My body is not your problem to solve
All bodies are real, with a right to exist exactly as they are.
“Wow, that’s Andrea!? What happened to her?” The comment read.
I know what he meant.
A few years ago, my friend Zara was traveling around Europe. She stopped by in Barcelona, where I live. We met at a terrace near Sagrada Família and took a photo Zara would later post on Facebook.
We hadn’t seen each other since I left the U.S. in 2008, back when I was in college, back when I was skin and bone.
What happened to me?
I’m no longer light as a feather.
I’m closer to forty, with a body that has lived through many changes, from 49 kg to 86 kg.
I have been hospitalized three times for starving my body. At one point, I could have died.
I’m a woman who fights with her body. Who tries to meet impossible standards.
Every week, I step on the scale and hold my breath. I don’t want to look, and when I do, the numbers haven’t changed.
I have a body people have a problem with.
I exercise. I deprive myself. I count the calories.
The scale doesn’t budge.
Some people say, some people think:
“Maybe you are not trying hard enough”
“Maybe if you just ate right”
“Maybe if you exercised more”
“Maybe if you took better care of yourself”
Maybe you can fuck off.
You have a pretty face, it is such a shame
One of the things I’ve heard the most is, “You have a pretty face… you would look better (prettier) if you lost some weight”.
Growing up, I learned that fat was synonymous with ugly. And for many people, it still is. Some people use it as an insult. Check social media.
For most of my life, people said unkind things about my body. Words rang in my ears for days.
Is it true? What they say about me?
Am I ugly?
Do I deserve less love? Less respect?
These cruel comments pursed my heart.
I wish I had known then, I didn’t have to believe them.
I used to lift my shirt and stare at my belly.
It is true. I am ugly.
When the world took notice of my weight
People told me I was fat in different ways. Some were direct, others not so much.
I remember a woman at the market where my grandma used to buy me clothes. One day, she took my cousin and me shopping. The vendor looked at me and said, “No tenemos tu talla”. (We don’t have your size).
My grandma asked her to please check. The vendor made a face. My cousin grinned and tried pair after pair. I stood there, biting my lip. I didn’t give them the satisfaction to see me shed a tear.
And that’s how some people with a problem with larger bodies exert their power. They say mean things and try to make us feel like we don’t deserve pretty things. Like we don’t deserve to exist the same way they do.
Fat phobia is alive and well online and off-line
I find and hear comments like these far too often:
“We need to stop romanticizing obesity”
“I don’t want fat bodies, those bodies are not healthy”
“Fat people are not healthy people”
“Nobody wants to see your fat ass body”
There are, of course, crueler comments that I won’t include here.
Social media is like a toxic workplace most of us don’t know how to leave.
You are not worried about my health, you troll
Some people disguise discrimination under false concern. “I’m worried about your health”. No. You are not.
These people are not worried about fat people’s health. They believe that a fat body is of lesser value, less attractive, just less.
Why wouldn’t they? If all we are fed through social media, films, series, and advertising is that beauty is thinness?
Many people equate thinness with health. But when someone is overweight, they make assumptions.
“you don’t eat right”
“you don’t exercise”
“you are not healthy”
Are you the Health Police?
“well, it’s about self-care”
“you don’t take care of yourself, and it shows”
How about you shut the fuck up.
Fatness is a bigger issue than you think
If we ate the same foods, we would still all look different.
“Eating right” does not look the same for everyone. Many don’t have access to healthy foods and fast food is the only way to get by.
That said, even when people measure and eat the “right” foods, such as proteins, veggies, and fruits, they still struggle with weight loss.
This is also true for exercise. Some can’t afford the gym or have as much time.
We must be careful about our assumptions about health, access to self-care, food, gym memberships (yoga studios, etc.), support, or even access to information, and more.
There is a reason why obesity is an epidemic. The blame is not on the individual. Obesity is part of a broken system that fails millions of people daily.
Health is also mental health
All the body-shaming and bullying don’t contribute to a person’s wellbeing.
When Paula Leitón, a Spanish Water Polo Olympian, won gold during the 2024 Paris Olympics, she faced a tsunami of body-shaming.
Leitón dealt with the fat-shaming with grace and confidence. But she made one thing clear: not everyone has the thick skin to talk back to critics and move on.
Anorexia has the highest mortality rate of any mental disorder. Many women, non-binary people, and MEN develop eating disorders because of how they see themselves physically, and how they learn to look at food, weight, and beauty, among many other things.
“Most eating disorders involve focusing too much on weight, body shape, and food”, Mayo Clinic reports. Disordered eating might also mean food binging to find comfort.
Leitón is an Olympic athlete. Do you want to tell me that she’s not healthy? The number of nasty comments about her body was mind-blowing.
I commented on a post, coming to Leitón’s defense. And, someone responded, “I agree with you, but I don’t want fat bodies”. Like, what? What’s that supposed to mean? Who gets to decide what type of body is allowed to exist and take up space and which body isn’t?
People’s problem with my body should be that, their problem
I know what my body looks like. I have a mirror. I know what size I wear.
People commenting on my body should be punishable by law.
When I lose weight, it calls for celebration. That kills me. It is as if my larger body isn’t at all accepted. Therefore, I’m not accepted.
And, you might think, “You should not care about what people think”. Sure, sure. It’s easy to say that when you are not at the receiving end of unnecessary criticism.
Deep down, we all care about what our environment says about us.
Your prejudice spills over to others
Since I was a little girl, people had a problem with my body not meeting specific standards. I was unaware of these standards until others projected their issues onto me.
I made THEIR issues with my body, my OWN.
I was a happy kid.
I assumed there was a problem with my body. I had to fix it.
I started dieting at 12, and I began exploring how to vomit at around age 14. At 16, I was anorexic. I didn’t eat. I exercised multiple hours a day.
My dad did not handle my disordered eating well. He became violent. When he was around, I ate. Having food in me made me anxious. The moment I could, I ran to “take a shower”. I pushed my fingers down my throat. The other alternative was swallowing three or four laxatives.
When I arrived in college, at age 18, my bulimia was full-blown. I spent days without eating until I needed my drug.
I craved food so much. Food was comfort. Food was my drug. Food was a friend, and food was an enemy too.
I would order Chinese takeout or a family-sized pizza. Binge. Binge. Binge.
Then.
The purge.
Guilt. Disgust. Shame.
We make ourselves sick to be thin, to be seen
I made myself sick to be thin. I.made.myself.sick. to meet other people’s standards because THEY had a problem with my body.
See how that works?
I still have food issues. I still have self-image issues. I didn’t come out of it unscathed.
My teeth suffered.
My stomach suffered.
My soul suffered the most.
I wanted to be thin so badly. I wanted to be seen. I wanted to be accepted.
And when I was thin, I felt alone.
Body-shaming comments hurt people
I don’t care what your beliefs about health, fatness, or beauty are. Don’t comment on a person’s body. It’s not helpful.
You are allowed to think differently from me. But, you don’t have a right to project your issues onto me. If you don’t like how I look, keep it yourself. Suppose you don’t like how a famous person looks. Please keep it to yourself.
No one, believe me, no one is glorifying fatness. There are plenty of trolls and cruel people tearing fat people down.
And this isn’t just about fat-shaming. In general, don’t comment on people’s bodies. Period.
