‘Hey Fatty’
‘FATSO’
‘Eww look at that cellulite’
‘Damn your arms are even bigger than my biceps’
‘Shit, Look at your stomach. Are you 3 months pregnant?’
So this story starts when I turned 18 ,a girl with flabby arms and double chin and even though I was never a skinny girl ,suddenly having some fats on my body turned out to be something people made me feel ashamed of, because come on let’s face it,’ I am a girl, I should have an hourglass figure.’
I kept questioning myself ‘WHY? As to why I have to be a skinny girl when I was more than happy being who I am. I was happy in my body, then why did people start making me feel ashamed of it?’ And for all the things that I questioned, I was told “Because we care for your health” or “If you don’t get thin, how are you going to find yourself a groom”. After all, let’s face it again, ‘I am a girl, and the only reason I took birth was to become a perfect bride.’
Suddenly my food choices were scoffed at and I was presumed to be lazy. And in a matter of time, from being a confident smart girl, I was started being called a fat lazy girl. Initially, I kept ignoring them, ignoring their name callings and their nagging, because I knew I was more than just a fat girl. But in a matter of time, it happened, yes I started believing whatever they said to me. And trust me; I have never hated myself so much before in my whole lifetime. I started working out vigorously. I covered every inch of my skin, sometimes with jackets or sometimes with scarf’s. After all, even my double chin was a disgrace and I was nothing but a lazy fat girl. I was always on the internet, constantly finding ways or looking for videos to lose weight. I started giving up food. I went hours without eating anything and there was never a time that I didn’t count my calorie intake. I ate one chappati so that I can finally achieve the hourglass figure that they liked.
I was in constant fight to lose few more pounds so that others would finally love me and see that I am not lazy, that I am dedicated and that I really care about fitting into the hour glass figure
SLIM AND TENDER THAT’S HOW THEY LIKED
HOURGLASS FIGURE WAS ONLY RIGHT,
I KEPT TRYING HARD EVERYTIME TO FIT IN THIS SOCIETY,
BUT I WAS NEVER RIGHT.
BUT WORDS LIKE FAT, FATTY WERE CHARACTERIZED
BECAUSE I WAS NEVER A PERFECT HOURGLASS FIGURE AND THAT IS HOW I WAS NEVER RIGHT.
It has been 2 years since then, I am 20 now, sleeker than I ever was in my whole lifetime and now people have new sets of expectations from me. They want my ass out and a little thigh gap too. But you know after two years of constant self-hate, and constantly judging my own self and believing every word that they said, I realised that I was running behind something I never wanted. I was always happy with my own body and that I didn’t deserve to hate myself or to feel bad about myself. Or in this matter, no one ever deserves to feel bad about themselves, no matter if he/she is fat, or skinny, or short or tall. No matter what body you carry, you don’t deserve to be made feel bad about who you are.
And now I realise that some people defend their harmful words by saying they are performing some kind of ‘HEALTH ACTIVISM’ to save you, to make you healthy and beautiful. But to me, it all felt like Bullying, pure and simple. Because all it served was self-hatred that I already had. I have heard so many stories about people being bullied in colleges and how the offenders are punished, then why this part of bullying is not taken seriously? Just because it destroys someone more mentally than physically? Oh girls, tell me at what point in History did people start to shame themselves for eating and enjoying food? And since when did our relationship with food started depending on how much we weigh?
So people, just understand it’s not funny to call people with words like fat or skinny, your 2 minutes of joke can impact someone’s life in a very adverse way. And please people instead of body shaming others in name of health activism, start making them love their flaws and make them learn how to accept it. It is not necessary that bullying happens outside, it sometimes starts with your own friends or even family, but after years of self-hate if I had to give you one piece of advice it would be that “Please don’t ever let anyone say anything bad about you. You are beautiful and if you ever want to change, DO IT FOR YOURSELF AND NOT FOR THIS GODDAMN SOCIETY.”
