#fat-positivity

[sunnymeddows]

Really could use more fat-positive and just plain fat characters in my life, @ mainstream media @ netflix

[radtransfem]

I read somewhere once that women were willing to trade years off their life to be/stay thin, so why can’t I say I’m willing to trade years off my life to be happy?

hlkolaya, Health is not an obligation

[Trigger warning: Talk of suicide, dieting, eating disorders, self harm, strong language]

I think one of the best things about HAES is how it instantly exposes how the health concern trolls (including the internalised ones) never really cared about health at all. For those still concerned with health, there's this.

[radtransfem]

After 52 years of being obese, with a skinny interim of maybe 5-6 years, I have at long last learned to rejoice in my big self. Too large for the social spaces I’m in now, and spaces like academia that I moved in earlier, I am the right size for me. Men can’t easily talk down to me, either physically or intellectually, nor do most women... Most comforting now, I’ve begun writing again, taking up as much space as I want in words and letters.

Grie Verd, FAT comfort: wrestling with the image police

[cyyynthesizer-blog]

Fat Is Not a Fairy Tale

Fat Is Not a Fairy Tale

I am thinking of a fairy tale, Cinder Elephant, Sleeping Tubby, Snow Weight, where the princess is not anorexic, wasp-waisted, flinging herself down the stairs.

I am thinking of a fairy tale, Hansel and Great, Repoundsel, Bounty and the Beast, where the beauty has a pillowed breast, and fingers plump as sausage.

I am thinking of a fairy tale that is not yet written, for a teller not yet born, for a listener not yet conceived, for a world not yet won, where everything round is good: the sun, wheels, cookies, and the princess.

-Jane Yolen

[gothcrossing-blog]

It's a new blog specifically featuring fat-positive goths, lolitas, and other alternative styles. In short, BRILLIANT.

[otherxcore]

A reminder to everyone: the BMI (body mass index) scale is total bullshit.

At 5'4" and about 188 pounds, my BMI is 32.3. Ooh, if I get down to 174 pounds, I can stop being obese and just be overweight!

If you've ever used your BMI as an indicator of "how fat you are," please don't ever do it again. It leaves out so many variables and is such bullshit that I can't even believe it's widely accepted as a good indicator of health (as if fat has anything to do with health in a lot of people; it can, of course, but it doesn't happen as often as people say it does).

I currently weigh about what I weighed in maybe fourth or fifth grade. At my heaviest, probably sometime between 6th and 8th grade, I weighed 230 pounds. I have been fat my whole life. (My first pair of jeans, grade 3, were a size 18.) However, I was also a gymnast until I was 10 or so and a dancer until I was maybe 17. I've been a vegetarian since I was 12 years old and have gradually been working towards a diet that doesn't rely heavily on junk foods and 100 calorie packs.

I have lost a lot of weight in the past six months or so. People are telling me I'm shrinking away, calling me skinny, telling me how great I look. I know the intentions are good, and I appreciate the sentiments, but it's truly confusing. I still wear plus sizes (most of the time; I'm finally fitting into "regular" sizes at places like Urban Outfitters and Forever 21, and I bought a pair of size 32 pants today), my BMI says I'm obese, and I've finally embraced my body enough to call myself fat and love it, but am I really fat? Am I allowed to call myself fat at 190 pounds, especially because I keep losing weight? This is a big issue for me. "Society" still sees me as fat, but I don't know if other fat people do. Sometimes, I wonder if I've just got a severe case of BDD and just can't see how thin I actually have gotten, because I do definitely still see myself as fat, although I know I have size privilege because I've gotten fairly small.

My weight loss has been really confusing in general. For years and years, I was sent to dieticians, put on different diets, told to keep food journals, and all kinds of shit. I was always active, but I was pushed to be even more active. No matter how hard I tried to lose weight, though, I couldn't drop more than five pounds, and it always came back. Now, however, I'm always broke and busy, and I'm trying to switch to a mostly raw plant-based diet with very few sweets, and I'm dropping pounds and inches like crazy. I did not change my diet with the intent to lose weight. I've chosen to eat more fruits and vegetables and fewer grains and sugars because I know I don't get enough nutrients on a daily basis and diabetes runs rampant in my family, so I need to be careful about what I put into my body. Once I embraced fat-positivity, I told myself that I never wanted to make it under 200 pounds; suddenly, I'm inching my way down toward 180, and I don't know how to feel. Should I feel good about losing the weight? Should I embrace the compliments and ignore the fact that they seem to imply that I never looked good before? Am I allowed to call myself a fat girl and be more than just an ally to fat activists? 

I really would like to hear what other people have to say on the matter. Is there a point at which one can't be a fat activist and must step down to being an ally? Is there some sort of a scale involved with fatness? At what point is one fat or thin, and is it subjective? How should us fat people cope with weight loss when we identify as fat-positive?