body acceptance

I applaud you for being here. I applaud you for giving life the five fingers of death and deciding to show up for whatever the day brings — every day.

Health is the banner we have raised in defense of weight loss surgery, The Biggest Loser, putting children on diets, shaming our friends and family members, fat jokes, weight-based workplace discrimination, and heavily processed low-calorie meals with no nutritional value.

I say this: Stop fat-shaming my toddler son. Fat will not make him fat. Fat does not make him unhealthy.

My wrinkles are filled by plump instead of poison. As my svelte friends talk Botox, I can simply smile and not only because my face still allows it. Cosmetic surgery is ubiquitous with my fashion-forward skinny friends.

When Sonya Renee asserts that the body is not an apology, whether in her poem or her online community, she means it.

I was pretty firm in my conviction over the weekend that I wouldn’t even address this Meanie Pants, but then another person emailed me, and another and another, and said they actually felt really shitty about themselves after being pretty much being fucking forced to watch that nonsense video. And I remembered that there was a time I would have felt really shitty, too.

The moral of these stories? #1: Let's start letting others define their bodies without feeling the need to challenge them.

Being a body positive/body acceptance activist means that regardless of WHAT shape my body takes at any given point and time in my life, I love it. I am kind to it. I remember that it has the right to love and adoration, first from myself, and then from my man. I remember that all bodies, those bigger than and those smaller than mine, are entitled to the same, and they are no better or worse than my own.