The Power of Fat Knowledge Sharing

I’m not sure about the environment you were raised in, but for me I was brought up in a hyper-mobile adventure family. I was the only fat person in my family and I saw almost no representation of fat people thriving in the media. I saw the headless fatties on the news and I saw the biggest loser shows where abuse of fat people was the main spectacle in trying to attain thinness…

Up until after I graduated college, I had weight-cycled and diet-cycled almost my entire life and had no idea there was another way to live. I lived in Portland, OR and I had a set of curious moments that drew me to a book that would ultimately change my life: Things No One Will Tell Fat Girls: A Handbook for Unapologetic Living by Jes Baker. I had never seen so many life hacks in one place that were specifically catered to me and my body. I laughed, I cried, and I realized there was a whole fat liberation movement happening that I had no idea existed. I bought my first seatbelt extender and I felt less lonely after reading Jes’s book. Today, Jes is one of my friends and they have mentioned to me there are things they would change and rewrite knowing what they now know. However, I will always hold it near and dear to my heart because of the way the book broadened my perspective and enabled me to discover more about my fatness.

From there I sought stories, experiences, and visual representations of fat people doing all of the things I had been conditioned to believe fat people could not do. Date, travel, and enjoy food without guilt or shame. My world expanded tenfold and I was able to see all of the lies I had been fed about my fatness.

I hope that Fat Self-Care is a place where you can see new possibilities and connect with the world in a new way. This community was built through bravery and curiosity. Because fat people started to talk about the things that we historically have been scared to talk about because we might be seen as “weird” or “gross” due to weight stigma. Instead, it has brought so much empowerment, collective care, and mutual understanding.

Fat knowledge sharing reminds us we are not alone, and brings us into the world from which we are so often excluded. Fill your social feeds with fat bodies of all shapes and sizes, we have to see all kinds of bodies to remember our collective worth as fat people. You deserve that amazing job, that luxurious vacation, and a relationship where you are held, cared for, and flaunted in the streets. You deserve to be well paid for your labor, and you deserve to have dreams and for those dreams to come true. You deserve a full-fat glorious life! Fill your head with those ideas and visions, instead of the anti-fatness we are inundated with every single day of our lives. It’s okay to get a little radically pro-fat. It’s okay to see your innate beauty and softness. It’s so wonderful that you are here.

With much care,
Anna