Let’s Reclaim The Word ‘Fat’ #ReclaimFat
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Let’s Reclaim The Word ‘Fat’
Someone describing me as fat used to be the worst thing in the world to me. Whether it was
someone I cared about casually describing me as it, or a stranger in the street hurling the word at me
with bile, it destroyed me every time. It was worse than being told I was a bad person, worse than
being disbelieved about something, fat was the thing. That was what I allowed to hurt me.
I really did let it hurt me. I hated myself. Every time I heard someone used the word I assumed it
was about me, and it was bad, and it would bother me for days. I told myself I was disgusting, and
fat fat fat, and I hid myself in clothes to try and hide my fatness and in turn, hide myself from the
world. I was angry with myself, and I hated every fat inch of me. Which is a lot of inches to hate!
One day I realised something profoundly important for me. I realised that the word fat is just
that. A word. And the only reason it hurt me, was because I let it. So I decided I wouldn’t let it hurt
me anymore, and do you know what? It doesn’t. Learning to acknowledge that I am fat was probably
the single most important step on my journey to self-love. I am not curvy. I am not voluptuous. I am
not curvysexilicious, or whatever other ridiculous word people have decided to use this week. I am
fat. And that’s ok too!
As a fat person, it is up to me to reclaim the word fat, and use it to describe myself, to destroy the
power that it has to hurt others. Now when someone calls me fat, I can simply say ‘And?’ I’m fat just
like I am tall, and pink haired, and have big feet. It’s just a description of something I am.
My self-worth is not tangled up in a word, just because society has told me to be afraid of that word.
I am fat. It’s as simple as that.
Yes! Everything about this is perfect ?
I really loved this. It is so true! Fat is just a word and that’s okay. Plus, no one word can describe a person anyway. I am fat AND a million other things. Thanks for the lovely read!
you go grrrrl!
I like to think of fat as an adjective in the same list as other words like curvy, voluptuous, shapely, jiggly, chubby, tubby, large and plus size. All of these words mean the same thing to me. I think the only terms I could alienate would be things like ‘busty’ as I know a lot of fat girls who don’t particularly feel their weight has been distributed to their boobies!