Member-only story
Fat Positivity Isn’t For Me
I can’t spin my weight into something good or lovable.
I am a fat person.
Over the years, my mom’s told stories about how, at my earliest checkups, around 12 months old, the doctors were worried that she was overfeeding me because, guess what, I was overweight. But, despite that not being the case, I was fat.
I still remember back to elementary school, when a few times a week, one of the social workers (I think! I’m not exactly sure what her job was) would take me to the nurse’s office to weigh myself and do some reps on an exercise bike where she’d have me pretend to crush Milk Duds under the nonexistent wheels.
And in high school, where my weightlifting teacher (who was also the varsity football coach) berated me for walking and not running during our monthly mile, even though I got a better time while walking (around 30 minutes) than I did trying to run.
And in the years after high school, away from a home in a strange city, being the only person under 40 and the only masculine-presenting person in the room; the shame of stepping onto that public scale and having the older ladies record in the log as my weight fluctuated, sometimes up and sometimes down, but never really going anywhere.
