#thin people suffer from fatphobia too

[disorganisedautodidact]

I would like to add that if you are "super model thin", as you put it, fatphobia can still find ways to harm you. I have a) social anxiety which for a long time made it difficult to eat when I was around people (because of nausea as an anxiety symptom), b) a cluster of things that may or may not be ADHD, relevantly including forgetfulness, unreliable hunger cues, low appetite and executive dysfunction. Due to this, it was a real struggle to feed myself for a long time. And people were jealous that I didn't have to restrict my food to stay thin.

(I now have some structures in place that help me remember to eat, have a more enjoyable relationship with food, I've gained a few kilograms, feel much healthier, and also got therapy for the anxiety, btw, so don't worry, but the following got a bit vent-y, feel free to stop reading here if you don't want to know about my struggles with food and doctors)

I was inadvertently skipping meals multiple times a week because I didn't feel hungry and just forgot about breakfast. Or dinner. Or because I couldn't make myself get up and cook. As a result, I was pretty unhealthy - I had severe vitamin deficiencies at one point, low blood pressure, I was constantly cold, I had joint problems that still aren't completely gone... and only once, after more than 10 years, did a doctor ever mention that I should maybe eat more.

I know the BMI is a horribly flawed measure, but doctors use it, right? So if a patient comes in several kilograms "underweight" that should raise a red flag, right? Wrong, apparently! Even when I brought up my struggles with eating and my worry about my low weight, it was dismissed with "oh, just be glad you're not overweight!" I'd mention that I felt like I was having to force my food down and still not eating enough and all I got was "trust me, having to diet is worse".

My mental health was stopping me from eating enough to maintain my health and doctors just went "oh well, at least you're not fat".

Fatphobia Harms Thin People Too

This might be something of an unpopular opinion, but I believe that fatphobia harms thin people to a very large degree. Yes, thin people evade many of the judgments and disadvantages fat people face in a fatphobic society, but when you stop to think about it, the strict standards of beauty and thinness we all struggle under affects thin people in some very significant ways. 

Take me for example. I started dating my first real boyfriend when I was 18 or 19, and fell madly in love with him. Looking back at photos of me from that time, I was a thin person. I am almost 5′7, and back then, probably weighed 160lbs? What I remember distinctly though is believing that I was too fat. I remember my boyfriend at the time saying “Don’t worry about being overweight. I’ll tie a chain around your waist and tie the other end to my car and take you jogging.” OK, I promise you, he wasn’t a total asshole. He was actually a pretty cool guy, but that was a horrible comment, and said to someone who was for all intents and purposes FUCKING THIN. Here’s a photo of me from around that time. Please excuse the imaginative face-blocking spray paint.

what exactly was he talking about? Why did I consider myself a “fat girl” or an “overweight girl” when I so clearly was not? It’s because fatphobia, diet culture and insane body standards made me, someone who looked like the girl in that photo, believe she was “too fat.” WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK? 

With the exception of the time I dieted myself down to a very thin size, I remember always thinking of myself as fat. Even when I wasn’t, and this is why terms like “overweight” have lost all meaning. OVER WHAT WEIGHT EXACTLY? Thin women and men who gain five pounds are overweight. People who weigh 450lbs are overweight. So are people who weigh 130. It is meaningless. 

I believe that most thin people live in fear of someday becoming fat. They see the way fat people are looked at, talked about and perceived in the world around them and in the media. They’ve probably received a lot of praise for having the body they do, and are aware that if they eat “too much” (also totally subjective and highly individual) they might become one of those unforgivable, unwanted, unhealthy fat people. 

Thinness is so extremely subjective. And the standard of thinness we hold in western and first world countries is INSANE. I know many, many very thin people that cannot stop talking obsessively about the number of calories they eat in a day, or how they need to “lose a little weight” because their stomachs pooch out like 1/1300000th of an inch. It’s insanity, and really no one is free from it. If you grew up with a television in your household and you went to school, and watched movies and had friends who enjoyed popular culture, you were probably spoon fed fatphobic, diet culture bullshit from your earliest memory. 

So you see, thin people are anything but exempt from diet culture. They can only rest easily if they remain very very slender. Otherwise they risk many of the judgments and fatphobic rhetoric experienced by a wide range of people, including people like that clearly thin girl in the photo above. It isn’t just “obviously” fat people who deal with paranoia, anxiety and insulting comments about weight. It’s virtually anyone who isn’t super model thin. 

[orangepeelshortbreadcookies]

Hello!!! sorry i jum in here but i saw many post of your as a polin pen hater. You can hate what you want of course but its necessary to lie just to hate a character because of her body??? it wasnt that bad, she was not mean.

yes, what she did telling the ton marinas secret was not the best choise but it was what she thought it was the only way. Do you all wish for colin a marriage with not love?? and in a more practical way this is fiction and we all now he was going t end with pen , they are end game and thi is romance, its suppouse to be romantic that theu found each other, and for me it is. She didnt told marina secret because she wants colin for herself , she never thought she cold have him. maybe yo dont understand this but we, fat girls who are foung unattractive NEVER expect love or having a man, even less somone like colin. I think you, as many sadly, jugdge Pen actions too strong and deep down its all becuase of how she looks. Depp down i know you judge her action strongly becuase you can't accept that a woman who looks like that get something. I know you will keep hating, just want to say my opinion

(2) I saw you ask once why we ( pen fans) are mad when people hate her like you do if we got everything, saying like she happy and get married and LW. i will answer that from my perspective. Im fat, people is mean and that herats and yes, maybe it not a good things but it nice to have a revenge for all that suffering , but beside that i feel represented FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME in a romance show, ALL THE ROMANCE FEMALE LEADS AND THIN WOMAN and for the first times she looks like me but everyone is hating her becuase of how she looks and the worst is anyone accept its becuase of that, you all write long essays jugdging her actions but as i said, Were her actions that bad???? think about it fr......

Others please also refer to this post for more context.

I did not intend to answer this ask, because honestly, I'm really very lazy. Since there are only so many ways I can make my argument against the same accusation over and over again, especially to someone who clearly doesn't want to listen, I figured ignoring was the right decision. I'd rather spend my creative energy and efforts on my own writings, instead of figuring out another elaborate wording on how being critical of a character's actions does not equate fatphobia, and that personal adversity does not equal a 'get out of jail' free card for repeatedly inflicting pain on other people on a mass scale. I've talked about it in depth in my own blog, as well as reblogging other eloquent, well thought-out posts from others, Polin fans and anti-Polin fans alike. You can just scroll through my blog to see that. But I don't think you have come after me, time and again, to be convinced.

