Member-only story
My body is not yours to comment on
“You have lost so much weight!”
“Looks like that fasting is paying off, you look great!”
“What’s wrong with losing weight?”
I cringe every time these comments are thrown at me. My body recoils and my stomach turns. My senses become hyperaware, and it throws me off balance for the rest of the day. They come from the most well meaning people in my life. Sometimes I tell them that these comments make me uncomfortable. Most of the time, I just sigh and try to focus on the task at hand. It’s like talking to a wall, my concerns only hit it and fall to the floor.
Having grown up in culture that is deeply rooted in fatphobia, both externalized and internalized, I have always found myself at war with my own body. I remember in my teens, I used to eat only a handful of food every meal, and I took pride in the moment when people were surprised how little I ate. I used to take pride in the fact how little of space I took up, and still hated my double chin, my round face every time I looked at the mirror. These days, I dread going back to my home country, because I will be bombarded with questions about why I gained so much weight and haven’t been married yet.
Things have changed over the last decade. I am the largest I have ever been, and most of the time I am not ashamed of the space I take up. In the ever rising popularity of the…
