submitted by atheologist:

I understand the desire for other fat people to prove that they can be fat and healthy based on blood work or other typical definitions, but sometimes, as a fat person who does not have “perfect” blood work, it gets hard to listen to.

I’m fat. Small fat, inbetweenie, low-end-of-obese. Whichever. I don’t have perfect blood work. I know that every time I go in for a physical, my doctor will check my cholesterol and it will be high. It’s been borderline or high since I was in college. Might it go down if I chose to dedicate myself to hours of exercise each week and eating “clean”? Maybe. But my father, a runner with a BMI at the low end of “normal” also has high cholesterol. My mother, who is my height and probably 60 lbs. lighter (putting her within the “normal” BMI range as well) has borderline cholesterol numbers.

I don’t have perfect blood work. But it’s not because I’m fat. Health is more than having perfect test results and I hate that I feel ashamed that mine aren’t.

I know it feels vindicating to say “fuck you” to the doctors and relatives and complete strangers who assume that all fat people are unhealthy by whatever definition they choose, but remember that not all of us meet those criteria. It gets tiring to say that yes, my cholesterol is high, and that, yes, I show some symptoms of metabolic disorder (which is probably what caused the weight gain that pushed me from “overweight” to “obese”), but I still consider myself healthy because right now I am fit and active and able to live my life as I want.