New year is a bullshit time of year to be fat. It’s the time when all the sanctimonious douchebags come out of the woodwork and tell you about their juice cleanse or diet of puffed air, and the crushing moment when friends you thought too sensible get whipped up into a weight-loss frenzy in the name of New Year’s Resolutions or ‘atonement’ for the Christmas excess advocated in December by that the same culture that wants to punish you in January.
To make matters worse, a particularly sanctimonious douchebag called Steve Miller, a ‘weight loss expert’ (not he of The Joker) fame, wants 7th January to be Tell A Friend They’re Fat Day in a bid to provoke crash dieting and ruin trust between friends everywhere. Needless to say, I’m not here for this any more than I’m here for the opinions of ‘weight loss experts.’ While I absolutely do not think there’s anything intrinsically wrong with the word ‘fat’ and using it to describe yourself and others, Miller’s motivation is clear: shame the people you love for being fat in the hope that they’ll change everything about their lives and their habits in order to fit your narrow, fucked up definition of beauty.
The ladies at Slink magazine want to repurpose it as ‘Tell a friend they’re fab day’, which would be fine if it didn’t create a fab/fat binary. I’ve been told the motivation is “finding something nice to say to friends and being encouraging regardless of size” but given the original campaign was based entirely on size, and targeted entirely at people who could be identified as fat, I’m not feeling it.
So, in my capacity as resident fat loudmouth, I’m declaring a pushback against both of these things: 7 January 2015 will be Tell A Fat Friend They’re Fab day.
On 7 January I want you to make your fat pals the center of your world. Tell them how perfect and delectable they are, tell them how they’ve helped you change your opinions on bodies and fat, tell them how great they look that day, tell them an outfit of theirs you particularly loved. Don’t limit it to your hourglass-shaped white cis female friends, spread your love and appreciation for fat bodies to all kinds of fat bodies.
I’ll post more nearer the time but consider this a statement of intent as to how I’m going to personally combat the soul-sucking new year weight loss chat. You have been warned.
