I had just been thinking… When someone calls me fat, I feel insulted. When I call myself fat, I get body-conscious. When someone calls me fat, I feel degraded. How and when did the word fat had such a negative connotation? All it is are excess flesh of a person or an animal (says one of meanings in the dictionary, anyway). It seems as though it’s a go-to insult by those who are body-focused, just like me. Not that I use it on anyone apart from myself. When I hate myself it is when the word fat becomes a word to insult myself and to shame me for, well, not taking care of myself.
Fat had always been a compliment back in the day. That means you have the means to feed yourself. I guess physical appearance had always been associated with social status. Kings and queens of the past, in their adulthood, had grown bigger and more lavish as their people grow smaller and hungrier. The 60s made teenage years the thing if beauty and Twiggy became the look. The 90s was worse as heroine became the chic look. Nowadays, it’s curves, for sure. That wide hip Rihanna and Kim K look. But still with the tiny waist.
How will I overcome it? The idea that it’s an insult and just take it as fact so that when I finally get the body of my dreams, it’ll be fuck you world.