Even now, I still think ignoring you would have been the smarter, or at least, easier course of action for me. But I digress. Maybe it's one of those days where I feel more confrontational, maybe my ADHD is acting up and my meds are not hitting as well today, maybe after weeks of stress-filled personal achievements I'm feeling talkative seeing someone trying to disturb my peace. Nontheless, since you've made diligent efforts in seeking out my response, today's your lucky day, once and for all.

Something my mutuals and followers might have learned about me, is that I, being pretty fucking lazy, don't post/write a lot. To remedy this, when I do post, oftentimes I try to be as thorough as I possibly can. So, in the spirit of being thorough, here's a little log of the things I have received in the past weeks, on this site as well as on AO3, some of which, @cherryblossom970sblog, I have reasons to believe came from you

So you feel represented by character. Awesome. Good for you. You should celebrate it with like-minded people. You think nobody likes Penelope the way you do? Find the ones who do. I can assure you, they exist. I saw them daily on my dash. Read fics that bring you joy. Don't read the ones that don't. I have seen way too many Penelope/Anthony, Penelope/Benedict or even Penelope/Gregory fics, or fics where Penelope just straight up abused Colin that are celebrated in the comments. I don't like those and you know what I do? Scroll past those fics or click out of those and not read them. You know what I don't do? Go after the writers, try to police their writing, and accuse them of bigotry for not catering to my preferences.

Accept the fact that it's not going to be a 100% percent approval rating. And that's fine. That's part of life. I'm a primary Benophie fan, I've seen people wanting Benedict to end up with different people. It's their prerogative, I leave them alone. I have mutuals who have different takes on actions of Kate, Edwina, and Anthony, with varying degrees of feelings regarding how season 2 ends, and I have my own opinions. Personally, I find all three parties were wrong in that triangle, especially Anthony, and the sisterhood between Kate and Edwina in that season ought to have been handled with more respect and care. And my mutuals and I have civil, nuanced discussions about such things and ending those with still different opinions. That's okay. They're fictional characters and their actions are up to character analysis. It's fine.

What ISN'T fine is obssessively stalking inboxes of strangers, REAL people, unleashing insane level of hate and prejudices in defence of a FICTIONAL character, and accusing them of crimes they OBJECTIVELY did not commit, all because they don't share your opinions. I know you don't think this kind of behaviour is okay, you said so yourself that it's not a good thing. You've experienced fatphobia, you have my sympathies for that, but it doesn't give you the right to be shitty to other people. Your own bad experiences do not entitle you to disrespect, dismiss, invalidate and insult the people you harassed, including me, many of which are WoCs who have valid concerns regarding how their own experiences are represented and treated on the show. My struggles of being a bisexual, Asian, immigrant woman does not excuse me from being toxic to people who have done me no harm. I will not be vindicated in demeaning someone who have criticisms against the actions of fictional character who share my traits, criticisms that I just happen to disagree with.

And frankly, I find reducing the nuances of a character or person to only their bodies, to contribute (as either condemn or excuse) their actions to be only the result of their bodies, fucking insulting. It's infantalising and dehumanising.

Have a nice day and happy shipping. Leave us alone.

[darrengrave]

All in all, I can boil down the things I don't like into actually a fairly small list;

- no psychosexual element to pyramid head? is it even sh2 without it, really.

- half of the key ph moments felt really off to me, particularly the first look (they fucked up the pacing for like no reason? He's not supposed to appear until after you hear that man's dying scream, there was no build up like the og's "wtf was that?" to "wtf IS that???" to immediately finding a body in his wake. I also thought it was too bright and you can see him too clearly.), mannequin/closet scene (apart from the lack of psychosexual menace, the blocking, storyboarding, and pacing was just weird in a bad way, it wasn't creepy or threatening), and hospital hallway scene. The hallway scene was just a mess.

- mary/maria's actress had an impossible act to follow and she was functionable most of the time but man was the delivery of "anyway", "i'm not your mary", the hotel hallway dialogue, and letter flat and disappointing. she particularly doesn't ever get angry or menacing enough.

- the insane level of just flat out mean-spirited fatphobia of changing a scene of eddie eating a regular food after empying the entire contents of his stomach to literally shoveling ice cream into his face with his bare hands

- the way that they decided to make the sweater the 19 year old sexual abuse victim wore to conceal her body paper thin and clinging to her body.. like so thin that sweater would be actually see through in real life

- real time models used for most of the cutscenes was a mistake for a $70 game and the scene after the tape looked rough

- I felt like the prison was a drag which was really disappointing compared to the heavy oppressive menace of the original, so oppressive that the og prison is always just as scary as when I first played it over a decade ago

- Nurses outside the hospital

- Didn't care for any time an item pickup triggered a monster wave, particularly in the overworld where the fog turned into a storm. Felt lazy and boring to me.

- Really leaning into Angela's panic attack as much as possible at the end of the mirror scene. That's a moment that doesn't need heavyhandedness at all. It only suffers from it. It actually needs restraint. Her reacting as if James was going to hurt her just because he stepped closer to her is more than enough to get across what happened to her. This version just felt cringe at best, voyeuristic at worst.

- Not allowing you to linger on the flaming staircase or futally attempt to follow Angela. But this is bloober "some people are so damaged that they should just die" team so it probably never even crossed their minds that most players try to follow her on the stairs because they want to save her.

- The weird changes to puzzles and events but also directly referencing them as if they'd be done before. I thought FOR SURE this was going to be revealed as an eva requel like ff7 with a time loop or something, because it's flat out just weird otherwise, and now it's just a weird choice.

- The traversal stutter. It was my main criticism of the gameplay trailer and it did not get better.

- How inaccessible the og is for new players, of course. Ff7 and most of the resident evil games are ported to basically everything, for comparison. Fans can mod an enhanced edition for pc but konami can't do shit? I don't think so.

[my-exmo-life]

|| TW for Mormonism, internalised fatphobia, discussions of fatphobia and diets, negative self talk ||

Pls excuse me I’m mildly tipsy (but not tipsy enough that I can’t add a TW bc we respect people here on this blog)

You know what we don’t talk about enough? The idealisation of thinness in the Mormon church.

All the aesthetics and ideals are of these size 0 blonde white women and, shockingly, that’s harmful.

I discovered this week that wearing a skirt is triggering for me bc it makes me look a little bigger and makes my belly relax from the default “must suck in”.

IM NOT EVEN OVERWEIGHT.

