Hi Musers, Please don’t worry about the title of today’s post. I haven’t relapsed and allowed society’s unrealistic beauty standards to sink their claws into me again. I’m not going to be writing about hating myself because I don’t – I’m awesome! Instead, I wanted to explain all the things I hate about how my body is treated because of its size. The assumptions, misconceptions and outright bias against fat people. At best the items in this list are unacceptable and at worst they’re outright dangerous. Buckle in for part 1!

1. People Assume I’m Lazy

Why is it that fatness is automatically seen as a person being lazy? That I cannot possibly exercise if I’m so big? WRONG! I do exercise. I try to exercise every day even if it’s just a walk and go to the gym 3-4 times per week. For decades society has been fed the utter BS that weight loss is as simple as eat less and move more. That means if a person is fat they’re too lazy to exercise. This is absolutely untrue. What we weigh has been proven to be far more complex than that and lots of variables, both physical and psychological, play a part.

2.  People assume I’m unhealthy – even doctors!

YOU CAN NOT TELL HOW HEALTHY SOMEONE IS JUST BY LOOKING AT THEM!! This doesn’t stop society as a whole looking at fat people and assuming they have high blood pressure, diabetes, are at risk of heart attacks, strokes etc. I am currently hovering around 270 pounds/127kg/19 stone 9 in weight. I do not have diabetes. My blood pressure is perfect. My cholesterol is bang in the middle of the healthy range. In other words, I am fit and well. My husband on the other hand, who is slimmer than me , has kidney problems, an enlarged spleen and a fatty liver.

I am now prepared to stand up for myself. I refuse to be weighed unless there’s a medical reason. No longer will I be told by medical professionals that anything and everything wrong with me can be fixed by losing weight and you shouldn’t either.  This is medically approved bias against fat people. There is no clear evidence that fatness decreases your lifespan, we need to push back!

 3. The stores I can go into to shop for clothes are greatly restricted

Even back in 2010 40% of women wore size 16 clothes or higher here in the UK. Yet a vast majority of stores do not carry clothes above size 16. Those that do have a small section stuck in the corner of the shop. These are usually branded with what I consider to be insulting names like “curves” or “inspire”. How about instead of excluding us and shoving us off to one side you simply make all your ranges in large sizes. It’s not like there isn’t a market with 40% of us is there? It is not more expensive to manufacture either by more than a few pence. You’re just being allowed to get away with bias against fat people, exclusionary behaviour and price gouging! It needs to stop.

4. And The Internet Is No Better!

I’ve actually lost count of the times I’ve seen cute activewear or dresses or even leggings come up on my Instagram feed and I click only to discover they are not size-inclusive. You can check out my blog post focussing on activewear sizing here. 

The particularly sad/annoying thing is that they almost all carry XS as a size. This again reinforces the belief that if you’re not standard-sized companies act as if you’re not there. I try to post a comment every time calling them out on this. Who wants to join me?

 5. People feel justified in giving me diet or exercise advice

The vast majority of people would never dream of offering a slim person diet or exercise advice. They wouldn’t even do it if they knew the person well and knew they lived on a steady diet of crisps, chocolate and takeaways and got no exercise whatsoever. The perception is thin = healthy. Of course, this is utter crap but we have a long way to go to prove that to people. I believe Health At Every Size should be required reading for nurses and doctors in training and probably in high school too! Until we do the bias against fat people will continue.

Going back to my point though because I’m fat people think it’s fine to recommend diets, cleanses (don’t even get me started) and exercises to me. They have no idea what my diet is like, what my health metrics are or if I exercise. One more time – you cannot tell how healthy a person is by looking at them!! In the past, I tried to be polite when faced with these comments but I’m starting to become a little more forceful now.

Stay Tuned For Part 2!

Ok Musers, we’ve reached the end of things I hate about being fat part 1. Part 2 will be coming in a few days so be sure to stop by and see what the other five are. Even better subscribe at the bottom of the page and ensure you never miss a thing! If you decide to become a Muser in addition to my undying gratitude you’ll receive my tips and resources to ditch diet culture forever.