Fat Tuesday #2

The amazing Rachele at The Nearsighted Owl is running a 52 week e-course and blog series called HOW TO BE A FAT BITCH and I've enrolled as a student. You should too! Fat acceptance, fatshion and being your awesome self is the name of the game.

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Our assignment this week is:

Reclaim the word fat and do something amazing with it. Make art, take photos of yourself with fat written on you, bake a cake with fat written in frosting, etc. I can't wait to see what you do!

 

In all it's fry supremey glory!

What do you love most about the word fat? How has the word fat evolved for you?

I sort of love the way it makes people uncomfortable when I use it to describe myself. After I stop laughing at the people trying to 'reassure' me that "you're not fat!" it usually opens a dialogue where I can explain how the word fat doesn't mean bad - it's simply the opposite of thin. I feel weirdly powerful when I use the word. I proudly proclaimed all over facebook and twitter "Fatties unite! TODAY IS OUR DAY!" to celebrate Fat Tuesday. I love the confused looks I get when I wear my shirt that says "I'm fat, let's party".

To be honest I can't really remember feeling that the word fat was a bad word. I was well aware that most of the rest of the world felt that way pretty early on. I remember being in elementary school on the monkey bars and having a boy in an older grade come up to me and saying "you can't do that - you're too fat" and me rolling my eyes and saying "pfft yes I can". Go 7 year old me! However, even though I never felt that fat was a bad thing, as I got older I started using "other people think fat is a bad thing" as an excuse for not trying things - sports in high school, dancing, dating etc. It's something I'm still working on, but it's getting better!