I’m a little “bigger” than I “should be” according to society but dear fucking god who cares?? Call the goddamn police, I guess it’s a crime to love food.

I bought a beautiful skirt. It’s got kinda witchy vibes. These cool suns and moons and it’s so breathable and comfy. I wore it work. AND GUESS FUCKING WHAT. I was uncomfortable all day.

I looked fucking amazing even tho I was just at work. But my stomach said lol nope you don’t get to be comfy without suffering.

I’ve taken to just measuring the waists of pants I want to buy so I don’t have to try them on (usually works just fine) so I did that to a pair of jeans I was wanting to buy (I’d already bought a smaller size that didn’t fit and I was doing a great job feeling neutral about having to size up)

So I measured the waist and saw it should fit but out of paranoia I measured my own and IT HAD GONE UP 10 FUCKING CENTIMETRES.

So I tried the jeans on anyway bc hey, why not, I feel like shit anyway. And it was too tight. Logically I know I was just bloated and shit but there was that little voice in my head that was going “fat, gross, disgusting, whale, etc”

And it sounded just like all the Mormon women that came before me. My mom. My grandmother. My aunt. All women I love and adore and who I don’t have a single memory of when they weren’t on a diet.

I hate that fat phobia is so baked into this religion. I’ve been out for going on 3 years and it’s still fucking affecting me. I can’t wear my beautiful new skirt because it fucks me up too much.

I’m planning to deprogram myself so I can just wear the fucking skirt but I have no idea how long it’ll take. I’ll do it tho. I know that much.

Also guess what. I measured my waist again the next morning. Back down ten centimetres.

If we ever want girls and women and just people in general to feel even slightly normal about their bodies we need to teach them about weight fluctuations and that they’re normal.

I know through experience and research that they’re normal. But I still felt like shit in that moment. It’s just fatphobia, plain and simple.

[strawbearyhoney]

Just say you hate ppl with eating disorders and go

if someone were to promote depression ( literally using a pro-depression tag and telling other people how to get more depressed and encouraging others to self harm and be miserable ) and i said ' tumblr should block that tag ' would you say i hated ppl who suffer froam depression . lol

i have ppl close to me who have suffered from eating disorders and i have a complicated relationship with food myself . its one thing for ppl struggling with an ed to have a space to talk about it , to connect with other people going through the same thing , even to vent about it / their challenging thoughts and talk about when they relapse . its another thing entirely to make posts like " fat ppl are ugly disgusting monsters you have to be skinny pale and frail to be worth anything or beautiful " and then plop urself right into an echo chamber of people obessing and nodding along liek yes yes i must be thin i must be thin all i want is to be thin im disgusting

you are going to die . full stop . you are going to die . your organs will fail and your hair will fall out and your teeth will wear down from the acid of you throwing up so often . you are going to die and it wont be pretty . you are going to die if you do not get out . eating disorders kill people , full stop . liek i need you to understand how serious this is . you either recover or youre dead . this isnt me saying " i dont liek that these people are talking about something thats bad " or " ppl struggling with this should have no spaces to talk about what theyre going through " , this is me saying " the pro ana tag is so incredibly dangerous and tumblr should block it liek theyve blocked countless of other way less harmful tags " . this is me saying im begging you to do some reserach to get out of the echo chamber and i know its not that easy and you cant just say ' wow ur right im healed now thanks ' , but you have to want to get better and that starts with cutting out " thinspo " and to stop encouraging eachother to slowly kill yourselves

liek there are a host of other problems too . the fatphobia is an obvious one , but also the colourism , racism , etc . the pro ana / thinspo communities are obsessed with reaching this ideal of a skinny pale waif , so many blog titles and urls are centered around being ~ fragile ~ and ~ pure ~ and they only ever focus on white girls ( or apparently kpop stars now ) . its an incredibly toxic place . " meanspo " is a thing now ?? i couldnt stomach too much of it

but without getting into the ~ discourse ~ or how ~ problematic ~ those communities are . putting that aside . youre going to die . full stop you either recover from an ed or it kills you . and some people with eds are suicidal and that wont deterr them , for some their goal is to wither away into nothingness . ppl with eds are not healthy , mentally or physically , and that is not a moral judgment , it is a fact . people get eds for all sorts of reasons , from trauma ( abuse , bullying , sa , etc ) , from being fat in a fatphobic world , because they latch onto food as something they feel liek they can control-- there's so many reasons , an endless amount of reasons . i am not here to shame anyone for having an eating disorder

that does not change my stance on the fact that the " pro ana / thinspo " tags ( and their copycats . #proana #proed #thinspi #thinspii #thinspø #thinsp0 #ed not sheeran #ed not sherran #ana miaa etc etc ) are dangerous and should be removed . similar to how someone going into tha #depression tag and promoting and encouraging others to kill themselves should be banned

srsly if someone went into tha #depression tag and started posting and commenting on others posts liek " kill yourself , its never going to get better , heres some accessible ways to die , heres some suicide inspo , heres cute suicide note ideas , kill urself just die prove everyone wrong , everyone will be so sorry and regret the way they treated you , just die " , people would mass report them and dogpile them and be angry at them and get them banned . but when pro ana ppl do it suddenly its " let us cope " lol ????? not all coping methods are good or healthy or should be encouraged / promoted . and self mutilation is one thing , but when you are actively harming others it cant be left alone

to quote Blythe Baird from her spoken word When The Fat Girl Gets Skinny : if you are not recovering , you are dying

[not-she-which-burns-in-it]

A Study in Emerald

The brainrot has fully consumed me, I'm writing fanfic for the first time since 2018. Any kudos or interaction on AO3 would be super appreciated.

Summary:

A character study for each of the major Magnus Archives characters, starting with Jon and Martin. Exactly 1,500 words each, it's a look at their perception of self and what's driving them. Written in prep for a larger project, it felt worth it to post them as stand alone pieces.

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply Characters: Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Martin Blackwood

Additional Tags: Character Study, Canon Compliant, Martin Blackwood Has a Crush on Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Martin Blackwood Needs a Hug, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist Needs a Hug, Not really a plot here, Internalized Fatphobia, Internalized Acephobia (kinda), Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Worth Issues, Everyone is doing bad

https://archiveofourown.org/works/61894225/chapters/158260423

Jonathan Sims carries such a strong aura of being overworked that when you spend more than a few minutes in his presence you start thinking about a third cup of coffee to get through the rest of your day. Jon would be handsome if he wasn’t so tired, or if he devoted any effort to his presentation. The dark circles under his eyes had been a common sight as long as he could remember looking in the mirror, but became permanent fixtures when he started working in the Archives. There were even frown lines beginning to form on his high forehead and a deepening of the lines around his large straight nose, stretching toward his sharp angular jaw. It was the perfect nose to look down at someone from behind his glasses, especially when his mouth turned into a scowling frown, which was often. His lips are a bit too thin to be called attractive but they match his high cheekbones and compliment his thick dark brows and long lashes. The bronze undertones from his mixed heritage are the only thing keeping him from being called “pale” or “deprived of sunlight” - something he would snarkily defend if anyone ever called him that. 

