I Won’t Change My Fat Body For You
I’ve gotten used to being the fattest girl in the room. I am the fattest one in my group of girlfriends, in my immediate family, in my office at work.
Some days I look in the mirror, and I‘m perplexed. I see a woman taking up what seems like a minute amount of space in comparison to the world we live in. Some days I look in the mirror and think, I’m just fine. After five years of self-discovery and hard work, there are more days now where I like myself and the body I live in.
That I am too fat. That there are places on my body that roll and drape and pillow and dimple where they should be flat and smooth and tight. My hips are wide; my ass is expansive. My breasts are bigger than they used to be because my whole body is, and I like that part, but I don’t like so much that if I lean back just right I can feel a part of my back touching another part of my back that I never used to be able to feel.
There are days when I’ve been flirting with a new guy, or the sun has been out and I’m feeling light, or the weather has warmed and I’m wearing more dresses. Those days, when I put on a pretty outfit I feel confident and pretty. I find a shirt that matches my eyes and it looks so good the way it cinches in just below my bust then flows out, not clinging to the parts of me I have been conditioned to hide. I put on sparkly earrings and leather boots and curl my eyelashes, and feel like I might be able to take on anything.
Other days I try to go clothes shopping and am reminded that finding that perfect shirt took hours and hours of looking and trying on, of discomfort and returns. I end up feeling upset and frustrated because clothes just are not made for this body. Yes, there are “plus sized” clothes out there. Things have improved since I was a size 14 eighteen-year-old and the only clothes made for anyone with hips that wide looked like they were made for my grandmother.
I am 5’7″, and when I go to Lane Bryant, most of the pants are still 2–3 inches too long for me. So… am I supposed to be an Amazon? The average height for women in the U.S. is 5’4″. Maybe I am supposed to balance my 290 pounds on a pair of 6-inch heels? Most of the shirts and dresses available there gape in the chest because even with the weight I’ve gained, my D cups are apparently not the right size to match the rest of me. I follow influencers I admire on Instagram and drool over skinny jeans that fit their size 26 waist but are still tight on the ankles. When I click through, they are always over $100 a pair, and that’s a huge barrier for many people, including me.
Plus size clothes are made for women who are proportionately larger. Women who are 6 feet tall and have a 45-inch waist — not for women like me. There are few clothes out there made for a woman with thin ankles but bulky thighs, wide hips, and a big belly. I carry much of my weight around my middle, especially in the front, and if you search #vbo on Instagram, you’ll see that I’m not the only one who needs their pants to accommodate the lower half of my stomach.
Here’s something I don’t admit very often. I am more comfortable naked than I am clothed. I have been naked in front of friends, men, lovers, and strangers, and felt completely at ease. When I am naked, all I am is myself.
When I am naked, I feel normal. When I try to squash and push and shove myself into clothes not made for me, when I choose the wrong shirt and I have to adjust it all day long, feeling self-conscious and uncomfortable, it can be hard to feel even a semblance of normal.
Some days I try to get dressed and put on two or three outfits before I settle and feel comfortable and like I can be seen in public. I shove shirts I love into the donation bag because they’ve shrunk just a tad and I can see the visible outline of my belly inside my jeans.
I have stretch marks on my stomach and my breasts, but also on my upper arms, around the sides near my elbows, and on the sides of my hips. Some days, I run my fingers over that shiny soft skin and I wonder at the velvet softness of it. When you gain and lose 50 pounds or more multiple times in relatively short time periods, these squiggly reminders are inevitable. Some women call them tiger stripes — mostly women who are thinner than me, I think, and who see their stretch marks as their largest imperfection.
There are days when I feel beautiful, attractive, sexy. Where my boyfriend looks at me that way, or one of my friends tells me how lovely I am, or where I look in the mirror and see my happiness written on my skin like a beautiful song. Where life manages to overtake conditioning and remind me that I can enjoy things even if I’m a size 26.
Other days, I remember that I am undesirable, or desired only as a fetishized version of myself. Men ask me if I am a BBW. I am not a BBW; I am just a W. If you think I’m beautiful, maybe I’m a BW, but why does this term even exist for women who are larger? Only because a fetish needed a name. It reduces me to someone ONLY liked because I am fat. Or, they tell me that I’m not fat, which is just as bad.
I am fat, and being fat and beautiful don’t have to be mutually exclusive… right? I believe that, but they’ve just made it abundantly clear that they don’t.
There are more and more days when I rage, my mind a storm of defiance and power. Who are all of these people to tell me that I am not worth looking at? Who are they to tell me that I am not good enough, that I am not enough? Who are they to tell me that I don’t have just as much right to happiness as they do? Screw them! I am a human being, a beautiful one, inside and out. I am funny, and talented, and smart, and worth looking at, worth touching, worth loving.
I know that other women see me and feel relieved because they aren’t the fat one. Every day, I am exposed to images and ads, articles and videos, reminders that make it perfectly clear to me that my fat, the shape of me, makes me a BURDEN on society. There are days that I know that people look at me as the problem. They believe I deserve less because I am… lazy. Ugly. Slobby. Not trying. Unhealthy. Not caring. Fat. Obese. Disgusting. Sometimes on those days, I start to believe that I am doing something to other people just by existing.
There used to be days when I thought about losing weight. Joining Weight Watchers again, joining the YMCA, somehow carving out space after 9 hours of work and errands and parenting for an hour of exercise I’ll hate every moment of. I used to tell myself that if I lost weight it would be for me. To feel more comfortable, to be able to do things that I want to do that require more flexibility and stamina.
Now, most days, I am just angry. I don’t think I want to lose weight at all. I think mostly I know that I am SUPPOSED to want to be skinnier (and therefore better). I watch friends who want to lose weight and the way diet culture takes over their lives, and I think realistically about the damage yo-yo dieting does to human bodies and the psychological damage of the disappointment when the scale doesn’t move.
It’s pervasive, insulting, and minimizing. I wonder if I only think about being less fat because people have told me repeatedly that I am NOT GOOD ENOUGH. That if I am fat, I should WANT to lose weight, because being thinner is being worthwhile. I am angry that I am judged, and I want to throw it in their faces and say, no, I will not change myself for you.
I’ve been taught that the fattest girl in the room is not the happy girl. She is not the one who glows and laughs and smiles. She is not the one who gets the boy in the end. She is not the one with the high-powered job and nice car and fashionable clothes. She is not the one who is respected and wanted and admired.
I’m done with listening to what I’m supposed to do and be. I am the fattest girl in the room, and I deserve better.
I Won’t Change My Fat Body For You
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