One of the ways that I have learned over the years to deal with my extra poundage is to “own” it. I am the 1st to talk about my Phat arse or my floppy arm wings. Some of my thinner friends don’t understand and at times have chastised me for “putting myself down” but what they don’t realize is that if I “own” up to it, then the less hurtful it becomes when people find it necessary to point out the obvious.

I recently ordered a teeshirt from T-shirt Hell that says: “If a Fat girl falls in the woods, do the trees laugh?” I find it widely amusing because I cannot count the # of times I’ve “bitten the pavement.” You’d think being bottom heavy (i’m a real pear) I’d have gravity on my side but alas that is not the case.

Why are we so afraid to say the word “Fat” ..we cover it up with plus-sized, or voluptuous or some other word that doesn’t sound as final as “fat.” I tell people all the time.. I’m the Fat girl.. or just look for the fat girl.. I don’t cover it up with “I’m the girl in the black dress” or with the tri colored hair because what defines me in society terms today is the fact that well I am fat. so why try to gloss over it. I suppose I should say I’m the HEALTHY fat girl. I walk a minimum of 5 miles per week for my job. I drink about 4 quarts of water per day. I take a multi-vitamin. I like bread and cheese and well it likes my hips.

Even when I was a size 10 I was still HIPPY… there is just no other way to get around it. I could have all my fat sucked out and I’d still have a gypsy/nomadic body.

I think that one of the problems with being obese or morbidly obese is that everyone, especially us, feel it is a temporary condition. Therefore it is OK to make fat jokes. It is ok to walk up to strangers and say “Are you going to eat all of that?” or have their children shout out “Mommy look its a Giant” or something meaner.

Since the overweight, too, think of fatness as a transient condition, we tell ourselves that this treatment will stop when we lose weight. When we hear our co-workers or friends speak derisively about other heavy people, we say nothing. Or we laugh with them. Which is what has that defense mechanism that I kick in–Give it to them before they give it to me.

But what if we got “Mad as hell and not going to take it anymore?” type of thought process. How many times have we been at social events and our friends or co-attendees find it A-OK to talk about us as if we are invisible. How many times have we been in a room and sized it up to make sure there was someone fatter than us? Just the other day while at my son’s school orientation, I found myself doing just that. A new student and her mother came into the classroom, late. All eyes were on them and there were snickers in the back of the class. My 1st thought was not “STFU” to the snickerers, but “Thank the goddess I’m not the fattest one here.”

What about if we didn’t take that type of behavior anymore? What if we corrected the speaker of how the obese should lose weight with fact based acceptance speeches? Did obesity prevent me from getting an education? From running a business? From doing what I want? No, granted it might have been faster if I was thinner but certainly didn’t prevent it.

It’s time to own up. Not sit back and take it anymore. Just as racial jokes or gay jokes or handicapped jokes aren’t acceptable in mainstream media, nor should fat jokes. Even if they are from me, or Monique or Lavelle Crawford.