I'm just tired of being stereotyped as unhealthy, just because of my weight.
My grandmother's shape and size was the same as mine. Even my hands remind me of her. She lived until well into her 80s and died of an illness unrelated to her weight. She was the healthiest person I ever knew, and in her old age only ever took half an aspirin a day. Like her, my BMI classes me as obese, and there have been times in my life when I was classed as 'morbidly' obese. I'm in my mid 40s, have never had to go to hospital (except for when I had my babies, who I conceived and gave birth to just fine); my blood pressure, cholesterol, and everything else is good. I'm rarely sick, and even when I am, I recover quickly. I don't take any medications for anything.
Some thin people get sick, just like some fat people do. The stereotype that all fat people are unhealthy is just one of the many ways that society shames us and makes us feel like outcasts.
I recently took a tour of students through a hospital, where the doctor told them that motorcycle accidents are one of the most common and most expensive 'burdens' on hospital funding and beds. Why doesn't society target motorbike riders as being 'burdens' on our health system? Why aren't they ridiculed and insulted on a daily basis, like fat people are, for their abuse of the health services?
At my workplace at the moment, 3 of my colleagues are on leave (again) for injuries to their knees and hips, caused by running every day. While they are laid up at home, doing nothing but getting paid sick leave allowance, some fatties like me are amongst those holding the fort at work, doing extra tasks to cover their absences due to their choices to grind their hip and knee joints to a fine powder.
But I'm the burden on society?
What an absolute load of rubbish. Fat people can be healthy people too. We are not a drain on the community. We are active, involved, productive members of society who deserve the same respect as everyone else, including motorbike riders and runners.
Okay, rant over.
I've become a lot more confident in my body as I've got older. I love clothes, and enjoy finding styles that maximise my curves. I have slender friends who say they wish they had my confidence, and I say "Yes, I wish you did too. You should."
Something I really believe is true, is that different people find different shapes attractive. I know there are plenty of men (and women) out there who find large-arsed women extremely desirable, and god bless those people. I see beauty in all different kinds of female body, but I can honestly say that if I were a man, I would most like to tap curvy fleshy voluptuous women. Each to their own.
I'd like all body shapes to be openly celebrated, loved, and desired, and it would be great if one day the whole of society could accept that fat bodies can be healthy and beautiful too.