“Well, I do work in the Archives, in the climate controlled basement, so excuse me if I’m not working on my tan.”

His skin has become a map of his experiences. The handful of shiny, circular, worm-attack scars that dot his forearms and climb up his shoulders to his neck and peek out from under the scruff on his cheeks have started to fade thanks to Nikola Orsinov’s moisturizing routine, but the jagged line of a stab wound above his wrist, and a brutal burn scar on his hand have refused to be soothed away. The pale moons of worm bites are even easier to see when his dark hair is pulled back from his face. The soft brown waves streaked with silver obscure his young age. When he had started there were only a few pale strands, but the role of Archivist had doubled the gray in the couple years he had been on this journey, despite being in his mid thirties. He often left it hanging around his face, as if the curtain of hair that brushed his shoulders would create another barrier to prevent people from speaking to him when he was bent over an old dusty tome. When he was trying to look presentable he’d pull half of it back, in a look Georgie described as “his slutty little up-do”, and when he was truly agitated and didn’t want anyone to see how greasy it had become he swept all of it up. Tim had once said he was “sporting a man-bun” and the sheer violence in Jon’s gaze prevented Tim from ever remarking on Jon’s hair again. He hadn’t grown it out intentionally. When he was still in the research department it had barely curled around his ears. Now, every few weeks he would look in the mirror after a shower and declare his hair unmanageable and resolve to get it cut. But he never managed to actually get to a barber. 

His outfits suffered from a similar spectrum of hurried to forgetfulness. His slacks fit him well but desperately needed the creases pressed. The button down shirts also cried out for the touch of an iron, but it was harder to notice when he layered them under blazers and jumpers. It was the fashion sense only someone who missed the academic focus of their Oxford days would develop. The colors stayed in neutrals with heaps of green, navy, and maybe maroon. The day he wore a buttercup yellow shirt, no fewer than 3 people stopped to do a double take. It turned out he had spilled an entire cup of tea on his original shirt on the way to work and needed to stop last minute for a new one. 

He was normally seen with a cup of tea in his hand, or coffee if he was feeling desperate, and a pen in his mouth. Martin guessed that Jon had a tendency to chew on the end of his pens when he wanted a cigarette. He had smoked off and on since his college days, and always seemed to pick up the habit again when he was stressed. It was less of a nicotine addiction, than the desire to have a good reason to take a break and get some fresh air every once in a while. The reason he had picked the habit up in the first place in college, was that smoking was a perfect excuse to sit out on someone’s roof, or back garden, away from the loud music and loud people. Jon had been a grumpy old man even when he was 19. Something about the noise and press of bodies made him feel trapped and hot and like electricity was crawling up his spine. Or maybe it was just a very quiet upbringing that made parties feel unnatural to him. 

You could tell from the way he hunched over his work, as if it was a closely guarded secret, darting his eyes around before focusing in on a conversation, and jumped slightly when the doors slammed that he’d had a tough childhood. Jon never spoke of his parents, and it took years of knowing him before he’d slip and mention being raised by his grandmother. His father had died when he was two, but he grew with his image as a constant comparison. Athletic, where Jon was bookish; outgoing, where Jon was shy - the ghost of his father was the invisible standard Jon constantly failed to live up to in his grandmother’s eyes. No, he always heard that he was his mother’s child. He had more memories of his her, but they were hazy from toddlerhood: her soft brown face framed with delicate reading glasses, her long braid that she let Jon weave flowers into from the garden, the smell of chai in the morning, flowing bright colored fabrics, warm dinners packed with flavor that made the kitchen a bustling center of activity. His very British grandmother - his father’s mother - had not kept those colors or flavors in his life after he went to live with her at the age of six. He had Granny to thank for his accent, stiff shoulders, and degree from Oxford. He sometimes wondered what would have happened if he had gone with his mother’s family instead. But Jon would rather die than share these musings willingly, so his details had to be put together like a puzzle from observation. 

Observing Jon was Martin’s favorite pastime. For instance he had observed that Jon’s eyes seemed brown at first, but if you got close to him you could see little flecks of gold and green. And that while the scruff on Jon’s face could get messy, the effect was intentional - because even when Jon cleaned up scuff remained, just with straighter lines and a more pleasing shape. He’d also gotten close enough to feel how soft his hair was, in need of a thorough comb and maybe a deep condition, but silky nonetheless. They’d been trapped in the archives at the time, so there were bigger things to worry about than how soft Jon’s hair was or how he smelled of sandalwood and leather and books - but Martin had noticed nonetheless. 

On the rare occasions that Tim and Martin (or Tim and Sasha before) were able to cajole Jon out to the pub after work, they knew to take him to a quiet place where they could occupy a corner booth and find some topic to start a friendly argument. They had little luck drawing Jon on football or any other sport, and even less on the merits of various popstars. Once, when they still worked in research, Tim had started ordering whiskey instead of beer, and tried to play Smash or Pass with the other bar patrons. Jon had been so uncomfortable that he made an excuse to leave and declined any subsequent invitations for at least six months. 

Actually Martin had never seen Jon show an interest in anyone, in that way. And Martin was looking. But Jon had always found dating difficult. His longest relationship had been with his college best-friend-turned-girlfriend Georgie. He’d had a couple short, failed relationships after that, and a few semi-successful but ultimately fruitless long distance relationships after those. You could almost feel the repercussions of the string of disappointments when you talked to him. It was as if everyone started their acquaintance with him at a negative point balance, and needed to work their way up. He used his inherent mistrust of people as a wall to keep people from looking too closely at him. 

If you didn’t need people, then you couldn’t be let down by them, you wouldn’t be vulnerable to them. And that’s the way he wanted to keep it, thank you.

[hope-for-olicity]

“But the widespread idea that we should learn to live with chronic hunger can, and should, be challenged. Not only are we not obligated to lose weight, for reasons canvassed earlier in this book, but there is something deeply immoral about the dictates of diet culture that posit and impose on us these pseudo-obligations. They often leave us perpetually hungry, and thus experiencing bodily discomfort - and sometimes suffering, even torment. We all deserve to be free from this, since it serves no valid purpose.”

