Personal Narrative-It's Okay, Call Me Fat

It’s Okay, Call Me Fat As a fat person who has worked their ass off to unlearn all of the self-hatred that I have been internalizing all my life, few things irritate me more than when someone says, “But you’re not fat!” when I use the word to describe myself. I know they are trying to be nice and say the thing that they think they are expected to say, but it makes me want to rip my shirt up over my face and jiggle my belly in their face screaming, “But I ammm! Can you not seeee it?” Like, what exactly do you think my belly rolls are if they aren’t fat? Is my stomach filled with bees? Are there a bunch of rocks in there? What do you think is in there?
When people tell me “You’re not fat!” they are not actually telling me I’m not fat; they’re …show more content…
We equate fat with ugly, we equate fat with bad. We live in this culture that forces fat people to think of themselves as these disgusting, unlovable creatures because of the way their bodies are, and that’s absolutely ridiculous. I am allowed to love myself. I’m allowed to think that I am beautiful, not even in spite of my fat, but because of my fat. If you are thin and you’ve ever said one of those things around a fat person, did you ever pay good enough attention to watch them just fucking wilt in front of you? Did you see the shame in their eyes? Did you notice how they were immediately not interested in continuing the conversation anymore? It’s because you, a thin person, just took an aspect of that person’s physical appearance and said that it was something awful and undesirable. To their face. Does that not make you an …show more content…
Most of us are. We’re all guilty of talking about the things we don’t like about our looks. The problem is that we don’t see fat people as fat people if we like them, so we have no problem using the word in a negative manner around them. It seems ridiculous to say to someone with a big nose, “God, I hate my big nose so much! No one likes big noses!” doesn’t it? Why is it not weird to say the things we do to fat people? If you, as a thin person, have ever said, “I am so fat,” around a fat person, what you’re really saying is, “I really hate fat, I think it’s gross,” and what that fat person hears is, “I really hate you, I think you’re gross.” They are immediately wondering what you think about them if you can hate yourself so much when all you’ve got is a little food