13If I ever happen to be, say, in an antique store and stumble upon a dusty lamp and polish it, because, well, it’s dusty, and to my surprise, pink smoke puffs from the spout and a genie pops out and grants me three wishes, this would be one for sure. I would wish that all the people who are dissatisfied with their bodies be granted immunity from all the bad feelings.
Thanks to capitalism, the importance placed on beauty has never been so manipulated. We are the guinea pigs force-fed ads that tell us how pathetic we are: that we will never be loved, happy or valuable unless we have the body, the face, the hair, even the personality that will apparently be ours, if only we buy their products.
Believe it or not, I don’t wake up every day feeling weightless. There are days when it is harder to fight the lie, but telling the truth gets easier all the time. It is about de-programming yourself and telling yourself you are a human, a living, breathing creature.
You’ve heard the saying that hate isn’t something we’re born with, its something we learn. Well, that goes for your body as well. The first step to letting go of the hatred is to stop blaming yourself for your body. Step two is accepting that not everyone will agree with you. You will have to defend yourself regularly. People will ask you constant questions about your health in an attempt to convince you that you are unhealthy. Remember, you are responsible for your self-esteem. Self-love starts with stopping the negative thoughts as soon as they begin.
I can’t stress enough that it is hard work, so don’t expect to wake up tomorrow feeling like a new woman. Instead, pat yourself on the back for your daily progress.
I was born fat and have always been, which was just fine and even healthy and cute until I turned ten or so. Puberty hit like a hurricane and brought a new set of rules. All of a sudden it was my fault I was chubby. The prefix “baby” fell away from fat, a little word that hung around and haunted me until one day, in my late teens, I decided that I was either going to spend the rest of my life trying to change myself or accept myself as I was. I chose the latter. I believe I owe all the best parts of my adulthood to embracing my imperfections and showcasing them.
Reclaiming the word fat was the most empowering step in my progress. I stopped using it for insult or degradation and instead replaced it with truth, because the truth is that I am fat, and that’s ok. So now when someone calls me fat, I agree, whereas before I would get embarrassed and emotional.
Start by wearing clothes with the intention of reclaiming your self-esteem, clothes that make you feel good, confident, sexy even, instead of clothes meant to hide your body. You can also look at your body more. A lot of us ignore our bodies. Connect with your body instead, especially when naked.
Finally, the key change that would help everyone in our situation feel a little better would be if all the people who talk so nastily about fat people would stop being so hateful and judgmental. It’s not funny, it’s not clever. It’s just ugly.
”Beth Ditto on being fat | World news | The Guardian
… Wait, Beth Ditto had a fortnightly column in the Guardian? How have I never seen this article before?
(via pluseyes)
The ways in which Beth Ditto is my hero can never be counted. SERIOUSLY MY HERO. Holy fuck I love her
(via fuckyeahfatpositive) I’ve had this bookmarked on my computer for a while now, but it was nice to re-read it, especially as I think I’m so much more body-positive since the last time I read it. :)
(via rachellous)
Fat acceptance is not “promoting an unhealthy lifestyle”.
Fat acceptance is not even “promoting obesity” as a body shape.
Fat acceptance is promoting acceptance of the body you have. Self-acceptance, and acceptance by the people around you. Whether it’s your “fault” or not.
It…
Here’s a little bit of naked Beth Ditto to start your day off right.
(via blogzillaaaaa)
I will be purchasing one item from the Ditto collection
The only one I deem to be fairly-priced and enough in my style:
LA CAPE
I want at least two of the dresses, the boots and one of the cardis. Money, come to me!
This is an interesting standpoint. Do “plus size” magazines, shows, websites, etc. do more to help body acceptance, or to hurt it. Is compartmentalizing people based on body-size beneficial, or should we look for a more inclusive approach? Or a blend? These are great issues, and I think Holesintheground makes some great points. I do think though, it’s nice to celebrate the beauty of being big, as often fat people are considered to only ever be ugly, but does this work against an idea of inclusion?
I hate this shit.
