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I’m Body Neutral, Not Body Positive
I’m not proud of being fat but I’m okay with it.
Disclaimer before I begin— I’m writing this from the perspective of a cis female, and will largely couch things in those terms, but obviously the whole body positivity thing also encompasses trans people, males, and everyone, really.
I am fat. At 167cm I weigh about 125kgs (I don’t weigh myself regularly) — which is about 5'6 and 275 pounds for those reading from far away lands. While I’m a little stronger than average and do have a large frame there’s no “muscular” or “big-boned” going on here. I’m fat.
But I’m not particularly body-positive.
I do understand the body positivity movement, I really do. When the vast majority of people you see in media, in advertising, in everything, who are held up as the standard of beauty have a body type in common, and your body is nothing like that, it sucks. The fact that there is now a growing push against that is amazing and well overdue. I’ll admit, much as I like to think I don’t care, I get the warm fuzzies any time I’m watching a movie or TV show and a larger woman comes on screen (who isn’t the comic relief or a fat stereotype). I smile whenever I’m walking through a shopping centre and the lingerie shop has photos of a model with a big tummy and thighs that touch.