I guess what I don’t get is why we are so threatened by what is different about people. I know some folks who carry extra weight that could *probably* drop it fairly quickly if they picked salad more often than they pick cheeseburgers. I also know people who carry extra weight that won’t so much as *LOOK* at a cheeseburger, and yet they get nowhere.

My ex seemed to be instantly angry by the sight of a fat person. He would remark to me and to himself, when we would drive past a heavy girl jogging: “you best keep arunnin’ there!”. I just don’t get that, how seeing a fat person instantly raises someone’s anger level.

Now that I am thin, I get to endure the hate of my chubby coworkers. They tell me to eat donuts, that I need a sandwich, that they didn’t see me because I was standing sideways, that I’m too thin. My doctor says he’d like to see me build more muscle. He refuses to discuss weight, preferring instead to monitor, say, blood sugar, cholesterol, bone density, body fat percentage and general good health. But I am not too thin.

I get tired of people commenting on everything I eat. “If I ate like that, you’d have to grease my ass out the door.” “If you keep eating like that, you’re going to be fat like the rest of us.” That’s when I eat the bad stuff. When I eat the good stuff, then they say “do you have an eating disorder?” “Oh, are we on the salad diet again?”

What the hell is so threatening about someone who is different than you, whether you’re thin and they’re fat or vice versa?

Awesome post, love.

A-freaking-men. Being happy with who we are — inside and out — is such an important thing. Because if we don’t love ourselves, life gets tough quick.

Thank you so much for posting this. I needed to read it today.

Good job on slamming him.

All of your points are good ones. The only thing remedial I would add is that parents need training in how to prevent their children from becoming fat. Along with the food issues you mentioned, if and when this country ever makes healthy food a priority (unlikely, don’t you think?) people would need to be educated in how to cook good food. Also, I think soft drinks are the worse things ever created. There’s an entire cycle of poverty perpetrated by the damn stuff.

But, all that said, my cat Shiva was fed the same healthy designer cat food that the others in the house eat. She exercised by playing well with her compatriots and with me the first year of her life. She has never had a soft drink in her entire life. And she’s fat. She just is. And we think she’s adorable and amazing and cuddly and yummy…and we tell her so, and she is one happy girl.