Size: You Are Fab

Last week, my friend Rivkie, founder and editor-in-chief of SLiNK Magazine told me about this campaign she’d heard about. Some weight-loss guru (I refuse to mention his name) had decided to declare the 7th of January as “Tell a friend they’re fat” day. As you can imagine, I was outraged, in fact our whole circle of friends were (we have a little Facebook group where we hang out and chat, what with us being sprawled across the country). You see the thing is, as body confident, fat accepting women, the notion of being called fat doesn’t phase us. The word fat is a mere descriptor nowadays. But there was a time for all of us that it did. I myself, just 5 years ago would have been floored if a friend turned around and called me fat. The reason being, before I found the fat acceptance movement, the word fat automatically meant disgusting. It’s not that I didn’t know I was fat, of course I did, but the fact people thought I was and that they saw that was such a problem that they wanted me to change was heartbreaking.

When I look back to my BFA (before fat acceptance) days, I now know it wasn’t being fat that I hated, it wasn’t me or my appearance that I hated. What I hated was that everyone else hated me, that I wasn’t good enough for everyone else. That in everyone else’s eyes I was a disappointment, I was disgusting, lazy and greedy and everything else most people associate the word fat with. I spent the most part of my childhood, puberty and adulthood trying to change for other people. Can you imagine what that feels like? (I have a feeling a lot of you reading this will). So can you imagine how I felt when I heard this awful man was thinking of declaring a day dedicated to telling people they weren’t good enough? I was fucking livid.

Then the lovely Kate came up with an idea, why can’t people just be nice to each other? Why can’t we tell a friend “you are fab” and bobs your uncle, that’s what we decided we’d do. We’d counteract this man with “you are fab” it’s easy, it’s positive and it’s snappy. It wasn’t meant for one minute to detract from the fact that this vile excuse of a man had deliberately targeted fat people, it isn’t meant to detract from the fact we need to claim back the word. By god we do. But what it is meant to address on a wider scale is that calling someone out on their physical appearance is the last form of acceptable bullying. That it is still okay to make someone else’s appearance your business. Well you know what? It’s not. So don’t be a crappy friend, be a good friend. If your friend wants to lose weight, they will. If they want your help, they’ll most probably ask for it. So until they do, there is no need to tell a friend they’re fat. Tell them they’re wonderful, tell them they’re funny, or intelligent, or beautiful, or graceful. Tell them “you are fab”.

You can read more about SLiNK Magazine’s campaign here and start tagging your social media with #YouAreFab