Virgie Tovar

Recently there’s been an uptick in fatphobic derailments, and I thought it would be helpful to share them as well my responses to them.

“Chill” is, I think, a coded word that describes an environment where low expectations, low commitment, and zero accountability are considered normal.

The politics of food are the politics of class, and the subtlety of those politics creates a kind of deniability that makes it hard to discern the rules of engagement. One’s success in ascending the ladder is marked by fluency with these invisible boundaries.

I arrive at the airport and I see the chubby, bespectacled face of my friend, Andrea. This was the beginning of my adventure with Chile's fat mafia!

For the past two weeks, I’ve met up with my friend Caya in the Mission for acupuncture and pupusas/pizza/both. #HighlyRecommend 

What horrible thing is going to happen this year? Is my aunt going to touch me or someone else inappropriately or make sexual innuendo? What terrible thing is my mother going to say to my aunt about her internet boyfriend who steals chicken from my grandparents’ garage freezer in the middle of the night?

In the wake of America's "crisis of adulthood" and in the middle of a city known for Peter Pan Syndrome, I find myself feeling that I too have gotten an extension on my adolescence. It has become a time for me to heal, center myself in a way I never could in childhood, and figure out what I want for my life.

That’s the thing about I Feel Pretty, the narrative only makes sense when you consider how limited the onscreen life of everyone but white dudes gets to be.

Fat positivity creates room for fat people to be seen with full humanity — not as failed thin people, but as complete and precious.

More than lip service to an unlikely situation, I needed accountability from my family. Small things that required less bravado, but more work. Just before Christmas, I experienced the moment that made our breakup crystallize.