Why we’re proud of our fat bodies

“I’ve been big from a young age.I was bullied a lot throughout my school years, and I hated my body – absolutely hated it. It really affected my mental health.

When I was in college, I went on a big, long-term diet and lost five stone. I was a lot slimmer – though I was still big – but I realised I wasn’t a better person, I wasn’t suddenly beautiful, I wasn’t suddenly amazing. I was still the same person, but a lot less happy.

Then I discovered ,I remember seeing the first girl that used a body positive hashtag and I thought she looked amazing But one night someone commented on all of my pictures saying that I was fat and looked like someone from Star Wars.

I messaged her and asked her why she was doing it. Why she found it fun to hurt someone like that. She replied, and later admitted that she had hang-ups about her own body. She said she felt fat.

It made me think that often people are just pushing their own insecurities out. Someone will look at me and think: ‘I don’t want to be that size, I wouldn’t be happy that size, so why should you be happy when you’re fat?’

It makes me sad to think about people who are struggling so much that they think the only way to make themselves feel better is to put someone down. That’s not the way. You can’t be comparing yourself to other people.
People think that if you’re fat then you can’t be healthy. You can be really big, and not as healthy as you should be. But then you’re happy, so it’s about weighing up what’s more important. When I’m smaller, I’m a state.

I’m a happy size, and a healthy size, for all of me. For my mental health and my physical health, which are almost the same thing.”

“When I was a kid, I didn’t feel happy in myself. I felt that I was ugly and my self-worth was really low because I got bullied a lot.

I developed and came out of myself a bit in my later teens. But it wasn’t until I found out about fat acceptance and fat positivity that I really came into my own.

I was able to start looking at my self-worth as being more than whether or not I’m aesthetically pleasing to wider society. Now, some days I think I’m beautiful, other days I don’t.
I know it’s not easy, but the sooner you start to see yourself, how great you are, the better. You won’t need to judge someone by their looks.”

“I love the way I look and feel, because I’m just comfortable. I don’t feel any different from anyone else.

I wake up and see myself as normal person.