On the show "My Big Fat Fabulous Life," star Whitney Way Thore teaches a dance class called "Big Girl Dance Class" and heads up a campaign she calls the #NoBodyShameCampaign.
In this campaign, she strongly influences people to destigmatize the words "fat" and "skinny." On her most recently aired episode, Whitney faced a bully, comedian Kerryn Feehan. Now, I'm not writing to fight a battle for Whitney. She is quite capable of fighting her own battles. I am writing to address the issue presented in this episode: fat-shaming.
I was recently diagnosed with PCOS, the syndrome Whitney from "MBFFL" has. A symptom of this is rapid weight gain, and therefore the comments made by Ms. Feehan offended me pretty personally. Now I am not fat, however, I'm not exactly skinny either.
But really, what is fat? What is skinny? By definition, the word fat merely means "a person or animal having a large amount of excess flesh" (dictionary.com). It is America that has stigmatized the word to mean lazy, careless, undisciplined and full of excuses.
In many other countries, Fiji, Jamaica, South Africa, Afghanistan and many others, being fat is being beautiful, so why do we put so much emphasis on being skinny here when everywhere else doesn't see skinny as beautiful?
Now, I'm not saying that being beautiful is only being fat. But, contrary to popular belief, being skinny doesn't make you beautiful and being fat doesn't make you ugly. Being fat doesn't make you lazy; being skinny doesn't mean you're active or fit. Being fat doesn't make you unhealthy; being skinny doesn't make you healthy. Being fat doesn't make you less of a person. And guess what, being skinny doesn't give you the right to judge someone.
You don't know someone's story or what they've been through. Until you know and have been through it yourself, you have no right to judge someone. If someone has struggled with his or her weight all of their life, bringing it up and fat-shaming only makes the person more self-conscious.
If someone gains a lot of weight in short span of time, it doesn't mean they've quit trying. For all you know, there could be something wrong. Our society throws around the word fat like it's a curse word. As if saying it toward someone makes them less than you, but fat is only an adjective for someone's appearance. It does nothing to describe his or her life or describe who he or she is as a person.
So, before you judge and throw around the f-word, keep in mind that calling someone fat won't make you feel better about yourself. There is no perfect person, no perfect size because beauty has no weight limit.