Kate Manne - Unshrinking: How to Face Fatphobia

Like Kate Manne, the author of this book I have been on countless diets and developed an eating disorder all in the goal of being thin.

The only times I have successfully lost weight is through starvation. And I can't believe I have to say this but starvation is not healthy. Whether you starve yourself due an an eating disorder or trick you body into not eating food using a drug - you are starving your body.

Many people believe fat people should do ANYTHING to be thin. No matter the risks to their lives (bariatric surgery), well-being or activities of daily living. There is no action that is too much if a fat person can become thin.

Being fat is something that just cannot be abided.

I am fat. I have been thin through starving and purging. The praise given when thin was like a drug after the ridicule faced while being fat. You would think after losing 78lbs I would be "healthy." I was not.

I was never MORE unhealthy on every level. I was sick. My doctor worried I'd need to be hospitalized if I didn't start eating. My hair was falling out, I had brain fog and worse of all I was obsessed with food. All I could think was when could I eat next?

I now practice intuitive eating and I eat. I eat all the foods. Foods that you were never allowed to eat on diet, foods that are always in diets. I eat it all. I am fat.

I am fat, like I am short and I have green eyes. These are all descriptors of me.

I take medications for health conditions that add to my weight but they are needed. I exercise for joy. I actually like exercising when I'm not punishing myself to speed walk 5km a day.

I'm taking care of me.

But I know I am judged. These judgements could impact my employment, whether people think I'm intelligent and most important of all my healthcare.

But I know I'm doing what is best for my physical and mental health and that is most important.

[rebellum]

I was super thin as a kid and young teen and had some bad experiences related to it and that's exactly why when people are discussing fatphobia and someone goes "um? Thin people have it bad too?" I immediately just start Mauling that person like I'm Luis Suárez like

I DID have that experience! I did feel bad about my weight, people told me hugging me was uncomfortable, I had low self esteem, at one point I went through a brief phase of basically forcing myself to eat until I felt sick (and, sometimes, got sick) because I was so desperate to put on weight because even if I'm ugly and no one finds me attractive at least I can try to give my friends good hugs and not have people assume I'm anorexic or suffering from child abuse.

And that's still NOTHING compared to what the average fat person goes through! My self esteem was low because of my own thoughts and the words of people around me, not because the entire world felt like I deserve to die for my weight. I could still find clothes and didn't pay attention to my weight in comparison to models or celebrities because that never factored in. I never got bullied for my weight. I never had to be sure to not eat around people in case they made fun of me, I never had to be worried about doctors discriminating against me for my weight.

Like dude I have the Strawman Thin Person experience and I'm telling you what I experienced was still no where near as bad as experiencing fatphobia

[skippydiesposting]

okay jfc I have to write a post about why the idea of "intuitive eating" rubs me the wrong way as a solution to eating disorders

not saying that it can't be a helpful tool in getting people back in touch with their bodies and unlearning certain lessons of diet culture, but I think it still enforces the societal harm that is weight stigma and discrimination. Here's why:

1. Intuitive eating still moralizes food in a hugely uncomfortable way. The whole basis of intuitive eating is centered on the idea that "if you let yourself eat the 'bad food', eventually you will start to crave the 'good food'!"

There are no bad or good foods. They are all just food. The food you eat in your everyday life is not medicine, nor is it poison, no matter what food it is. Your body needs sugar. Your body needs carbs. Your body needs fats. It's just food. It's just a way to get nutrients into your body. There's no wrong way to eat.

2. Intuitive eating still moralizes body size and implies that thinness is the correct goal. One aspect of intuitive eating is the sometimes unspoken implication that "once you learn how to eat correctly, you might not lose weight...but maybe you will, which would be great!"

In practice this is still praising weight loss, even if it's unintentional weight loss rather than intentional. It still gives the message that thinness is superior to fatness, and that thinness is a healthy ideal to strive for. Like this essay says, "Celebrating weight loss, even when it is a result of intuitive eating and having more compassion for your body, is still a commitment to thinness and still perpetuates fatphobia and diet culture."

3. Intuitive eating puts too much emphasis on hunger and hunger cues. There's the idea that once you "learn how to eat better", your hunger cues will fall into place and you'll "only eat when you're actually hungry". But guess what? You need to eat even if you're not hungry.

There are so many people who no longer, or might have never had, completely functioning satiety signals. People who have spent so long doing dieting or restrictive eating or battling eating disorders, but also people who suffer from illness or chronic disabilities which might affect the regulation of hunger cues. Some people will never feel hungry. But they still need to eat.

I've heard far too many people say that they don't eat breakfast/lunch/et cetera because they aren't hungry in the morning. As someone with a form of dysautonomia who becomes completely nonfunctional if I don't eat frequently, this attitude gets under my skin. Food is not about desire--or not entirely, as I'll get to later in the post--or about what you want to do. Food is crucial, full stop, no matter what.

I think the fatphobic myth that weight is tied to health and is something that can be controlled has created this idea of food as something optional, something that is purely driven by desire. Diet culture has made us believe that eating is simultaneously an Evil™ force that can control you and take over your body while simultaneously praising behavior of restriction, and at its heart restriction is about choice. Eating is not a choice. Eating is an entirely mandatory, necessary part of life, the same way that sleeping is. It's regulatory. It keeps you alive. The best thing you can do for your body is eat regularly and consistently.

Sometimes it's really fucking hard to eat when you don't have an appetite, or when you're nauseous. I completely understand that. Just like it's really fucking hard to sleep when you have insomnia. But you still have to do it. Eating is not optional; it's not something you do when you want to. It needs to happen regularly, every day. It's a very basic part of being a human being with a body, and no matter the state of that body, it needs to be fed.

You don't need to feel hungry to eat. Some people will never feel hungry, and they still need to eat. And it's also okay to eat without hunger, even if your basic needs of satiation and nutrition have been met. This leads me to my next point:

4. Intuitive eating puts too much emphasis on "mindful" eating. By continuing to constantly monitor and overthink your own eating behavior, it becomes a chore; it becomes a pattern of overattention and scrupulousity; it becomes something moralized, the same way that it is moralized in diet culture.

