Where Did All The Fat Comments Go?

How To Teach People To Stop Commenting On Your Weight.

Don’t get me wrong– fatphobia is still in vogue. Just scroll through any fat person's social media, and you’ll see that hating and commenting on fat bodies hasn’t gone away.

But lately, I have been walking around in suspicion and anxiety– like I always do during the holidays. I’m waiting for someone to comment on my body. I interact with people on high alert. I try to enjoy myself, but I don’t allow myself to get too comfortable and risk getting caught off guard. I wait for the next verbal attack, like a soldier running through a battlefield, except life is my battlefield, and the attacks come from my very own platoon. It's an anxiety fat people know too well.

I’ve found myself questioning how I’ve gotten away with it. It’s not like I’m not giving people material. I’ve gained and lost weight—then gained and then lost more—yet no one has commented on my body in months, maybe even a year?

That’s when it hit me. My boundaries have been established and respected. After sitting down with my thoughts and analyzing how I managed to accomplish that, I realized there were a handful of actions that I took throughout the past 10 years to help me get here— fat and shame-free.

Here are the steps I took to teach others to see me beyond my fat body. They are listed in order from hard to even harder.

Good luck.