Recently, Marie Claire gave the okay to publish a blog entitled "Should fatties get a room?". The author mentioned that watching 2 overweight people kiss gives her the shivers and that they should not find love or for that matter, make love.
I won't lie and most of my readers know this about me anyways. I have struggled with my weight since I was in middle school. I have never been skinny. And living in a part of Kansas City where perfection was expected was hard. I lived in a real Beverly Hills, 90120. My clothing has always been in the double digits. My lowest weight wasn't due to healthy eating and exercise. It was due to being on fen-phen. I eat when I am sad, when I am lonely, when I am upset. I know that I am an emotional eater. I also know that I love a good cheeseburger.
It was last year, when in the midst of losing my job and gaining about 15 pounds that I finally started to give myself grace. I liked myself. I have curves, some of them good, some of them bad, some of them very good. And it took one comment from someone I love to take that all away. All the forward progression I had made was now in one giant leap backwards because I wasn't thin enough for their expectations.
People like the author of the Marie Claire article think that they can get away with bullying. That these are just sentences in a blog that no one will really pay attention to. Unfortunately for Ms. Kelly, she is now in heated waters over bullying a majority of the population. She's probably right in her "apology" that she wrote this piece out of a place of hatred that she towards her own body. However, while a society continues to deem that you be "perfect" and "skinny", her article only continues to fuel the fire of poor self-image amongst our population.
Take it from me. I know what it's like to have a poor self-image. I'm working on it. One day I'll actually like myself. Until then, I focus on the few things I do like about myself. It's a long, hard road, and eventually, I'll get there.