By all means, we should all try to be more mindful and intentional in our lives. But eating is just a basic fact of life. We don't consider whether we're "mindfully" sleeping, or "mindfully" taking a shower. Eating is just a part of your day, just something you need to do, and I don't think we have to focus every moment of our attention thinking about what food is wrong or right to be eating, or how we're eating it. In fact, I think everyone deserves to be mindless sometimes: everyone deserves to zone out in front of the TV, or get sucked into a video game. And that includes mindlessly eating.

In addition to being something basic and mandatory about having a human body, eating is one of the great pleasures of life, like sex or sleep. And like those things, it's completely fine if you just want to snack! For no other reason besides desire! In absence of hunger or satiety, eating can be something completely neutral and comforting. Eating can be a form of stimming for sensory seeking people; it can be fun; it can be used as a way of connecting other people. In fact, eating with other people is one of the things that induces oxytocin--known as the "love hormone"--in our brains, along with sex, childbirth, lactation, and singing with other people.

Telling people to be "mindful" when eating has the same flavor as the ways we treat drugs or alcohol in our society: "drink responsibly". "Eat mindfully". As if food is actually something that could harm us, rather than simply being the nutrients that keep us alive.

I really don't think that teaching people to overthink their food choices or behaviors is going to help anyone. Instead it needs to be clear that there are no morals attached to eating, nor the foods themselves. Eat when you need to. And also, eat when you want to. Eat for fun, for connection with other people, for pleasure, for sensory stimulation. Eat without thinking about it. That's the only way you can normalize it.

You don't need to eat in the "right way". There is no "right way". You just need to eat.

ALSO: this is meant for everybody, not just people who struggle with eating disorders or have been harmed by diet culture, but this is ESPECIALLY for fat people. Fat people are shamed constantly for the extremely natural and necessary practice of eating regardless of their actual eating habits, and I fully believe that unless we center fat people and their experiences in the anti-diet conversation, we will be trapped in the same horror of moralizing bodies, food, and basic humans needs that we have been for centuries.

YOU ARE ALLOWED TO EAT. No matter what.

[desultory-suggestions]

I'm scared to recover because it kind of feels like who i am now, and I'm really scared of gaining weight because I'm already considered a healthy weight. Since i was about age 4, i was considered "unhealthy" by the bmi chart. And I'm so scared to get back to that. The mean comments get to me so much, and things online about foods being unhealthy and my unrestricted body being bad or unhealthy too. Do you have any advice or tips? I'm also autistic and I don't get hunger cues. Professional eating disorder treatments haven't helped me, and I want to be able to make my own choices (they never seem to understand my autism and say it's the ed when it's not.) , so if i tried recovery, it would be at home with my family.

Hello, my dear. This is actually an extremely common fear and one that I had too. Sometimes, it still crosses my mind. Your eating disorder is the least interesting thing about you. It doesn't define you, and it doesn't make you any better of a person. In fact, all it does is create suffering for a beautiful person who has so much life to share. You are good, and so much energy and life is sapped away from you by this disorder. You will be shocked by how much you can accomplish when you are no longer under the thumb of an eating disorder. Your energy, your happiness, everything is ten times better. Every pound you may gain comes with added health and joy for your life. The people worth keeping in your life, want you to be the healthiest and happiest you can be.

You can be considered a healthy weight, but that doesn't mean you are a healthy weight for you or that you are maintaining it healthily. If you have to starve to be that weight, it is not a healthy weight. We are so afraid of the idea of bodies, weight, and being fat that we tell ourselves it's better to suffer than change, and that is just not true. There is nothing wrong with gaining weight or being fat. When we say every body is a good body, we mean every body. Working on dismantling our engrained fatphobia and obsession with thinness is vital to recovery. I was considered healthy at the pinnacle of my ED, and trust me I was not. Your body has a healthy weight range it can happily and naturally live within, and you deserve to let it live.

Interjection, never ever ever ever ever ever (this goes on for several more days) EVER listen to the goddamn BMI again. I cannot even begin to explain the absolute bogus that BMI charts and scales are. They mean nothing. There are ways to measure health with health professionals, BMI is not one of them even if a professional tells you it is. Research points to many issues with such scales. I am so so sorry anyone ever even told you such a thing. No one should be measuring your worth by your body. Generally, work towards avoiding all such scales. Even if it was accurate, so what? If you have personal health concerns you can address them with a professional, but being fat doesn't equal being unhealthy either. No one gets to measure your worth.

You will likely always see fatphobia and misinformation online, but it can be reduced. Unfollowing anyone who makes you feel lesser or increased ED issues is extremely important. And don't worry! There are so many amazing blogs to replace them with! Check out who I reblog from for some wonderful people who will remind you that you are worthy and loved in every form you take.

I can totally understand why conventional ED recovery specialists don't work for you. While you may be able to find someone who specifically works with autistic people or is autistic as well, you also may need to focus on what you can do for yourself. It is possible to recover without that standard treatment, but I still encourage speaking to a therapist in general. If hunger cues are an issue, you may find scheduling meals to be more helpful. You can play to eat with company to have support or to eat alone but have someone checking on how much you manage to eat. You can make a meal plan with a REGISTERED dietician (avoid plain nutritionists, as they often do not require a formal education) and follow along to get what your body needs. Whenever you do happen to sense hunger, follow it and eat! It can be rare, and maybe it doesn't happen at all. But if it does trust in it. Work on eating foods you are afraid of, small increments are still progress. Stock up on foods you love, and that you want to enjoy without shame.

Extra Tips:

I watch videos while I eat to reduce anxiety and shame. I love watching people who are food positive! Keith Eats the Menu helped me so much in recovery because I could see him and his friends all shamelessly enjoying their meals along with me.

I challenged myself to eat things that scared me once a week. Even if it is just a bite.

I recommend using a big Sharpie and hiding all the nutritional facts on food/drink packaging. You can also ask a friend! It feels like you will never forget those numbers, but trust me you do. It helps to also focus on all the good that is in it. Every food item holds nutrients and vital resources for us, every food item.

Keep affirming yourself, and as much as possible remove those who devalue you. It may not be completely possible, but even so keep adding the people into your life who treat you and your body with respect.

I know you can get through this. You are so much more than your disorder, and I can't wait to see how you grow.

Best,

Evan

[arctic-hands]

This may sound dramatic but knowing what my ancestors have been thru also helped me on my fat/body positivity journey.

On my dad's side, his mom was the daughter of poor Appalachians who were trying to make their way to Detroit but broke down in bumfuck Indiana, and she was born just as the Great Depression was starting and didn't have adequate nutrition in her formative years. She was rail thin until her twenties, at which point she ballooned up, a trait my father inherited and then passed down to me.

