For the first 26 years of my life, I was fat. For the second
26 years, I’ve been thin – not always through healthy means, but to the outside
world, I’ve looked thin.
Even though it’s an even split and I am currently slim, I
still identify myself as a fat woman. I am drawn to plus-sized models like
Emme, Tess Holliday and Ashley Graham, because I think they represent me. If a
magazine has a spread with larger models or a column by a plus-sized woman,
that’s where I go; that’s where I identify.
Maybe it’s like my Judaism – no matter where I am
spiritually, I will always be Jewish.
It’s not that I think my body is currently big; it’s more
like my mind relates to the plus-sized world.
Being thin has always brought me praise and applause. As a
fat girl, I faced teasing and taunting. Maybe it just stuck with me. I can
still cringe, nearly 40 years later, about the cruel treatment from junior high
school.
Or perhaps I am afraid to get comfortable and consider
myself thin, for fear that I will let down my guard and the fat will creep back
Maybe I think that inevitably, genetically, I will end up
heavy again, so I might as well learn to be okay about it.
I don’t know, but if you put a size 16 model on the cover of
Sports Illustrated, I feel like my team is, finally, making progress.
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