Virgie Tovar

The other night, I was eating capellini with asparagus and shrimp with a new friend/Babecamp Jamaica alum.

Fat people, we do not have to acquiesce to our culture's normalization of hierarchy. We do not have to turn the other cheek. Joy does not come at the expense of your dignity, of your humanity.

I’m a fat brown girl from an immigrant family. I grew up learning that no one would ever love me because I’m fat. I was taught that I have to work twice as hard to get half as much. If someone looks at me weird or says something rude to me, I always see it or hear it and I have a massive (exhausting) anxiety/adrenaline rush/aggro response/comedown cycle. I feel like I have to fight to maintain dignity and humanity every, single day.

Affection or attention that relies upon body conformity is not love — it’s exploitation. I’m here to tell you once and for all: your body is yours.

Fat liberation and fat people’s full humanity and our right to a life free from discrimination — not our health status.

Dieting is a socially sanctioned method of mentally high-tailing out of whatever is going on and keeping you entirely in your head, laser-focused on your next bite, your scale, your plate.

I just spent the weekend at adult fat camp — admittedly, a very different kind of fat camp than I used to dream about all those years ago.

It was Nancy's thin privilege that obscured her ability to see what Barb saw in the Popular Kids, to make the social leap that Barb couldn't, and that led her to ultimately symbolically (and actually) leave behind their friendship when a more normative offer presented itself.

Why is it important to call a diet a diet? Because 1. The truth is actually important and 2. Misleading language only benefits the person peddling it.

To him, perhaps, my fat feminine body was acceptable to sexualize. I can’t say I learned a foolproof way of avoiding going on a date with a clean eater.