sugaredvenom:

furiousdee:

iffpiffniff:

…On “inbetweenies” claiming “fat”.

I think the real problem is not that we’re not willing to accept people for their size, it’s that a US size 12 (UK 14) calling herself fat makes US size 22s kinda of feel like crap. It’s setting back confidence. If a size 12 is fat, then what is a size 22? If a 12 thinks she’s fat, what does she think of a size 22? What about a 26? Bigger? Do you think I look gross because I’m more than 10 inches bigger around than you, and you have to cope with yourself? I would hardly call a 12 an inbetweener. A 12 is healthy, nicely sized, and the girl in the photo has good proportion.

That is why at least I don’t think she belongs here.

Right, I’m just going to butt in here, because nobody here knows the facts. I just happened to read the description ‘fashion blogger, owl lover, geek, and motorsports fan’ and realised immediately that my best friend made that submission, confirmed by the stunning photo attached.

Let me just say that she’s shrunk down to that UK 14 from a 18/20, and I’ve been her BFF for the entire journey through weight gain and subsequent weight loss. This chick still has, and maybe always will have, fat girl mentality (which, I think you’ll find, is the more prevalent element in self-acceptance than ‘size’). At her biggest, she completely OWNED it, and has always been one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever laid eyes upon - now, at a size 14, the only real difference is that she’s got the inner confidence to match the false guts she presented for so long. And no, not just because she’s thinner, but because she’s become fast and strong through running and weight-lifting, and she feels GOOD after a long period of self-consciousness and not being able to run up a flight of stairs without panting.

Why should her calling herself fat make anybody else feel shit? She has FOUGHT for that positivity, and for that self-acceptance. If that’s setting back confidence, it’s YOUR issue with yourself, not hers. Assuming that she’s going to think you’re ‘gross’ for being bigger than her is also your own insecurity talking. I’ve never met anybody less judgemental about size than her. I’m three dress sizes bigger than her and I know for a fact that she thinks I’m gorgeous and beautiful and stylish. She’s told me so regularly for nine years, and there’s never been any size comparison between us, because why would there be? It’s not important, and if she feels the desire to post herself on a BODY POSITIVE BLOG because, at 23 years old, she’s truly happy with herself at last, why the fuck shouldn’t she?

Her posting herself on a fat-pos blog PROVES in itself that she doesn’t see fat as bad, or gross, or unattractive. This is a girl who appreciates body positivity in all its forms. While I’ve watched her blossom and begin to thrum with confidence, she’s seen my own journey in turn, and she’s a woman - like me - who would love for everybody to reach that same level of peace with their own bodies.

So don’t you dare judge her by your own narrow standards, or by those of people who’ve put you down. That is the opposite of body positivity.

Way to not understand the problem at all

The problem is with your BFF appropriating a label used for people oppressed by thin privilege. If you’re not fat and don’t experience fat oppression, DO NOT call yourself fat. 

Also, her calling herself fat HURTS fat people. Example here. 

Is she appropriating it, though? Really?

If she lived a fat experience and experienced that oppression and is, as her friend says, using the word fat in an empowering way to describe herself…I really don’t understand how she doesn’t have the right to identify as fat or support/contribute to these spaces. She isn’t dominating or imposing her thinner-fatness, or talking about weight loss, or not checking her privilege. She’s just playing a small part on a blog that is really quite inclusive and diverse in content to begin with.

I can certainly understand your frustrations, but I wonder if they may be misguided. It is of course very hurtful when people appropriate fat labels as insults, or ways of feeling negative about oneself. I very much agree with you on that. But I do not agree that she is appropriating fat labels, based on the above evidence by miss furiousdee, so I do not understand your anger. But perhaps I am missing something.

To address those who feel discomfort about their own bodies because a thinner-fat refers to her thighs as “chunky” - those feelings are real for you, there’s no denying. I don’t feel the same, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist for others, and I understand how it can. But her body is hers, her journey is hers…How does it apply to yours? Why should it? I don’t understand.