On my mother's side, her grandparents were arrested for unknown reasons during the Occupation of France and both sent to Nazi Germany as slave labor (this isn't family lore to make them sound better and noble during the Occupation–they're both in the Arolsen Archives and none of us knew anything about it until I randomly found them there). I have no idea what they themselves experienced as forced laborers, but having read accounts of other French arrestees and slave labor (most notably Agnés Humbert's memoir), I doubt they were getting proper and nutritious meals, on top of the traumatic stress they were experiencing. My mom has struggled with weight too, but she mercifully had enough sense to not make a fuss about it in front of her kids.

(I did end up with some level of disordered eating as an adult, but that's because of fatphobia and shaming in the medical system that I experienced, and by some sheer luck I got some help from regular people that helped me overcome it–namely, by pointing out that by restricting my calorie count to less than a thousand a day, I was feeding myself less calories than the Nazis were giving concentration camp victims until the very end of the Holocaust. The shock of that realization helped to bring me out of it and lo and behold the months-long lethargy I had was greatly lessened almost immediately.)

We know now that stress and trauma can not only lead to weight gain for yourself, but to any future descendents as well. Especially when under starvation conditions, your body adapts to hold on to whatever weight you can build up, and it sticks around so you can survive the next round of starvation conditions you may someday experience. And starvation is so traumatic that it can activate something in your genes to pass it down to your children and their children, so that they can survive the lean times as well.

My fairly recent ancestors suffered greatly and starved. But they survived. And whether they knew it or not, they imparted a genetic gift to make sure we survived too: the gift of being fat, so that we too could survive the lean times. And brother, are times lean right now.

(Admittedly none of this is sourced because I recently woke up and am lazy)

[seakicker]

Even hourglass isn't always really treated that much better. Personally, I have like 20 cm difference between waist and bust/hips but also have thicker arms and bigger belly so you can't even really tell. Of course, everyone's experience is different I can only speak about my own. But the whole concept of it being 'ok' to be fat only when you're desirable is so stupid. Don't get me wrong fat ppl can and are hot but when I was a fat kid there was no 'saving grace' for me yknow. And eg when I got boobs they 'didn't count bc it's probably just bc I'm fat'.

im an hourglass shape myself (my measurements are roughly 46-37-48) and while i would never, ever claim that hourglass fat people are excluded from any sort of fatphobia bc that’s categorically untrue—speaking from experience— i think it’s important to recognize that, in a lot of instances, hourglass fat people are viewed with a bit (even if it’s just a bit) more respect than fat people who aren’t an hourglass shape. for instance, if you take a look at fashion magazines or store catalogues advertising plus size clothes, you’ll often find that the models they use have a defined waist, a smooth (or even entirely flat) belly, curvy hips, and bigger breasts as a means of promoting that, in the eyes of society, there is a “correct” way to be plus sized and that means having a small belly and a defined waist. apple, pear, and inverted triangle shapes receive even less representation than hourglass fat people do, and we already suffer from a severe lack of representation as fat people so i think it’s really important to be sensitive to how fat people who don’t fit the hourglass standard are treated differently.

of course, for some thin people, body shape doesn’t matter and they’ll be fatphobic regardless of how you look because fat is fat to them and as long as you’re fat, regardless of how it’s distributed, you’re undesirable to them. my point isn’t that hourglass fat people like you and i don’t experience hardships, of course we do and of course we can experience harassment, abuse, doctor discrimination, etc., my point is that it’s important to be sensitive to how different fat bodies are treated on a basis of shape and even on a basis of gender, sexuality, and race too.

[thediaryofemilyoko]

This is a stream of consciousness written this morning detailing my struggle with internalized fatphobia. I am being honest with myself about this in my quest for feeling body neutrality someday. This is your trigger warning.

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I want to be okay with my body.

I want my husband to be okay with my body. I know okay is a term of mediocrity. I want to be wanted more than anything in the world. I feel my body is difficult to love. My face no longer has its sharp features from my youth and I feel ashamed. I feel I am always taking up too much space. I read comments on the internet from men who say looking at a body like mine makes them nauseous. I am stuck in this body and stuck on the receiving end of cruelty for it, including the cruelty of my own brain. The fact that my body is a lot of people’s worst nightmare for themselves is disheartening. My skinny friends do not understand and maybe that is good that they cannot relate to this pain. It hurts me to hear that they are worried about gaining weight. I feel there is no good way for me to eat but I know not eating will also do harm. I hate ascribing morality to food and I hate that I am viewed as a less moral person because of my body. My bosses make comments about my body and the food I eat often. My husband does not seem to like my body. I am not a person that is lusted after and I wish I didn’t care. I just looked down and noticed those white stripes on my belly that I hadn’t seen before, which tell me I must have gained more weight somehow even though I’m eating less. I am eating less and it doesn’t matter. I feel like I don’t matter. I wonder if people don’t like to be seen with me. I wonder if my husband doesn’t want to be seen with me. I used to feel awkward visiting him at work because I thought I might embarrass him. I have to live in this body as it is now and I feel like I will never escape this pain. It hurts knowing my mom would go into debt to get that surgery done on me because how I look matters more to her than how I feel. I want to feel sexy but I can’t anymore. I just want my husband to want me. I don’t care about compliments from strange men on the internet. I want to feel okay existing in public. I hate being perceived and yet it’s all I want. I want to be seen in a good way. I want someone to be happy to see me. I want to be more than okay, I want to be someone’s idea of beautiful. I am not but I want to be, and ideally I want to be my husbands idea of beautiful. I am so tired. I am rejected often and it is eating away at me. I can’t eat anything without the awareness that my body will turn it into more fat and thus more judgment. No one has a crush on me. No one wants to see me naked. No one is wanting to see me clothed. I am unwelcome. I know that there is no future where I am thin again. I hate that I have these thoughts. I want to not care about anyone or anything. I know I am intellectualizing my feelings too much. I don’t know why I’m not allowed to love myself as I am. I read the comments too much. I am afraid that even my guy friends view me in a negative way because of my body and face. I don’t know why I am still so desperate for male attention. I know I am desperate for touch. Who would want to touch this body? Why is it such a bad thing? Surely this body is soft and squishy and that should be something nice to touch but I guess it’s not nice to look at. I want to be desired even if I can’t act on desire. I want to be wanted. I want someone to get hot thinking of me. I want way too much. Desire is the root of all suffering. All of this plagues me and then my personality seals my fate. Even the fetishizer men would probably not want me to open my mouth to say words.

