Mailbox time! The other day, I received a wonderful message from a college friend, and she agreed to let me share it with you:
Hi Bethany. I just wanted to personally thank you for what you are doing. I started following your writing about a month ago. I have always felt like a fairly typical woman….thin in my teens and 20s and have gradually gained some weight with kids and life stress. I’m about a size 12/14 depending and would love to lose a few lbs to feel more comfortable in my own skin. I never thought your writing directly represented me but I have a strong feeling that women need to support one another. Today I learned differently. Fat shaming happens at all sizes and it is devastating. You are so strong. Thank you for being the woman that you are.
If you guessed that this message made me cry, you’re right! I believe so much in what I write here, and sometimes I wonder if my work is making a difference. It’s so rewarding to know that people are not just listening to what I’m saying, they’re really hearing my message.
Okay, so the point of this post isn’t just to toot my own horn. It’s to address the most important part of my friend’s message: that she didn’t think BFD directly represented her. Maybe you feel the same. Maybe you’re thin, have been thin all your life. Maybe you have never experienced fat shaming. What meaning, then, could BFD possibly have for your life? Why should it matter to you?
Because:
- Fat and body shaming exist on a spectrum. What is fat to one person is small to another, and enormous to someone else. There is not some magical number – weight, BMI, pant size – under which you will suddenly be safe from fat and body shaming. When we think of body shaming, our minds often go to extremes, imagining the very fat or the very thin, but the truth is that there are probably very, very few people – if any! – who do not experience body shaming of some sort. It’s practically our national pastime.
- You love a fat person. Probably more than one. Mothers, fathers, great aunts, second cousins, high school best friends, step-children, your mailman… There are so many wonderful people in your life, and some of them are fat. It’s inevitable: more than a third of Americans are considered “obese,” after all! You can come here to learn something about the issues that concern the fat people you love – including how to support them.
- Children will listen. Kids aren’t born to hate and fear – they are taught those things. You can teach your children to mock and ridicule and shame people who look (and think and act) differently than you, or you can teach them to enjoy and embrace the amazing diversity of humans who populate our planet. You can teach your children that their bodies are shameful and disgusting unless they look a specific way, or you can teach them to love, fuel, and move their bodies in healthy ways, to appreciate all the things they can do – rather than just what they look like.
- You will need it one day. That’s not some future curse of fatness I’m placing on you. You might get fat, or you might not. But one day, something will happen that will make you feel like your body is not good enough. That message might come from a magazine, a doctor, your spouse, or even yourself. And when that time comes, I want you to have the strength to endure it, and to know that you are more than that message.
My college classmate is right: Women need to support one another. People need to support one another. It doesn’t matter if you can’t directly relate to what I write here. You can listen, and you can keep an open mind, and you can try to understand my perspective and experiences. You can take what we talk about here and use it help make the world a better place for fat people. Along the way, you’ll be making the world a better place for everyone – yourself included.
