I am about to trust you with some really sensitive information. It’s not something I share with everyone - or anyone, to be honest. I’m pretty open about most things, but this is something I tend to guard with my life, huddling over it in the heat of battle, taking glances like arrows in the back, thinking only of keeping this little trinket from the world.
225.
That’s right. I weigh 225 pounds.
“But you’re so beautiful!” “You have lovely eyes!” “You carry it just fine!”
Maybe, but 225 is a big number.
Why would I share with you my so closely-guarded secret? So you know I have some skin in the game of the fat-acceptance movement.
You may not look at me and think, “What a cow.” But it’s undeniable that I’m overweight, and my BMI actually classifies me as obese for my height. I wish I could say I remain “body positive,” like the widespread eponymous movement would so desperately like me to be, but I actually carry a great amount of shame when I walk into stores and see what I should be fitting into at my age. You could say it… weighs on me greatly.
Shame is not an effective motivator. Shame gets nothing done. In fact, in my experience, shame about weight leads only to discouragement, which leads to comforting binging. I would love to adopt a more positive attitude toward my physical self.
However, there’s a big difference between body positivity and fat acceptance.
In this ever-complicating world of ours, there is a movement dedicated to almost any and every cause in existence, and many of these movements - especially liberal movements - are focused on acceptance, tolerance, and inclusion. One of these movements, the body positive movement, encourages a healthier self-image and a more forgiving attitude toward whatever kind of body you have. The fat acceptance movement, however, touts the normalcy of, the beauty of, and the “unjustified” mainstream bias against the fat body. These two movements may sound similar, but in reality, they couldn’t be more different.
If, in that store I walked into, I were to meet a true body positivity advocate, they would tell me that I should not judge myself for not currently meeting the social ideal, but instead direct my energy toward noticing what I like about myself and magnifying those traits as I work to improve my physical health. A fat acceptance advocate, though, would probably tell me not to patronize a store that doesn’t carry large enough sizes to suit me, and that society as a whole is effed up for not including me in its definition of beautiful.
My body is the result of the way I’ve treated it for years and years. I’ve made plenty of unhealthy choices, which is why I am 225 pounds. There is no reason that the media, or any business, or society as the whole, should have to cater to my “needs” as an overweight individual. It may be an intelligent business decision not to alienate members of a certain demographic, but I am in no way justified in demanding that a store carry clothes that flatter my larger body, or that Disney heralds the age of the “princess of size.”
Body positivity is about loving myself in spite of the body that I hate so that I can work to change it; fat acceptance has me fighting self-love tooth and nail.
