Christine Schoenwald

I still went to the painful place of being fat-shamed and decided that was why he had refused to kiss me. The pain never fully went away.

I’m riding my bike around a local community center on a Sunday morning.

Now I know that just because I’m fat doesn’t mean that I don’t have moments of fatphobia. My own fatphobia has taught me a lot.

Some of our happiest moments are those when we think that no one is watching: when we sing at the top of our lungs in our cars, or we dance down the frozen-food aisle of the supermarket allowing ourselves the freedom to let our inner child out. However, when you’re fat and the fat person’s representative, you don’t get any of those times of abandon because you’re always trying to lead by example and show that you’re the perfect fat person.

A woman’s sexuality, especially a fat woman’s sexuality makes some people feel extremely uncomfortable, so they try to erase fat sexuality.

"Throwing tons of time and energy into dieting instead of working on my novel."

A sad fact: Many men who are sexually attracted to fat women are ashamed of it. We need to talk about men who want sex with fat women but won't date them.

I grew up in a fatphobic household — one that was created by my mother’s fear of getting and staying fat.