body image

"My illness creates the standard for myself; the rest of me has come to ignore beauty standards altogether, especially when it comes to other people."

Why Can't I See My Body The Way I See Other People's Bodies?

I have particular standards of beauty that I believe apply to my body — my body, and no one else’s.

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Started: An anthology of fat girl shade. (Image Credit: Virgie Tovar/Instagram)

Take The Cake: A Complete Fat Girl Anthology Of Shade

Shade is a resiliency tool constructed and wielded by those who have been forced to survive systems of unfairness. Shade isn’t polite, but everyone knows that the high road is over-sold to oppressed people! I knew I had to begin my own complete anthology of fat girl shade. And I thought I would start the chronicle here with Take the Cake. This tale is one from the vault, and it starts in high school.

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image credit: Shelby Eckard

Dear Daughter, I Let You Down

Most days I am confident with how I look and how I feel, but I worry I may never be able to completely banish those thoughts about my flaws and imperfections. I know that every time you catch me focusing on my physical insecurities, you learn a lesson that could hurt you, or force you into this battle I face.

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If I don't start embracing the body I am in, my daughter loses, too. Image: Dahiana Candelo/Unsplash.

My Post-Pregnancy Body Doesn't Feel Like It's Mine Anymore

I understand that feeling good is far more important than looking good. But it's hard to not get caught up in the frenzy to lose all the baby weight when that's the only thing everyone seems to comment on post-delivery.

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Your beauty does not need conform to some social norm to be worthy of existence. Image: Revelist.

Be Naked All Summer — No Matter Your Body Type!

Of course, summertime also seems to come hand-in-hand with partial nudity. Wearing next to nothing out in public is just as important a part of summer as barbecues and trips to the beach. That is, unless you’re anything outside the socially acceptable body types. Then it suddenly becomes an opportunity for people to dole out their own specific kind of “fashion justice.”

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Fuck society's standards, my friend. Image: Jes Baker.

So I've Gained Weight. SO WHAT?

REAL TALK — my body is going to keep changing for the rest of my life. If it's not weight gain, it will be aging. If not aging, it could be an illness. If not an illness, it could be any number of things that will cause inevitable change in which I will be required to learn to love the change.

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Happiness comes in every size! Image: Thinkstock.

9 Months Of Fattitude: The Making Of A Body-Positive Badass

I didn’t think that my disordered, fatphobic mindset could be rewired — until, one day, I realized that that very thing had happened. Somehow the new ideas had broken through!
There is still work to be done, but by re-educating myself, making a priceless network of body-positive friends, and upgrading my media influence, I am on the right path.

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The perceived defects we carry around are only defects if we fail to see the beauty in them.

Why I Want My Daughter To See Me Naked

Although I haven't gone out of my way to be naked around my 6-year-old daughter (and we haven't had any direct discussion about my nude body), I certainly haven't hid my body from her either. If I’m in the shower and she needs her hair washed, I'll pull her in with me. If I’m drying my hair, naked as I do, I don’t mind if she's standing next to me brushing her teeth. Why? I don't want her views on what a body is "supposed" to look like to be shaped by the one-sided view the media presents.

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