Fatness

I think about fatness a lot, except when I forget about it while I’m living basically my entire life and then folks or certain situations remind me. But the fatness I’ve been thinking about lately is not my own.

Fat has been a personal descriptor for me my entire life. Whether I was actually fat or not; I was told I was fat so often that I believed it. I believed I was fat even when I was not fat. Wow. Even now as I write that it is shocking. When I was only a slightly plump and super active young girl and teen, riding my bike miles every day; to the library for more books to devour, to the grocery on errands for Mom or Mamaw, to piano lessons or to hang out with my great-aunt or delivering 85 newspapers 7 days a week for years, I was still called “fat.” So when I have actually been fat, none of my motivation for losing weight has ever been about “not being fat.” In my world, that reality has never existed.

But I digress. The fatness I have been thinking about is how fatness is viewed and treated in our culture. It’s the social movements around fatness and fat activism that are on my mind. Fat is intersectional. We are people of varying colors, ethnicities, genders, religions, and economic classes. Our communities don’t all view “fatness” the same. Some cultures of the past and present appreciate fatness in ways other cultures despise it. No matter our backgrounds, those of us who are fat share plenty in common: challenges with the built environment, buying vehicles, shopping for clothes, having equitable medical care and above all, being seen and treated as people first, vs. fat first.

When I started this blog, talking about weight was one of my goals. I knew there was plenty to talk about, an entire social movement to dig into, my own personal stories and viewpoints, and a good bit more research and writing on fatness topics ripe for conversation.

I have been working my own views and coming to terms with my own fatness my entire life. For the most part I have carried this around in my own head, processing it only occasionally and in the safest possible spaces. For me those have been my journal, therapists’ office, a few implicitly trusted friends and my spouse. I’ll continue to do that. But it’s time to move the “inside voice” to the “outside voice.” It’s time to join the collective conversation.

So today I’m starting that with this post. I’ll be talking about my own journey to being healthy (not to be read as weight loss journey) and creating a resource list of books, blogs, research articles, sites, to accompany this section of the blog. It’s time we talked about fatness in something besides comedy routines, hushed whispers and weight loss programs. I hope, no matter what your body size, you will choose to join me in this blogging journey. There is plenty for us all to learn!