Today I'd like to talk about the F word, fat, it's the word I've heard women I looked up to call themselves in disgust, it's the word I've heard my friends call strangers at the mall, it's the word I heard the girls who used to be my friends call me in PE, and it's the word I've heard me describing myself as I looked in the mirror wishing I could be someone else.
For as long as I can remember fat has been a bad word. Unlike blonde, short and pale it has been a word I can't use to describe myself as without a thousand people telling me that I am in fact not fat and insisting that I am beautiful. That right there is my problem. I did not suffer through many years of horrible self esteem issues, because I was or thought I was fat. I went through it because I believed my being fat meant I did not have the capability of being beautiful. I was wired to believe that fat was something that I should not be and even if I was fat I should avoid to describe myself this way because that also meant I wasn't pretty. This is what we are telling our friends, our sisters, our daughters, and our nieces but fortunately we are very incorrect.
Fat is only a bad thing if we give it the power to be a bad thing. While it is always important to be healthy there are still some very healthy people are are indeed fat, and because they are fat we are telling them that they can never attain any sort of beauty. Beauty is something that cannot be limited, because beauty is always changing. However our current society is succeeding at making beauty attainable for the few but desirable for all. I have a big nose, my lashes are blonde, my lips are shaped weird and my skin is pale, all of these things make me ugly according to society but the number one reason I am ugly is I am a little fat. According to society even if I fixed everything else I would still be an ugly, fat person. The problem is I refuse to let that be the reason I don't think I am beautiful, and when I allow fat to be a good word I can no longer find a reason that I as a person am not beautiful, everything else is obsolete. I have a funny laugh, I am a positive person and I try to apologize when I should, all of these things make me a beautiful person according to me but the number one reason that I am beautiful is the belief that I am.
Why are we putting beauty into a small box, only accessible to those who can fit in, while the rest of us can only try to achieve these unrealistic standards. We have created an epidemic of unhappy people that is contagious to our children and their children and so on. Unfortunately there is no pill to cure this disease, not even counseling can completely fix this problem. We have to do it on our own. We have to remind ourselves fat is not a bad word, but it is a powerful word. It has the power to heal a society and cure us of this epidemic. So please, if you are fat, feel free to describe yourself as fat because it only has the power to be a bad word if you allow it to be. It's about time we redefine beauty to be all-inclusive because we all to beautiful to not be included.
Maisie.
For as long as I can remember fat has been a bad word. Unlike blonde, short and pale it has been a word I can't use to describe myself as without a thousand people telling me that I am in fact not fat and insisting that I am beautiful. That right there is my problem. I did not suffer through many years of horrible self esteem issues, because I was or thought I was fat. I went through it because I believed my being fat meant I did not have the capability of being beautiful. I was wired to believe that fat was something that I should not be and even if I was fat I should avoid to describe myself this way because that also meant I wasn't pretty. This is what we are telling our friends, our sisters, our daughters, and our nieces but fortunately we are very incorrect.
Fat is only a bad thing if we give it the power to be a bad thing. While it is always important to be healthy there are still some very healthy people are are indeed fat, and because they are fat we are telling them that they can never attain any sort of beauty. Beauty is something that cannot be limited, because beauty is always changing. However our current society is succeeding at making beauty attainable for the few but desirable for all. I have a big nose, my lashes are blonde, my lips are shaped weird and my skin is pale, all of these things make me ugly according to society but the number one reason I am ugly is I am a little fat. According to society even if I fixed everything else I would still be an ugly, fat person. The problem is I refuse to let that be the reason I don't think I am beautiful, and when I allow fat to be a good word I can no longer find a reason that I as a person am not beautiful, everything else is obsolete. I have a funny laugh, I am a positive person and I try to apologize when I should, all of these things make me a beautiful person according to me but the number one reason that I am beautiful is the belief that I am.
Why are we putting beauty into a small box, only accessible to those who can fit in, while the rest of us can only try to achieve these unrealistic standards. We have created an epidemic of unhappy people that is contagious to our children and their children and so on. Unfortunately there is no pill to cure this disease, not even counseling can completely fix this problem. We have to do it on our own. We have to remind ourselves fat is not a bad word, but it is a powerful word. It has the power to heal a society and cure us of this epidemic. So please, if you are fat, feel free to describe yourself as fat because it only has the power to be a bad word if you allow it to be. It's about time we redefine beauty to be all-inclusive because we all to beautiful to not be included.
Maisie.