I just finished Stephanie Yeboah’s book, Fattily Ever After, and it really opened my eyes to the world around me. I totally understood how she felt growing up dealing with her weight and attempts fit into the ‘ideal’.
I can’t say I’ve ever actually been ‘obese’, but I have certainly had the mentality she shared about my own body – hating the shape of my body, not looking after it and punishing it because it wasn’t ‘prefect’. Descending into fits of depression because I wasn’t as thin as I was told I should be and binge eating after periods of restrictive eating or as punishment for not going on the walk I ‘should’ have. Binge eating disorder (BED) is an actual thing apparently…
It might be the book or it could be my current situation being 9 months pregnant, but I’ve noticed just how much the world isn’t made for larger people. There is definitely an ideal body type, even where height is concerned, that the world is made for and I’m noticing more and more how restrictive and unrealistic this actually is! Especially since I am now noticing the different body types of men and women around me and how many of us actually fit the ‘ideal’ in reality.
Here is a list of some of the things I’ve noticed in the last few weeks:
1. Public toilets. Even with my somewhat small belly at what is considered full term, I often find myself having to squeeze into the stall. How anyone over a size 18 fits into them, I’ll never know! I know it’s more about space sometimes, but come on!
2. Fitting rooms. Yet another one with the same issue! While they are larger than toilets, there often isn’t a lot of room to manoeuvre in there, especially if you’re trying on a particularly troublesome bra!
3. Clothing. Why on earth we need a ‘curves’ or ‘plus-size’ section is beyond me! The clothes in there are often very plain and boring, as if fat (or pregnant) people don’t deserve to feel and look good or sexy. It must be our punishment for not being a size 8! One thing I will say is that the lingerie has gotten a little better in the last decade or so, but we still don’t get the pretty patterns or colours of the smaller bra sizes. And the matching underwear is often very unflattering. Why can’t I have a pretty blue g-string to go with my bra? Huh?? This might be a female-centric one, but I just don’t seem to see the male ‘plus size’ clothing being that different from the rest…
4. Carparks. Especially when someone parks super close next to you, I find myself even more aware of what my door edge or side mirror is doing.
I know this list isn’t in any way exhaustive, but it has given me a new appreciation of what people with bigger bodies go through on a daily basis. Again, it isn’t us that has to change, it’s the system. This pressure to look a certain way leads to a lot of mental and physical health problems that could be avoided by simply changing our expectations of what a ‘man’ or ‘woman’ should look like. The toilets thing could lead to an increase in ladies’ lines, but maybe prioritising this as important space would be a start to changing our perceptions of what is important in life.
It’s not how we look, it’s how we feel and what we do that matters.
Mystical Vegan 