Although we’ve come a long way as a culture towards accepting bodies of all shapes and sizes, there is still a lot of work to be done. Still, every story about plus-size women we see will ultimately have a bevy of naysayers hating on them for their lifestyles. But what these keyboard doctors don’t realize is that for many people, being larger is simply the healthier option.
Body positive blogger Danica Marjanović is a prime example. She had suffered from body dysmorphia growing up, hovering around a women’s U.K. dress size 10, (an 8 in the U.S.) and she says she’s much happier now at a size 16 (U.S. size 14). And no, she isn’t worried about her health, and no, you shouldn’t be worried about it either.
“I can’t tell you how many fake health concerns/bullying/ body shaming comments I get that start with ‘I am all for self-love BUT you should be working out to love your body’,” she writes on Instagram.
She underlines the importance of never judging someone by their weight or pictures they choose to share.
“Would you tell an underweight anorexic patient in the early stages of recovery to start exercising to prove she loves herself? NO. Just because my body does not conform to society’s standards of an eating disorder recovery body does not mean I am not overcoming a serious issue with restricting my food.”
She shares how she never felt “skinny enough” to justify getting help for her anorexia, and how leaving it undiagnosed for so long was ultimately the unhealthiest thing she could do to herself. Gaining all that weight essentially saved her life.
“From months of therapy, I’ve been told I essentially recovered my self out or signs of what sounded like undiagnosed anorexia; want to know why I was never diagnosed? Because I always felt not skinny enough to go get help about my issues with food and body image.”
“If anything, I’m trying to make a point of the treatment of bodies that are not skinny even in the treatment of eating disorders – this has to change.”
She says that she has been fat-shamed all her life and how after becoming “a girl severely unwell and losing weight to make society more comfortable” she has finally evolved into a “fat woman reclaiming her body.” She also emphasizes how being slim does not mean being healthy, pointing out the irony in how society stayed quiet about their “health concerns” when she weighed less when in reality this was her at her sickest. “Therefore I have no trust or time for anyone telling me this body of mine is not deserving to love itself and be happy.”
Best of all, gaining weight encouraged Marjanović to pursue a career in modeling.
“Society will continue to shame and guilt you into thinking you are a burden, we are a stigmatised group, can you imagine being a fat woman of colour on top of what the world already gives us? ‘I swear to you that I will make it my mission to get FAT – not hourglass, not slim thick, not proportionate bodies who have had chin surgery – but FAT bodies represented and shown in mainstream media and the modeling world. Watch me.”