In today’s world, you can be anything but different, (or fat).
If you have a disability, sure there are those people who are going to say something, but there are entire movements to stand up for disabled groups. The general consensus is that it’s not acceptable to pick on disabled individuals. There’s a general unspoken respect by the majority, that says it is shameful to make fun of or out these groups down.
If you are certain races, people will bring down mountains to protect you and stand up for you if someone is saying bad things about you.
If you are different by sexual orientation, same thing, people are going to raise the roof to make sure you are protected and not messed with.
These are all beautiful and much needed movements. The protection and the love behind these movements are amazing and powerful things! It took a long time to get us here.
But we’re still lacking in certain areas and one of those areas, is in the protection and general respect for larger people.
Just like with anything else in this world that’s “different”, you don’t have to agree with it, but you do have to allow room for it to exist in peace. Or at least, you should.
Larger people have something to add to this world just like anyone else. We are not the stereotype that’s been laid upon us. There is so much more that goes into being a bigger person; and what brought us to that point varies for each individual.
Yes, a lot of the time it can be a mental issue that needs to be resolved (which doesn’t happen overnight), but then there are the other factors, such as genetics, medical issues, slow metabolism, ignorance about nutrition and exercise, etc. There are so many different reasons that someone may end up being obese, but very rarely is it simply because they just don’t want to do anything about it.
The sad part, other than the very real struggle that we go through just to live day to day, is that being larger is so frowned upon, that there aren’t any movements or protections in place, and usually there’s no one standing up saying, “Hey! It’s not ok to put this person down or make their lives harder, just because you don’t agree with how they look.”
Generally, people are too scared to stand up for fat rights because they know that the world isn’t fat friendly and they don’t want that backlash coming down on them or their families. So what tends to happen, is people choose to remain silent or they speak up until someone pushes back a bit and then they go silent.
The cold hard truth, is that our society is set up to praise people based on what is considered to be beautiful at that time. And right now, being fat is a crime in the eyes of the majority. Even if they don’t consciously realize it.
