More and more often, we’ve been seeing pieces written by individuals who are calling out bigots for their horrible words or actions. This is great, but all too often, the ones aimed at fat-shaming include some caveat about how the author has lost weight, is trying to lose weight, or has some condition that has made them fat.
Posts that do this, in their attempt to call out sizeist behavior, are actually perpetuating it.
It doesn’t matter why someone is fat. It doesn’t matter if someone’s weight has changed in any direction. People don’t deserve to be bullied.
If you run a 10K every weekend and live on kale and beans, great. If the only marathon that interests you involves episodes of Star Trek on Netflix, also great. If you’re fat because of thyroid or PCOS or some medication, fine. If you’re fat because you don’t like exercise, also fine. If you don’t know why you’re fat and it’s just the way you are, cool. Again, it doesn’t matter.
We don’t need to perpetuate the good vs. bad fatty dichotomy to call out bigots. People deserve dignity simply because they are people. And changing to satisfy a bully never works. They just want more, or they find something else to focus on.
So please, keep letting people know it’s not OK to fat-shame. But don’t do it at the expense of others.
This post originally appeared on fatgirlbrooklyn.
