Why I Love My Fat
Fatness Can be a Medical Benefit.
Recently I fell down the stairs twice. Two different times down the same stairs, in exactly the same way, landing on the same hip. The bruise was EPIC. The only pictures I have of it are slightly more revealing than I want to put on a professional website but please think of the worst bruise you’ve ever seen and turn it up a notch. I don’t bruise easily. Four years of playing center on my football team in college didn’t leave a mark on me. Months of falling as I attempted to play roller derby didn’t bruise me at all. This bruise was bananas.
Why am I talking about my epic bruise? Because my fatness saved me from breaking a hip in the fall. If I had been a straight sized person the likelihood of a break would have been MUCH higher. With a bruise worse than most bruises that indicate serious bone breaks it is not simply a flight of fancy that this could have been much worse. Thank goodness for fatness.
Fatness is considered a protective factor once you reach a certain age. It protects your bones, it means that your body has energy stores. It helps you absorb certain vitamins and minerals. It keeps you warm.
Fatness can increase your likelihood of surviving certain diseases. Some of those diseases? Heart disease and type two diabetes.
Fatness is a great screener for assholes. If someone is a dick to me about my fatness they are probably dicks in other areas of their life and I don’t need that energy close to me.
Fatness helps you empathize. Though comparing oppressions is rarely helpful, fatness does give me insight into what it is to be oppressed because of one’s body.
Fatness makes you more aware of accessibility. Will I fit in the booth is a common concern for fat folks in restaurants. Will the bathroom stall be big enough for me? Will my doctor’s office have chairs in the waiting room that I can fit into? Having to ask questions like this all day every day has, for me at least, made me hyper conscious of other issues of accessibility. When I squeeze into the too tight bathroom stall I find myself thinking, what about folks in wheelchairs? Can they possibly fit into this stall? Fatness means that accessibility is always on my mind and it is not just accessibility for fat people that I think about and advocate for.
Fatness is an identity that comes with a lot of problems and intense stigma. Fatness can be a heavy burden. But there are ways that it is a gift. This list is incomplete I’m sure. Comment if you have other thoughts!
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