Don't Tell Me I'm Not Fat

People are constantly trying to tell Kate Harding she’s not fat, and it “drives me up a goddamn wall,” she writes in Salon. She is, by any reasonable definition, fat. It's simply another word that describes her. The problem is, everyone associates being fat with being lazy, stupid, ugly, etc. She's not any of those things. "I am a kindhearted, intelligent, attractive person, and I am fat," Harding writes. "There is no paradox there."

"Thin women don't tell their fat friends, 'You're not fat' because they're confused about the dictionary definition of the word, or their eyes are broken... They don't say it because it's the truth. They say it because fat does not mean just fat in this culture." Some of her readers even complain Harding’s not fat enough. But she’s keeping the label. “I'm gonna keep telling them I am, too, fat, dammit! Le fat, c'est moi. This is what fat looks like.” (More obesity stories.)