Overweight? Under tall? P’ed off with being abused for it? Then read on.

Oh and if you’re someone who abuses the overweight (or indeed any other minority), you’d better read on too!

A few days ago I came across a blog post from last September at Crazy Beautiful by Dianne Sylvan, titled Ten Rules for Fat Girls. In it she admits to being obese, but she is not ashamed of it and is seriously annoyed by all those who give her abuse because of it. And she goes on to give other overweight girls some thoughts and ideas on how to be more comfortable with the way they are. Between these thoughts Dianne Sylvan is typically hard hitting:

I’m fat … There’s no concealing this fact. My fat is out there. It speaks. And it says “I am lovable and worthy just like I am, and fuck you if you disagree.” I’ve … gotten comfortable with the idea that people can look like anything and it’s all good.
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You have sovereignty over your body and that means it is no one’s responsibility but your own.
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How is discrimination and making people loathe themselves going to make them healthier? Obviously this doesn’t work or the number of overweight people would be rapidly declining, wouldn’t it … Has hate ever made anyone a better person?
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That claptrap about obese people being a strain on the economy is nonsense; cancer costs millions of dollars to research and treat but nobody’s suggesting we let cancer patients die to save money. (Well actually in the UK we do — Ed)
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Statistics show that weight loss fails over the long-term 95% of the time. How many conditions can doctors get away with prescribing something with only a 5% success rate? Yet dieting is considered a panacea. You know what else has a 5% success rate in treating disease? Bleeding someone to let the evil humours out.
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It’s also assumed … that everyone knows what’s best for you but you.
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I’ve heard quite a few thin women say things like … “getting fat would be the worst thing.” … Oh? Worse than child abuse, genocide, homophobia, or being allergic to chocolate? Worse than being an asshole? Worse than treating people like crap because of how they look? Is being fat worse than being an ignorant bigot? Worse than being a murderer? Worse than drowning kittens? Amebic dysentery? Losing a loved one? Losing a limb?

Well that’s enough. I’m sure you get the picture.

But do you know what’s interesting about this? It is just as relevant to men as to women. Men get abuse too, although maybe not as much as women. Men get bullied by doctors. I’ve even been bullied by a consultant neurologist FFS, who is an acquaintance — and I’m not even a patient of his! To this day I don’t know how I remained polite to him.

Yes, I’m obese. I know I am obese and I admit it. It doesn’t make me any less me. Or any less intelligent. Or any less able to know what works/is good for me. Or any less able to punch you in the throat.

OK, I don’t like being overweight or as horribly unfit as I am; I’m all too well aware of the consequences of my diabetes to be happy about it. And being “too big” can be horribly inconvenient. But it is also horrendously difficult to do much about it. In my case it is all tied up with my depression. It appears the whole caboodle goes back into my childhood, and despite hypnotherapy I’ve not yet been able to unbundle everything.

Yes, I have lost some weight but very slowly. At my heaviest I was 155kg and, after some ups and downs, I’m now down to about 138Kg. That’s still too much for my liking. But even if I lose a lot more I will never be a small bloke. I’m big boned and well built, naturally. It runs in my father’s family. We aren’t small people. And despite all the sport I played when younger, I’m not naturally athletic. So even if I’m not obese I’ll always be heavy and I’ll never be more than just about averagely fit.

But do you know what? The more people go on about my weight, the more resistant I become to doing anything about it. Having my weight thrust forever into the front of my brain is just so destructive. You end up thinking about nothing else. You cease to be you. It puts you under some huge stresses. If you allow it to, it takes over your life. And that makes the depression worse. And so we start the cycle all over again.

So I try not to dwell on it. I try not to let it take over. I try, in my quiet way (quiet? me?) to be sensible about food. But it seems to me the whole cycle isn’t well enough under control for anything to be quickly and easily alleviated. Which is why I’m trying hypnotherapy. But it is all slow going.

Meanwhile anyone who wants to abuse me about my weight had just better not. They don’t know — they cannot know — what is happening within me (FFS even I don’t know a lot of the time), nor how actually destructive their comments are. Besides it is really none of their business. It’s my concern, and mine alone.

At the end of the day, I’m me. All the way through. For better, for worse; until death do us part. And do you know something else? Nature probably made me that way for a reason. Whether you like it or not, do me the respect of not trying to change me.