Bodies

In the same way women benefit from seeing other women who actually look like them, so do men. Hardly any major clothing brands make plus-sized menswear and those that do barely advertise them.

We met Matt a year ago when he showed us his post weight-loss body.

[CN: mentions of blood, pregnancy] "My life is hilarious... I have two motherf**king UTERUSES."

[CN: body dysmorphia] Sensory deprivation provided me with a way to relate to my body that was rooted in acceptance: This is me, this is what I feel like, and this is all OK.

Although the hunt for the perfect outfit at the thrift store was a thrill when I was thin, as a fat person, the hunt was just downright depressing.

[CN: eating disorders, thinspo] It’s easy to disguise disordered eating when it's become standard to mask a binge as a “cheat meal,” orthorexia as a “lifestyle,” and exercise addiction as “beast mode.”

Once I became a body positive writer and speaker, I told the story of that night on podcasts and in interviews as an example of the sort of reaction I was afraid of prior to my video about my excess skin going viral. Every time, the interviewer made a comment about how Dana was “the ugly one,” not me. And every time, I told them I didn’t want her to be vilified or insulted.

Size, like age and salary and whatever else, is just a number. Pretending numbers don’t measure things isn’t helpful. I’m 38 years old: That isn’t good or bad, but it IS different from being 18 or 50.