body positivity

As a kid, I prayed for big boobs. Shallow, I know. But such prayers were never answered. I hardly filled an A cup.

My favorite thing about this trip was that I spent my time in Vienna with fat feminists by my side every single day.... Occasionally, our bellies bumped into one another and then rebounded for just a second, like balloons. The familiar physics of fatness multiplied by two or three. I felt like we spoke in shorthand, the language of shared experience.

Recently, I was looking through some old pictures of myself.... Like every other person on this earth, I have my insecurities. As I was looking at these photos, I found myself picking out my faults, finding things that I would like to change, putting myself down for looking a certain way or not looking a certain way.

Ten days after my first due date came and went, I looked in the mirror, screamed, and basically died. Overnight, my stomach and hips had become covered in cherry-pink stretch marks, veining out as if my entire torso had fractured.

Boston.com recently published an incredibly offensive hit-piece mocking Sandoval and making fat jokes, complete with accompanying photos that showed Sandoval’s stomach hanging over the top of his pants as he threw a baseball. It was lazy and offensive at best, but dangerous at worst.

One of the most dangerous aspects of positive change is our tendency to demonize the people we’ve been. I don’t know a single person who hasn’t lain awake in bed, plagued with the thoughts of a cringe-worthy move they made in their younger years, or some kind of toxic behavior they exhibited before they knew better.

My goal isn’t just to raise a son who can avoid the trappings of eating disorders. It’s to help him actively embrace who he is, on all levels.

My relationship with body is anything but “typical.” So far, I’ve hated my body at every size — and not just because of my size.