Love Your Fat Self

Adheid, check your facts. Many people that you might consider overweight also enjoy eating vegetables and tofu. In fact, some of them live entirely on that type of food. If you have a genetic disposition to be heavier, or a thyroid malfunction, or any other number of reasons, then your outer appearance will be no indication of your diet...and in fact, it's very common that such people have the strictest diets of all, since anything even approaching a "normal" diet would send them spinning into out-of-control obesity.

Bradley, thanks for your comment on the morality/immorality of fat vs. thin. You are absolutely right--the only way that morality should come into play is if your weight is caused by harming others. So if you are thin because you get your exercise killing people--or you're heavy because you take food away from others who need it, or you eat a lot of slaughtered animals, then you could argue that it's a morality issue. Otherwise, to quote Gareth: "Let the fat/skinny bitches/bastards shut up!".

I am a thin person and I have to say that I am far from a boring dinner guest. What I eat has nothing to do with how fun I am. I also enjoy my food and cooking for others. I also enjoy eating vegetables and tofu. I don't always eat healthy things it's just that when I don't, I try to limit my intake. Not just because I'm afraid of fat as so many people would like to think, but because eating junk in excess is not healthy. Go on ahead with your fat love, but don't turn my lifestyle into a taboo of unenjoyment to make yourself feel better about it.

Notice how the previous commenter just pushes the whole problem
back a level...for him or her, following the author of the article,
there is not an issue of weight (fat people are immoral while
skinny people are moral), but he or she clearly diverges from the
author in holding that there IS an issue of fitness (physically
unfit people, fat or skinny, are immoral while fit people, fat or
skinny, are moral). The commenter misses the point...there's
nothing moral or immoral about people's bodies, whether fat,
skinny, fit, unfit, etc.; bodies, in and of themselves, don't have
a moral status. (If someone is skinny because he spend all of his
day running around killing people, thereby losing weight from all
of the running around...his thinness might acquire some residual
immoral status; but there is nothing intrinsically immoral about.)
A difficulty, of course, philosophically is to comport that view
with a naturalistic view of the world. If naturalism means that
people are nothing more than their bodies, and there's nothing
moral about people's bodies, then what is there about a person that
can have moral status? A person just is her body, and bodies don't
have moral status. There is surely a way to solve the problem
(probably by coming up with a more nuanced understanding of what it
means to be a person in a naturalistic framework), it's just that
nobody's found it yet (or at least nobody's convincingly argued for
it yet).

Are you kidding me? This is Fat Phobia 101 the way Crash was
Racism 101 - the privileged preaching tolerance while reinforcing
stereotypes. I would much rather hear from Gareth, I'm sure she has
a better handle on it. Great job loving Gareth, despite her being
fat. Great job having an epiphany, you're on the right road. No one
will learn to love themselves based on your article. I learned to
love myself by loving what my body can DO. By earning degrees in
dance and performance. By knowing that I am in better shape and can
out-dance most thin women I see. I have a fat friend, mother of
two, who is a runner. She finished the AID marathon in Hawaii. I
don't know a lot of thin people who run marathons. I have another
fat friend, sexy as hell, who can power a rowboat like nobody's
business. She can get into a sea kayak, zoom across a bay and
snorkel for hours. Now tell me being fat is a bad thing. Being fat
and being out of shape is one thing. Being thin and being out of
shape is something else. What does it mean to be fat and be in
great shape? Now you're ready to really learn something about fat
phobia and the demonization and medicalization of fat bodies.
Gareth's question is your clue, why does is angry with herself and
not society? Because society loves to blame us as it oppresses us
and internalized fat prejudice is how it succeeds. Now I want to
hear from fat people...no more being sad for us or calling us
beautiful or courageous or wondering why the world is so awful
while you're participating in it.

This is a great article. As the author does, I also try to
preach tolerance and be non-judgemental, but that little inner
monologue does creep in. Thanks for hieghtening my
awareness.

People shouldn't have the prejudice of fat folks. According to
plusmingle.com - a warm community for bbws and plus sized friends,
there are approximately 127 million adults in the U.S. are
plus-sized, and more than 1 billion worldwide. We are fat, but
proud!

Thank you for your article. As an obese woman, I have
experienced many if not all of the items you wrote about here. I
often wonder how we have gotten to a point where being fat makes
you a pariah and more unacceptable then pretty much anyone else
that is out there. It is a shame.

Great, great article. Gareth's monologue really stuck with me,
as well as the reaction she got from it. I really wish more people
thought like you, and I personally want to thank you (and Gareth)
for doing what you do.

Oh Courtney, how wonderful you are. Thanks for putting these
words out there.