawley, were featured in the 2016 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition. There was massive applause from many, saying it was a breakthrough moment for the plus sized world. But of course there was backlash from those who believed girls that size shouldn’t be promoted. Former Sports Illustrated cover model Cheryl Tiegs, criticized the decision, saying that “your waist should be smaller than 35 (inches).”
There are many reasons a person can fall into the overweight category that are completely normal: some people have health problems that cause them to put on extra weight, some just don’t have a metabolism that’s as fast as someone else’s. But that still doesn’t make it anyone else’s right to shame them for it.
So, let me clarify something: by calling someone “fat,” pushing them to drop a few pounds, or using any method of shame in an attempt to make them lose weight, you become a problem bigger than their weight. You are putting physical appearance before the mental and emotional health of someone, and berating them no matter how small the comments, tears at a person’s self-esteem. It doesn’t help; it doesn’t empower; it makes us retreat even further into the shell that we’ve already built around ourselves.
Unless you’re a doctor, you have no right to tell someone whether or not they need to lose weight. You do not know the makeup of their metabolism or the pills they need to take, and you do not know what lengths they have gone to in an attempt to lose weight, nor do you know everything their doctor knows about their medical composition. Until you have spent the time in medical school to be a qualified doctor, you do not have any say as to whether or not they are unhealthy.
The way my body is made up, I know that I will never be a size two — even squeezing my body down to a size four would be borderline unhealthy for me. A person’s worth is not based on the number on a scale, the size of their pants or the inches of their waistline. And those who are unable to look past that are the ones creating the problem in today’s society. So the next time you try to casually mention to your plump friend that you’re going to the gym later and they should join, don’t. Because their weight is not your decision.
