To the person in the friend group who always calls themselves the "fat friend",
You’re breaking my heart. Quit it.
You might be putting up a front by beating mean people to the punch… but maybe you’re actually just enabling them. If a slightly bigger-than-average person can call themselves “fat” then what’s holding them back? They’re just going to say it too because you made them think it was okay.
Don’t enable others to call you something that, deep down, you know you despise. The word “fat” is such an ugly word. It implies that you SHOULD feel bad about the way you look. People always use it as a word to hatefully describe someone else.
You’re categorizing yourself and removing yourself from what society thinks is “normal” or “average.” What actually is average or normal?
It’s possible it’s a case of body dysmorphia. Body dysmorphia is a mental disorder characterized by the obsessive idea that some aspect of one’s own appearance is severely flawed and demands exceptional measures to hide or fix it. You can learn more about it here.
Maybe it goes to that extent, or maybe not, but who doesn’t at least look at one part of their body and overanalyze, fixate on it, and make it out to be something worse than it actually is?
You might just have broader shoulders. Your hips might just sit a little wider. Who cares if you’re not petite? Chances are, the petite probably wish they had a little meat on their bones where you do. But everyone has their thing, and the grass is always greener.
You know it’s something you think about lying in bed at night, being called the “fat friend.” You’ve said it yourself, and now others say it around you.
You think about the way someone says it to you. Then you think you might just be overdramatic… but your feelings were still hurt. So, don’t discount or discredit that feeling. You are not fat. You are beautiful. You are special. You are perfect.
Don’t feel bad about the way you look. Don’t give others a reason to make you feel worse. Please don’t call yourself the “fat friend.”