Fat people should be forgiven for feeling under siege.
Because we are.
Last month, a UK gym used people dressed in fat suits to hand out promotional material.
Yesterday, self described "fitmom" and "fitdad" Sharny and Julius Kieser shared the news that they have intentionally gained weight in order to show the world just how easy it is to lose it. A tired and unoriginal trope made famous by Katie Hopkins who did the same thing in 2014.
This week on Australian radio, Kyle and Jackie O tackled the question of whether or not fat people should be charged extra for weighing down a flight. Another tired and unoriginal trope that people have been offering up for a quick media hit for about a decade.
Kyle also made a point of suggesting that Jackie O is five years too late losing the baby weight during a live on-air interview with Blake Lively this morning.
Unkind observers may well point out that Kyle is the pot calling the kettle fat.
Three examples of the same thing. The fat body as an inspirational cautionary tale.
They all set the fat body up as a comedic image of ill discipline, sloth and gluttony, that which is to be avoided at all costs.
They put the fat body on show, like a circus freak, boxed up for the audience to point at, laugh, and think, 'there but for the grace of god go I.'
They present the fat body as your weight loss inspiration; run run on that treadmill, run as fast as you can away from your fat mother, or your dad bod or your loveless best friend.
Run as fast as you can away from your poor self-esteem, your own neuroses, your thoughtless, anti-science, anti-intellectual, half-baked idea that the source of success comes from your thinness. (Yes, Sharny and Julius, this one is for you.)
This is just my body, what I live in everyday. It's what I look at every morning in the mirror.
It's the body that carries me to work, and carries me home again. It's the body that carried my children through pregnancy and the body that carries them to bed every night.
It's the body that runs a couple of miles in the early morning and it's the body that makes love late in the night.
It's not your cautionary tale. It's not your fitspo. It's not your circus freakshow.
My fat body is not your weight loss inspiration.
If it's anything other than my body, my own body, then it's your body positivity inspiration.
But if I'm going to be inspiring for anything, let it be for my mind, my achievements and my humanity.
instant happy in your
mailbox every day.