The first step you as a thin person can do to start combatting fatphobia, both internal and external, even before listening to fat people and their stories, is start noticing it. Just work on yourself and play I Spy until you notice it.
Look around the streets of your city. Look at people, look at their bodies and sizes. Then look at everything else.
Look at the ads that exclusively show thin people selling everything - even things that have nothing to do with thinness. Toothpaste. Garden supplies. Jewelry.
Look at your social media feed. Are there fat people there? Do artists that you follow ever draw fat people? Are blorbos on your tumblr dashboard ever fat characters? Are your own ocs ever fat? Are comedians you watch on youtube fat? Do they make fat jokes?
Look at the seats in the bus you take to work. Ask yourself: Why are they this size? Look at the clothing sizes in the thrift store or regular store you go to for your socks and underwear. How big is the biggest basic t-shirt they offer? What about a basic blazer that one could wear to a job interview? Have you ever been to a plus size section? Does your store have one? What are the prices like there? Is the selection same as in 'regular' section?
Are you feeling extra curious? Open up a search engine, type in 'weight limit furniture' and click on a couple of top results. Just read. Ask one question: Why?
Why are there no fat people selling you toothpaste? This is not to endorse the amount of advertisement we are bombarded with, but it is representative of our current culture, however mad that makes you. Why is it only thin people are ever portrayed in any creation - be it something valuable like cinema or some forgettable trash like the latest cleaning supplies advert with an annoying jingle?
Why are fat people not in the art you view? Why are they not in your social media feed? Why are they not enjoying the same clothing and furniture options? Why?
And then, if you have fat friends, go and talk to them. If you don't have fat friends, ask yourself why you don't. Count the amount of fat people you see on streets every day versus the amount of fat people you see in any other medium. Recall the last time you saw a fat character in art AND that character was a positive one and treated with respect.
This is all before you get to know about medical fatphobia, struggle to build relationships both straight and/or queer. This is all before you go into statistics about employement and housing discrimination. That's before you read about 7 year old children on 500 calorie diets.
Just look around and for fucks sake, start noticing things.
andulkaphoto
2087
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