submitted by atheologist:

I mostly agree with your comments about inbetweenies claiming fat…except that the person in that picture wears a UK size 14, which is about a US size 10. That’s just barely on the edge of being an inbetweenie. While I’m not comfortable, either with outright dismissal, it’s also easy to leave the door open to even thinner people claiming space in designated fat spaces.

I was wearing a size 10-12 when I first discovered FA and currently wear about a US 14. I definitely have a ton of thin privilege mixed in with the body shaming from doctors and society at large. But living in my body is still a different experience from what my friends who wear a size 4 or 6 experience. And the thing is, I really have encountered people who wear a US size 6 trying to claim inbetweenie. I remember being in high school and college and thinking I was fat and undesirable…when I never wore larger than a size 10 during those years. It’s a delicate balance between affirming an individual’s emerging self-acceptance, and pointing out that they may have some distorted body image.

People of all shapes and sizes get body and fat shamed - and that’s the thing. You don’t have to be fat to experience body shaming based on other people deciding that your body is too large. But getting called fat or being told you need to lose weight aren’t the deciding factors in terms of who is fat, either.

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Good points. I actually missed that the girl in question was a UK 14 and instead thought it was US sizing (I apparently cannot read) but yes, it is a very complex and delicate balance. 

<3 Haley