Creating a magazine purely for ‘plus size’ (hate the phrase too) women is just like saying that ‘plus size’ women have no place in ‘normal’ magazines.
It completely misses the point. The issue is that magazines as a whole don’t cater to women of all sizes. I can’t imagine that there are many women who will now be happy that they have a ‘plus size’ magazine to read, they want to be able to read the same magazines as everyone, but just to be included and represented within them.
It also promotes the annoying hate that different groups of women have for each other. As someone who is relatively slim (I’m a size 10-12) I really hate all this anti skinny nonsense. SOME PEOPLE ARE JUST SKINNY. All this ‘you’re not a real woman unless you have curves’. We’re not all blessed with buxom breasts and bountiful booties; we are all different shapes and sizes, and the sooner we learn to live with that, the happier we will all be.
Magazines need to change. This is not the right way to do it.
End rant.
This is such bullshit. Plus, it’s aimed at sizes 14 - 20. So basically, if you are over a size 20, sorry, you just aren’t as beautiful. Is that what they are trying to size? I don’t want to have a magazine aimed at fatties. I want to be able to open any magazine and find what ever size you are, the magazine thought to include something / show clothes that might cater to and interest you.
(Source: milkntwosugars, via bbwprincess)
So much respect for Beth Ditto
This interview with Ferne Cotton has been really good.
i just ate like a whole massive packet of these chocolate buttons. now i feel sick.
i wish i read this before i started eating.Well, that’s a promising read in the age of rising anorexia and bulimia levels.
WHAT
THE FUCK
IS
THIS
BULLSHITYEAH SURE YOU DON’T NEED FOOD OF COURSE YOU DON’T.
WHAT EVEN IS THIS FUCKING SHIT.
OMG.
there are just ten thousand things wrong with this that I don’t even feel like pointing out because I’m just so tired and I walked like thirty blocks in 90 degress with a bag full of heavy shit and a broken bike.
LOL forever
Pro-Ana bullshit is scary.
Women aren’t allowed to be fat.
Can we also talk about the terms I absolutely loathe for women’s tees:
- girly
- babydoll (?? It’s not like it’s a babydoll cut, even)
- SKINNY FIT (I know this can be unisex but I SEEN IT in the women’s section too many a time, bra)
These hot cookies are from The Highland Bakery in Atlanta. They would make great tattoos. I’m just sayin’.
Michelle Fonville tells WSB.TV that the owners of Natural Nails in DeKalb County, Georgia charged her extra for her manicure, claiming that damage to salon chairs had been done by overweight patrons, and that the extra $5 was to cover the potential cost of a replacement chair. “I said, Ma’am, you can’t charge me $5 more. That’s discrimination because of my weight,” Fonville says, noting that Kim Tran, the manager of the salon, brought up the broken chair issue in response: “Do you think that’s fair when we take $24 [for manicure and pedicure] and we have to pay $2,500? Is that fair? No.”
But the salon was seemingly set up to discriminate to begin with; the chairs they’re so concerned over only have a weight capacity of 200 pounds, and claiming that anyone over 200 pounds is responsible for chair damage, after already inviting them to sit on said chairs, is a very shady means of getting an extra five dollars through completing the manicure and then slapping on the extra humiliation charge. If the salon is so concerned about its precious chairs, perhaps it should order some that accommodate all of its customers, instead of blaming the patrons for “breaking” chairs that were not designed to support their weight to begin with. Also, the salon seems to be operating under an assumption that it’s the patrons over 200 pounds that are responsible for chair damage, as opposed to typical wear and tear over time, punishing patrons for damage that can’t be traced to their particular usage of the chair. It’s discrimination and really terrible business. As Fonville says, “The word has to get out there that these people are discriminating against us because of our weight. I mean come on, we’re in America. You can’t do that.”
This is absolutely disgusting.
hey thick/fat/phatt fabulous tumblr world. this is my first curvy submission.
