Let’s Talk: Fat Positivity and Acceptance (TW: Slight abelism and health references)

For those following me on Twitter, you probably would have seen me retweeting, liking and occasionally tweeting about anything ‘fat’-related. This was because this year I decided to take part and help participate in giving fat people the positivity and comfort they need, and of course, being wary of the fat hate/judgements in the media, from fictional and non-fictional shows to the news themselves. So let me explain my story how and why I did get into and decide to support fellow fat people.

In my younger days, while I don’t believe I saw fat characters in media as funny (unless it was some accident because any character of any size getting hurt seemed to make me laugh), I was somehow confused when those fat characters were made fun of or called out at home. I think in hindsight I might’ve just adored them a lot but my feelings were a tad conflicted at the time. My understanding of the world was terrible since I learned and understood situations really late, but a story for another time. I was always thin before the end of high school, so I didn’t face fat discrimination before then.

Going into high school, I apparently started to believe the term ‘fat’ itself was a bad thing, but somehow I think at that point the two o words (overweight and o***e) were perfectly ok, probably because of health classes. So of course I never necessarily learnt much since I had my own problems to deal with, but by my last year of high school I decided to not care about people’s opinions of me because they didn’t define me. So I did start gaining weight in that last year and of course I had remarks about being an o***e kid, or that I’d had health issues in the future and even that I should be eating more greens, which were fairly impacting and made me feel miserable for a time. And to be truthful, while I did like the passion of being a Sonic the Hedgehog wannabe since super young, the whole want to be the fastest dreams got abandoned when facing my own issues in high school. To be fair, I sacrificed my physical health to prioritise my mental health when it got super bad in the last year of high school, and even after I took about half a year off of life so I can have a clean slate.

I kinda had myself into that feederism kink when gaining (and to be fair now given paid job rejections, doing that under sex work might be my only means alongside music creating might be my best chances if I’m not accepted elsewhere). Despite that, I did want to do what I could to explain why not to fatshame or even explain (what I knew of at the time) body positivity in that last year of high school, mainly thanks to knowing Whitney Way Thore the previous year. I came across Ok2BeFat and FatphobiaBusters as well on tumblr in my final year too, so I was glad I had some support out there so I can learn to love myself in the body that was changing. I don’t believe being what’s called a ‘feedee’ makes you a bad person, and I’m that being said, supportive of sex work as well because it’s still work, you get money, so it’s still a job! But of course it doesn’t mean all those into feederism are hunky dory people; fetishing people is definitely wrong if you’re not remembering they’re human.

Things got more real last year however when I dropped in a mini-university course however, because when I dropped a link to a post about thin privilege, one of my much thinner classmates I was once friends with decided to get angry and compare her thin-shaming issues to fat shaming. She attempted to ‘neutralise’ and say both types of bodies should be treated fairly, but saying I need a reputable source that thin privilege exists. And I’m pretty certain at the time you could not be that low to have actual academic research to prove a certain privilege exists. And later on her and one of her other friends decide to use family members to prove their point that ‘fat is unhealthy’ in another argument later that year. I knew then how serious and low some people would be just to justify why they shouldn’t give fat people, be it their relatives or anyone, basic respect.

Last year was just me trying to get my mental mind back into an ‘okay’ state otherwise. I learned a lot about the faults of media when they project the negatives of being fat and hide/ignore the facts which challenge it, like you’re more likely to survive heart attacks, or that eating sugar doesn’t give you diabetes.

Then this year I decided to try however possible to help make a difference and silence fat haters and support fat people, and that ended up majorly online so far. I made my own FaceBook group for fat positivity as well, and while it’s small right now, I have hopes it’ll get bigger and that positivity spreads to even more out there. I’m gonna keep going to raise the awareness that all fat people deserve respect, that healthism is a dangerous topic, and what we eat, how we’re seen on TV, the size of our bodies and our lifestyles do NOT define us.

And I hope all of you out there can do the same too.