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[life-in-the-monster-haus]

I thought you and Cupid stopped talking about each other what happened? /gen

We did. Our argument ended and I haven’t spoke to her since. She did dox me though by publicly posting our private conversation against my will so if she thinks me speaking out is “unfair”… now we’re even.

However, if someone else who isn’t an anon has an issue with Cupid, I’m obviously going to share my experience because it proves it wasn’t just a one time argument with me and that “I was the problem”… it’s Cupid and her fatphobia back at it. I can’t just stay silent while she hurts more people. That’s exactly how evil people get away with shit!

It’s her at war yet again with some one new ( @neck-bolts ) over the same stuff she crucified me for. Her hatred of fat people is showing her true colors, she’s a menace to the MH community. I’ve read @neck-bolts blog and while I don’t know them personally they seem to be a decent enough person who probably did not ask for this fight. But Cupid has a history of this destructive behavior, including but not limited too sending her friend to send me anons calling me ugly, delusional, ETC. She hurts people & is cool with it.

and if you think I’m being hyperbolic not even 2 weeks ago I was talking to someone named Skinny Boo* who told me 3G Draculaura was fat & unhealthy, I went to lecture and his person about their fatphobia but what I found was an individual who was in extreme pain, this poor soul was suffering from an eating disorder and their goal was to be so extremely skinny that their menstrual cycle stopped… it was never about being “healthy” they just want to be thin. I tried to help them, gave them resources for someone in their position but I was too late, society’s obsession with thin-ness had already got its meat hooks into this young person. I HOPE they took my advice but… one person can’t stop media brainwashing.

When you have a war against fat people THAT is whom you’re hurting! Young, vulnerable and desperate to confirm to an arbitrary beauty standard!

I’ve blocked her, she can’t hurt me anymore. I strongly suggest for you’re own peace of mind y’all do the same.

[vaspider]

No, it's not a recipe for early death, please stop mindlessly rabbiting back what the multi-billion-dollar weightloss industry pumps into the world.

I beg you to listen to like one episode of Maintenance Phase or read a book or two. This modern obsession with thinness is not just wrong, it's racist as hell.

Firmly in place by the time the diet industry began to flourish in the 1920s, the development of fat stigma was related not only to cultural anxieties that emerged during the modern period related to consumer excess, but, even more profoundly, to prevailing ideas about race, civilization and evolution. For 19th and early 20th century thinkers, fatness was a key marker of inferiority, of an uncivilized, barbaric, and primitive body. This idea—that fatness is a sign of a primitive person—endures today, fueling both our $60 billion “war on fat” and our cultural distress over the “obesity epidemic.”

Whatever you do, stop putting this fatphobic and factually wrong bullshit on shit you reblog from me. Medical fatphobia almost lost me the use of everything below my L1 vertebra because a doctor was so BLINDED by my BIG FAT ASS that he didn't even bother to do any tests past looking at me and saying YEAH YOU FAT. I lived in fucking agony for years because my doctor didn't listen. He just put me on 1300 calories a day (which is about what you feed a fucking toddler, not a 35yo adult) and ignored me when I said I wasn't getting better. I just needed to work harder to lose the weight. Never mind that I was furious with everyone all the time because I was literally starving, and couldn't exercise because I couldn't fucking walk from the pain.

When I needed help to walk to the bathroom at work, my wife finally got pissed off enough to demand that I go back to my family doctor, who looked at me for a very literal thirty seconds before sending me to get an MRI of my spine. That very simple test which - again - the other doctor didn't bother ordering for two years as I slowly lost my ability to do fuck all and missed doing cool shit with my daughter from ages 10-12? Yeah, it revealed a 2.5cm tumor growing on my spinal cord sheath, compressing my spinal cord.

I was really lucky - it was benign. I didn't die like my friend Ginny, who had a tumor in the same spot and lost the tumor lottery. I'm lucky. Genuinely. I know of far too many fat people who fucking died because their doctors didn't do the same tests on them that they do on skinny people.

And it's all fucking lies! It's all fucking lies. All that suffering and fatphobia is because of racism and money.

And here you are, vomiting up the same fucking garbage.

Don't respond. You're wrong, and I'm not arguing with you. Sit down, shut up, and learn before you keep perpetuating the same harmful bullshit that caused me years of agony.

An 8,000-year-old marble figurine of a voluptuous woman was unearthed in 2016 in the Neolithic urban settlement of Çatalhöyük in central Turkey. The figurine is 17 centimeters long, 11 centimeters wide and weighs one kilo.

[oh-katsuki]

I am very skinny, but I agree with your post, people just hate fat people or people that are not conventionally attractive. And denying it seems so messed up to me like ?? You're not fooling anyone. Also fat people have it worse than skinny people I know, but if you're not build like an hourglass people will hate on you too. I have no curves and I have a wide ribcage so everyone bullied me for being too skinny or not feminine enough. So if you don't fit their ideal of beauty then you're doomed :/ which really sucks.

Same goes for face, unless you have a conventionally attractive face, people are gonna be really mean to you. Experienced that first hand and girls and especially boys are gonna treat you different if they're not attracted to you, the way they were so unnecessary mean to me just cause I don't fit the pretty girl standars it's so unfair :(

I say we all deep fry the mean people 👀

i think someone would have to be willfully keeping their eyes shut to not be able to see the things you're talking about in their everyday lives.

beauty standards are fucking garbage and it is SO obvious when people begin hating something a celebrity does because they don't fit them. even if they brush it off as other things. and yes, it does happen to thin people who don't fit the conventional eurocentric beauty standard, but it is especially prevalent with fat people and people of color. thinness doesn't guarantee beauty, but it does make it easier to be perceived as beautiful by society. and that doesn't lessen the suffering or pain others have gone through, it just is.

i was talking about sam smith in my other posts, because what's happening to him on social media is relevant, but im referring right now to an overarching trend of cruelty for people who don't fit a eurocentric beauty standard. it is insane to me the lengths people will go to emotionally harm people who don't fit that. what's going on right now with sam smith is just one of MANY examples.

and on a separate note, you're absolutely right. boys and men DO treat you differently if they don't find you attractive. EVERYONE does and it is especially prevalent for those of us who have obvious and easy-to-target differences from the standard. fatphobia is an "acceptable" form of prejudice to a lot of people. to many, it is acceptable to treat fat people as "less than" simply because we are perceived a certain way.

it gets exhausting to see and experience though. it continues to be draining to see people who look and are shaped like me constantly be put down and ridiculed for the same shit thin white people do all the time.