Fat. It’s a term that usually causes fear in the hearts of those who don’t use it as a self-descriptor. All through the pandemic I watched and listened as friends, family and randoms on social media cried out over how terrifying it was that they were gaining weight, that they could *in shock and horror,* become fat themselves. Now this may not have been that hard for you to bear witness to if you’re on the thinner side or if you too were scrambling to stay small throughout the last 3 years. However for myself, someone who was weighing in at 255 pounds at the start of 2020, it was a nightmare. Watching people you care for discuss how ending up in a body like yours was the worst thing that could possibly happen to them, wasn’t necessarily the self-love boost you could imagine it being. Now let me make this clear I loved my fat body. I didn’t always but after 7 years of working on how I viewed myself I was in a really good place with my body. It was mine and I found beauty in it. I started wearing lingerie and taking sexy photos that made me empowered. I wore what I wanted, when I wanted and when folks made negative comments about it, I told them exactly where they could shove it. I even got fat pinups tattooed on my arm with a saying “This body is mine to cherish and love.” It wasn’t easy getting to that point though.
I don’t think I knew just how fatphobic society is, how systemic it is. My humanity is something that I have fought to gain in the eyes of the world around me since the age of 5. Discrimination works in this way. It robs you of your humanity, or more accurately it robs you of others being able to see your humanity. As a racialized queer woman, I often find that the systems established by individuals who do not understand my lived experiences may not consistently provide the care and kindness that I rightfully deserve. Which means I often am able to curate spaces of safety through surrounding myself with community. However being fat, and how fatness is viewed is very rarely siloed. It crosses race and gender lines and almost uniformly across the globe seen as something negative. Of course there are outlining communities whose views on beauty and size differ drastically, but in most societies, and even more so in ones in the global north, weight is a signifier of not only beauty but worth. And with that comes your humanity or lack thereof. I remember when I first began to gain weight. I went from a 115 pound 15 year old to a 160 pound 18 year old, and people were not afraid to point that out. Nor were they afraid to mince or sugar coat how they brought it to my attention, as if I couldn’t see the weight gain myself. People seem to be exceptionally cruel when someone begins to become fat, it also apparently becomes a topic for group discussion. It wasn’t just the one off person, who felt the need to message me to tell me how much I had gained, but it was also “friends” letting me know that someone else had mentioned it to them. Soon it didn’t matter if someone was close to me or a random on the street, it was if everyone felt entitled to telling me just how fat I was.
I will never forget visiting with one of my mom’s old friends and her attempting to joke that she “almost couldn’t fit her arms around me to hug me” because I had just gotten so big. Nor the time I was leaving a club with some friends and a man said, “looks like someone forgot to step on the scale before leaving the house.” Only to tell me that I’m cute and that he would like to talk to me. I simply ceased being a person with feelings, and a kind heart and instead just became this fat girl that everyone thought they could weigh in on, no pun intended. People couldn’t see me anymore. I was basically invisible to them, unless it was an opportunity to comment on my body. It wasn’t just about the comments concerning my beauty, it was also how I experienced the rest of the world too. Want cute clothes that don’t look like they were made for a toddler and a 65 year old woman at the same time? Nice try. Want options for sizes past XL while shopping in person? Not happening. Dealing with health issues that predate your weight gain or that you know are underlying factors? Wrong, it’s because you’re fat. Chairs that don’t accommodate larger bodies, not finding them. Want to be able to eat in peace without people watching your every bite? Eat alone at home. Want a job in customer service? Ya right.
Now I’m not saying you can’t live a full and happy life in a fat body. I’m saying that society tries to make it impossible for you. It’s not your fat body that’s the problem, despite what everyone tries to tell you. It’s that the system itself is inherently fatphobic. And as a fat person you’re forced to navigate through a system and society that does not think you deserve to live let alone be happy. Which is why so many people are confused when despite all of that, as a fat person, that you still love yourself. So in 2021 when my Hypothyroidism was finally diagnosed and I was put on the proper medication and I started to lose weight, I was devastated. Because when I was 15 and 115 pounds I HATED my body. I was extremely insecure, had an eating disorder and wanted to be in anyone else’s body but my own. I too was fatphobic and terrified of becoming fat.
I will never forget looking at a photo of myself where I was so thin you could see my hip bones and thinking, “wow I look disgustingly fat.” It wasn’t until I was actually in a fat body, where I had to learn to love myself, that I actually did in fact, love myself. My fat body taught me that I was someone worth loving. That my body was beautiful and deserved to be seen and cared for. So when I began to drastically lose weight all of my old insecurities came rushing back. I didn’t know how to dress my body anymore and I felt awkward and out of place in this much smaller body. I’ve lost 100 pounds and to be honest I don’t feel better. Not in the ways society wants me to.
Yet it wasn’t just the insecurities that came rushing back with the weight loss, I gained something else back as well. My humanity. You see people who had treated me horribly over the last 3 years all of a sudden decided I was someone worth loving again. A family member who had previously referred to me as disgusting, marveled at how beautiful I now looked. Which was ironic because I’ve had the same exact face since childhood. People who I had partied with and been in spaces with were wide eyed at how gorgeous I was and asked to see more of me. Some flat out said I looked more beautiful since losing weight and I’ve lost count at how many people have raved about how I’m “glowing” now. The most disturbing comments have been from men reminiscing about how I’m starting to look like the old Shanese they remember, aka pree 18 year old Shanese. As if my 15 year old body was more appealing to them than the body I had as a grown woman throughout my 20’s. The world can finally see me again and honestly I wish they couldn’t. It feels gross and leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It might sound out of touch to you, for me to complain about all the privileges that come with being in a smaller body. But I share this to say that being small or thin isn’t always everyone’s goal and doesn’t automatically bring happiness. I share this to say I was just as deserving of my humanity when I was fat as I am small. I share this to say that the fat people in your life are also deserving of their humanity. They deserve to be happy and healthy and free in their fat bodies, just as much as you do in your thin one. I also share this to say that every fat person who became thin didn’t necessarily do so because they wanted to or because they hated their fat bodies. Some of us got sick or were forced to lose weight and that it’s ok that we wish we were still in our old bodies.
Being thin now means that fatness has started to become the boogeyman again. Despite me missing that old body and how much I loved myself in it, I’m afraid that if I go back there I’ll lose my humanity again. I’m so much more aware of every roll and fold now. I’m monitoring my body in a way that I haven’t done since I was an insecure teen. Everyday is a constant battle to fight the re-internalizing of fatphobia, to not look at old photos of myself to compare against this new body. That’s the ironic thing about fatphobia, that I am more fearful of my body now then I ever was when I was fat. Maybe I’ll write a love letter to my old body to remind myself just how secure I was in it, how it felt like home. But for now I’m writing this instead, so that I can show you, and myself, that being thin doesn’t bring the happiness society promises us it would.
Nutmeg and Sage 