What do you do?
I am at a party, and this kind stranger smiles, offering me a drink.
I tell him about my day job when a friend cuts in.
Getty / Fanatic Studio/Gary Waters/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY
Shes being modest, she says.
He lifts his glass in a silent toast.
What do you write about?
I tell him I write about the social realities of moving through the world as a fat person.
He wrinkles his nose at the word, but mercifully lets it pass, and asks for examples instead.
I tell him its an issue worth confronting, worth uprooting.
Some of it has got to be motivating, though, right?
I echo back to him.
As if my body were to blame for such widespread societal ills.
To make a lifestyle change.
You mean weight loss?
Just takes a little elbow grease.
A little tenacity and youll be there in no time.
I tell him that not everyone can lose weight nor does everyone want to.
I guess, but thats just the way the world works.
Things can change, I offer.
Just because thats how it works now doesnt mean ithasto work that way.
But you know what to do, right?
I mean, if its so bad, just lose weight.
A familiar exhaustion washes through my veins and marrow.
It relies on truisms, repeated so often that they feel like facts.
Calories in, calories out.
Burn more than you consume.
You arent responsible for what they shove in their fat faces.
If they could just muster a little willpower, they could have whatever they wanted.
But those problems are too entrenched, too complex.
So the logic comes up with its own response, devastatingly simple and equally ruthless.Just lose weight.
And it reveals an eager kind of condescension.
As if it had never occurred to us that life might be easier as a thin person.
As if we could only have gotten this fat through sheer ignorance.
Just lose weightoften falls back on surgery.
If dieting doesnt work, why dont you just get a lap band?
As if surgery didnt have health risks of its own.
As if it had never crossed my mind.
Ultimately, the logic ofjust lose weightis infuriatingly self-preserving.
It shields its speaker from any accountability at all, from any self-reflection or growth.
It mandates that we endlessly self-flagellate, making a performance of our penance for all to see.
Just lose weightis a magic trick.
At that party, I told a stranger about systems that exclude and oppress fat people.
But weight loss is rarely as simple asjust.
Justis easier for so many, just like that man at the party.
We stay withjust,no matter how wrong or harmful it may be.
Your Fat Friendwrites anonymously about the social realities of life as a very fat person.
Her work has been translated into 19 languages and covered around the world.
Most recently, Your Fat Friend was a contributor to Roxane Gays Unruly Bodies compilation.
