body image

When the spread was published, all the girls in the shot were small — small enough to notice their not-bigness. It was the first time I felt “othered,” the first time I noticed how some versions of thin weren’t thin enough.

Shade is a resiliency tool constructed and wielded by those who have been forced to survive systems of unfairness. Shade isn’t polite, but everyone knows that the high road is over-sold to oppressed people! I knew I had to begin my own complete anthology of fat girl shade. And I thought I would start the chronicle here with Take the Cake. This tale is one from the vault, and it starts in high school.

Most days I am confident with how I look and how I feel, but I worry I may never be able to completely banish those thoughts about my flaws and imperfections. I know that every time you catch me focusing on my physical insecurities, you learn a lesson that could hurt you, or force you into this battle I face.

I understand that feeling good is far more important than looking good. But it's hard to not get caught up in the frenzy to lose all the baby weight when that's the only thing everyone seems to comment on post-delivery.

Of course, summertime also seems to come hand-in-hand with partial nudity. Wearing next to nothing out in public is just as important a part of summer as barbecues and trips to the beach. That is, unless you’re anything outside the socially acceptable body types. Then it suddenly becomes an opportunity for people to dole out their own specific kind of “fashion justice.”

REAL TALK — my body is going to keep changing for the rest of my life. If it's not weight gain, it will be aging. If not aging, it could be an illness. If not an illness, it could be any number of things that will cause inevitable change in which I will be required to learn to love the change.

I didn’t think that my disordered, fatphobic mindset could be rewired — until, one day, I realized that that very thing had happened. Somehow the new ideas had broken through!
There is still work to be done, but by re-educating myself, making a priceless network of body-positive friends, and upgrading my media influence, I am on the right path.

Although I haven't gone out of my way to be naked around my 6-year-old daughter (and we haven't had any direct discussion about my nude body), I certainly haven't hid my body from her either. If I’m in the shower and she needs her hair washed, I'll pull her in with me. If I’m drying my hair, naked as I do, I don’t mind if she's standing next to me brushing her teeth. Why? I don't want her views on what a body is "supposed" to look like to be shaped by the one-sided view the media presents.