My name is Ari. I’m about 5’9 and 260 pounds. this is a picture of me yesterday on my 20th birthday about to go clubbing.I’m not going to lie and say I’ve always loved my body. what i am going to say is I’ve realized loving you body means embracing what you’ve got and understanding when to change something to make YOU happy. I’ve been exercising this summer and eater FAR better because it makes me happy.All the hard work made me wanna buy this dress for my birthday, and I felt like a knock out!
If the world isn’t ready for bigger girls, they they certainly aren’t ready for bigger girls who can bike 6 miles a day and eat a plant based diet (vegan).
But then again…..who said i’m waiting on the world?!
navigatethestream.tumblr.com
Wow, just wow - you look beautiful and your words make me so happy! Thanks for the photo.
Be sure to submit or send your photos to FYPlusSize@aol.com
Much love,
FYPlusSize
I love that colour blue
One of the MANY iron fist shoes I will own eventually <3
I love these!
My beautiful bridesmaids
You all looked amazing, I am really loving your style of dress and your bridesmaids! Glad you had a great day!
“Curvy” is a device created to make you more acceptable to people who don’t want to accept you, to soften the blow of “fat”. That action of trying to make us acceptable is insulting. Screw that. We reclaim fat for what it is: a physical descriptor, that ought carry no connotations. And you know what? We only get mocked more for using euphemisms. So sell it to them straight.
- Pluseyes, in this great post.
It takes a lot to challenge the attitudes of society. It takes a lot to realise that fat shame is just another way that society attempts to control people, to set standards of attractiveness, to be anything but ‘fat’. I’ve grown up being taught that the last thing to be in the whole world is to be above your ‘ideal weight’. Women all over the Western world diet constantly to fight this disease, this virus, this shameful abomination.
It’s time to think about it differently. As hard as it seems, we must realise that our perception of thin being good and fat being bad is entirely socially constructed.
Don’t ever challenge Pluseyes about the questionable nature of the common wisdom. The Body Mass Index (BMI), for instance, was invented between 1830 and 1850 by the Belgian polymath Adolphe Quetelet as an interesting way to correlate height and weight. It was never intended to be the sole indicator of health, nor is it currently based on sound science. According to the BMI, athletes are often overweight, and thin people are undoubtedly of supreme health to fat people.
A programme by Channel 4’s Jamie Oliver, now largely forgotten, saw a comparison between the health of a bulky male rugby player and a thin female trainee nurse. Of course the thin person wasn’t healthier. Her thinness didn’t indicate health after all. The rugby player, for all his apparent fat content, had better cardiovascular fitness and significantly less fat around his organs (known as ‘visceral’ fat). The trainee nurse, on the other hand, had a dangerous level of visceral fat, and as a result of poor diet, probably more dangerous cholesterol levels as well.
The importance of this programme has not stuck in our minds:
Fat content is not the sole indicator of health.
Now that we’ve established that fat is not necessarily unhealthy, it’s important to disconnect health from our respect for people. Even if fatness was always unhealthy (it isn’t), health should not guide our opinions.
“I don’t like fat people because they’re unhealthy,” one might say.
Really? Do you hate tall people because they’re more prone to back problems?
That’s right, natural body shape is as uncontrollable and unique as height.
Surely we can say that another person’s state of health, whether or not fatness has a negative impact, is none of our business. Our propensity to think otherwise results from terribly judgemental behaviour, an unthinking endorsement of society’s standards, leading to abuse that encourages eating disorders and shame.
BODY SHAPES CAN BE DIFFERENT FROM THE NORM.
IN THE END, FAT IS NOT THE WORST THING A PERSON CAN BE.
As J.K Rowling says:
“Is ‘fat’ worse than ‘vindictive’, ‘jealous’, ‘shallow’, ‘vain’, ‘boring’ or ‘cruel’?”
“Not to me.”
Click here for more Lighthouse Feminism.
Note that I frame this as a feminist issue as 75% of people with eating disorders are women, and a majority of people with body acceptance issues are women.
Fat shame is a huge problem for men as well, but by striving for gender equality we can eliminate these issues regardless of gender.
