“Aww you look so cute”, A friend of mine, whom I know from experience to be unhappy about unfit bodies, commented on my recent photographs from an event. To her dismay, I laughed instead of thanking her. “You mean I look fat” I replied reading that confusion on her face.
I know am fat and people, who are otherwise prejudiced, don’t have to practice euphemism to hide their disappointment with my body type because for me that disappointment is the result of your idea of so called perfection fed by the society and has nothing to do in reality with how I look.
In my view of the world, just like slim is a body type so is fat and I have never understood why it should fetch sympathy criticism or even attention. If you look at my photograph in which I am on field doing an event for kids from underprivileged background and all you comment on is how I look(good or bad) then the only thing that deserves sympathy is your thought process.
Fat isn’t ugly! You know what is? Inhumanity, lack of empathy, body shaming, demeaning others and worst of all not minding your own business and waking up every day to tell others, how they would have looked better if they weighed ten kilos lesser. Ugly is not appreciating someone’s calibre, skill and goodness and measuring everything on a superficial scale of external beauty instead.
Here’s News! No I don’t care about my weight and I wouldn’t, till my knees start complaining(in that case weight loss would be mandatory). I rather care about being told that I am an inspiration for someone and that my people are proud of me. That’s my idea of being loved and appreciated.
Never in my life have I entered a room filled with people and seen slim people been given more respect because they weigh less. Never have people told me that they will not welcome me as a speaker or a chief guest because I am fat. No one has refrained from appreciating my work because my over weight disturbed them.
In thirty eight years of my life, only three types of people have found my weight problematic –
1. Gym instructors ( because they had to sell the gym membership)
2. Doctors – they always worry about me having thyroid and my reports are always negative to their shock.
3. People who fail to beat me at my skill. When they can’t reach your mark they talk to the world about how you look.
Earlier I used to tell people about the reason for my over weight since childhood only to realise that reasoning was actually a response to my own inferiority complex and lack of self acceptance. That’s when I started working on changing my mindset instead of my body type. I realised that constant judgement since childhood had made me find my self worth in how world perceived my external beauty.
So dear World, this is to update you that whether Iam fat or look cute and huggable (most common compliments I have received all my life)I love myself being so and if there comes a day when I will lose weight and look ‘slim’ I would be comfortable in my skin even then because no matter my body type, the beauty of self love that reflects in my existence is worth flaunting and so I must.