Happy Fat

Let people decide for themselves what they do with their bodies, and allow yourself to do what feels best on any given day.

had my first two-page spread published in

The negative connotations came later; hissed at us by a parent

posh grocery shop

Your Inner Two-Year-Old

Your

Like Substantia Jones or Shoog McDaniel who take beautiful photos of naked fat people for the world to see, like Kivan Bay who educates anyone who follows him on Twitter about fat studies for free, like Cat Pausé travelling Europe to teach about fatphobia, or like Cameron Esposito, a perfect example of an ally who is not fat, making sure to include queer, fat voices in her podcast Queery.

Substantia Jones, and the Instagram account, @Shooglet, are excellent places to start. Listening to community-based podcasts like She’s All Fat, Friend of Marilyn and Bad Fat Broads! can make you feel less alone.

There is no escaping your body. You can ignore its signals to the extent where it is almost invisible to you, but it is there. It is time to face yourself – terrifying as it may sound. It is time to acknowledge that you are fat. That your body looks the way it does.
Your body is a mishmash of blood, veins, skin, fat, organs, nails, hair and brains. It is an incredible machine as well. Your body is busy trying to keep you alive: a process that looks different depending on how your body works. It is healing wounds and growing hair in places you have been conditioned to think of as inconvenient. Leave it be. Thinking of it as a machine or a car might make you appreciate it more.
By fleeing from the fact that you have a fat body, you become invisible to yourself. You owe yourself more than this. You deserve to be a full, whole, visible, fat human being.

If this is the first you ever read about fatness in this way, chances are, you are surrounded by fatphobia in your workplace and your family and social life. Because, let’s face it, we all are. In order to properly embrace Fat Liberation, suddenly your whole world view will need to change. Every little conversation can become a possible battlefield. If you want to completely rid your life of toxic fatphobia, you may need to have some difficult conversations with colleagues, friends and family.
I acknowledge that this is terrifying. There are friends I no longer see, family members I no longer speak to, movies I cannot watch, music I cannot listen to, because of fatphobia and my awareness of it.
Excluding fat-hate from your life is not a necessity. You can carry on the way you are now and still work on your feelings towards yourself. I am just telling you that it is difficult. And there is a chance that you might not want to carry on the way you live now. Cutting the fatphobia out of your life is one of the most helpful and healthy things you can do. It is toxic – and it is scary and difficult. Loving yourself wholly is difficult and scary. But once you get to the other side, the grass is actually greener. Not only is the grass greener, but it is positively trampled flat by a horde of fat people dancing happily on top of it. Naked, flaunting our big, floppy bellies about the place.
I want you to feel warned. If you embark on this pilgrimagefn9 towards self-love, you have to be prepared for things to change. There is something very sweet and comforting about societal conventions.