It’s also so difficult to emphasise that I call myself fat but it’s really just a descriptor. Could it be that people don’t really want to be associated with ‘fat’ people? And when someone who looks as ‘normal’ as I do, claim they’re fat, these people get cognitive dissonance?

I’m 5’10″ too and I suppose I might look good at that weight (I must have weighed it at some point between my birth weight and now but I doubt it was at a height of 5’10″), but why are we implying that you and I don’t look good at our current weights? Not that I think I look good or anything, but in the spirit of no-fat-talk.

With a few exceptions, it’s not realistic or possible to be both 5’10″ AND 110 pounds. Even that Ralph Lauren model who was Photoshopped to hell and back weighs more than that at 5’10″, and she’s professionally thin.

“Single parent of 3 kids, working full-time, paying the mortgage, –doing all the housework and cooking and laundry and lawn work–for starters,” I admitted.

“What are you doing now?” the doctor asked.

“Sleeping late, sometimes swimming but mostly reading by the pool, playing bridge, eating out with my husband and having a lot of fun,” I admitted.

“What would you prefer, your former body and lifestyle, or the way you are now?” he asked.

I guess you all know what I answered, right before I left his office with a big grin on my face.

When I was a senior in high school I suffered from anorexia for a year and a half. I was never “fat”, but I was always compared to my friends who were skinnier than I was by other students (high school can be cruel). So, I decided to stop eating all together. I lost about 20 pounds (I’m 5’6 at about 140lbs. and went down to 120 during that time), and everyone seemed to notice my weight-loss which then fostered a series of compliments from not only my peers but adults in my life as well. I remember distinctly one of my mother’s friends commented, “You look so amazing! How did you get so skinny?” It made me feel good about myself. So, I validated my condition as being necessary to look good and that not eating wasn’t really THAT bad. I equivalated anorexia with dieting. After a while my friends noticed my lack of eating, and they launched a campaign to get me better. While the support was lovely and I started to eat again, the food immediately made me gain weight. Suddenly, the compliments stopped coming. I was no longer ‘so skinny’ and, therefore, not worthy of praise. This made me feel worse than I had previously felt, and I knew I had to somehow get skinny again. However, my friends were intent on me eating. I came up with clever ways to escape their eye and slip into the bathroom to throw up. If someone caught me I would claim I was sick and go home. I became terribly bulemic, and the disorder still haunts me to this day. I assumed if anyone knew I was skinny because I was anorexic/bulemic, my thinness would no longer be okay, and that is the problem. It’s a complete double-standard. We are told to be unnaturally thin by normal means. Eating disorders are private, and how do any of us know what goes on behind close doors? Yes, I was skinny, but I was huddled over a toilet throwing up my dinner seven days a week. We need to reevaluate the way we assess beauty. It is literally killing us. ‘Fat talk’ needs to stop.

Psssh. I’m 5’10″ and I’d be thrilled to get back down to 180! ‘Cause honey, at 180 I LOOK GOOD! :)