My Fat Diaries: Week 4
Week 4 marks the completion of an entire month since I joined the gym. After a month of crying, yelling and hiding under my bed I was successful in losing an inch. It’s not much of an accomplishment but it’s not entirely bad either. My weight however remains undeterred. I guess it’s just as stubborn as I am.
This Saturday when I was on my way back home from work, I ran into a friend’s mother. The first thing she said to me, even before a customary greeting was “You’ve put on a lot of weight! You need to exercise”. Though I just smiled and walked along then, I couldn’t get her words off my mind. I WAS EXERCISING! I WAS LOSING WEIGHT! The joy I felt about reducing my waistline by an inch was replaced by self-doubt. I stared at myself in the mirror and thought I wasn’t doing enough.
One sentence sent me spiraling back into self-doubt and I wondered what gave her the right to say something that insensitive to me? A woman that I hadn’t met in years, her son’s number long erased from my phone-book for sending inappropriate drunk messages, how could she think it is alright to give me that suggestion? I know what most people would think or say and how they would want me to understand that she was just ‘concerned’. Concerned that I am fat now and she is not used to seeing me like that. Think about it.
Fat as a term is very very subjective.
When you type ‘Fat Women’ on Google these are the results you receive:
Source: https://alexnld.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/1491795720_607.jpg
Source: https://image.dhgate.com/0x0/f2/albu/g5/M00/58/29/rBVaJFjBHAuAO71QAAHxvm6-Po4281.jpg
Source: https://image.dhgate.com/0x0/f2/albu/g5/M01/A2/74/rBVaI1kMPfqAcAHhAAH91hdE-e8445.jpg
Source: https://sc01.alicdn.com/kf/HTB1tAOlLpXXXXbeXVXXq6xXFXXXg/205982597/HTB1tAOlLpXXXXbeXVXXq6xXFXXXg.jpg
According to Google and society they are all fat. Body positive movements does not try to encourage obesity, they want people with curves, the ones trying to lose weight and the ones who develop an inferiority complex because of a muffin top to feel accepted. As someone who used to be skinny and has now put on weight I can tell you that I am incredibly healthy. I eat better than most of my ‘skinny’ friends and acquaintances do, I eat better than I used to when I was skinny. Yes, I do have extra fat but if it is not affecting my daily functions or doing me any harm then why do I put myself through hell?
So now when just random people I know, whom I haven’t met in forever come up to me tell me I need to lose weight why wouldn’t I hate it? Why give unsolicited advice? I know for sure that they do not say that out of concern, and even if they do their concern is based entirely on aesthetics. I am chubby and I am happy with it so I’d appreciate if people do not think it is their job to tell me otherwise or the media to instigate that there is only one body type. Skinny is not healthy and its time people understand that.
A fat person is much more than just their weight and they should not be reduced to just that. Most of them know that their eating habits are not healthy and society constantly reminding them that they are not the right size does not help. You as a stranger or acquaintance cannot approach a person and ask them to lose weight or tell them that ‘You’d look prettier if you lost the extra kilos’. Let them and the ones close to them figure it out. Because you are not going to be the one to encourage them by taking up a diet together, or being their exercise buddy, or simply being there for them when they stand on the weighing scale after 2 months of rigorous exercise to see no difference.
Constantly hammering that ‘everything in the world belongs to those who are skinny and there is no place for any other size’ is preposterous. A fat person will not lose all their weight in a day or even a month. It needs time and if they get fat shamed while they are trying, they might fall back on food for comfort which creates a vicious cycle.
Therefore, next time you have the urge to let someone know that you’d like them better if they lose weight, just remember that no one cares what you think. Let people be.
