invaluable imperfections

Amidst this war on fat bodies, I choose to arm myself with a radical, unconditional love of self and a blatant rejection of fatphobia.

by SOPHIE WYSOCKI

layout JAYCEE JAMISON photographer CAT WILSON stylist MONTSERRAT ELIAS hmua SARA TIN-U model INGRIS PEREIRA

From the youngest age I can remember, beauty has always been my foremost aspiration. Attached to my notion of beauty has always been the concept of thinness. My best friend tried new diets, losing and gaining back weight, buying new clothes every time the old ones didn’t fit anymore.

Every doll I owned was plastered with the same pink lips, tiny waist, and dainty appendages. I thought I might die if I didn’t embody the symbols of femininity I’d been taught determined my worth.

In the eighth grade, I, along with 200 other gawky preteens, enrolled in P.E. class. We slipped off our individuality and allowed our uniforms, a grey Kealing Middle School T-shirt with athletic shorts, to swallow us whole. We became distinguishable only by the way we looked in these clothes, not by the way we expressed ourselves in clothing or style. Instead of human beings, we shifted into objects to be perceived, to be judged, to be weighed and tested.

A friend I’d known for years transformed into the shapeless, nameless voice of scrutiny.

“Wow, Sophie, you have a BIG butt.”

In that instant, every possible emotion unyieldingly erupted from the volcanic caverns of hormones swirling inside of me and flooded across my unwilling consciousness. I was trapped inside of myself - the burden of being perceived was finally upon me. I wished, in that moment and in forevermore, that my body was simply a vessel for my inner self, aiding me in my journey through the world.

I turned 13 years old, had barely grown out of my training bra, and yet the people around me were beginning to behave as though we were adults. As though our bodies were for the consumption of others, as though it was already a necessity to worry about the prospect of being found attractive by another. Uncomfortable in my own skin, I was hyperconscious of the possibility that I could be observed and judged. The thought of breaking the unspoken rules of beauty caused me great terror; I envisioned myself a social pariah for life, ostracized by my repulsing, odious form. My body was no longer just carrying me - it was a mask I wore, one that would determine my worth. Perfecting my mask was, for so long, more important to me than expressing anything I hid underneath it.

Growing older, I became obsessed with the weight I continued to gain. The number on the scale ceaselessly grew, quantifying the distance I was growing away from the body type I’d been taught to desire. I was maturing, growing out of the child’s body I had lived in for so long, and becoming a young woman. It was unfathomable that I was getting bigger; my body refused to fit the petite, childlike ideal that had been pushed upon me. It refused my deepest desires. Instead of feeling proud of my burgeoning womanhood and the faithful body that came with it, I wondered why I continued to grow in size while others remained skinny, small, and, in my eyes, perfect. Comments on social media, fatphobic remarks in movies and television shows, and even the words boys my age used to describe girls’ bodies behind their backs bombarded me ruthlessly, scraping bits and pieces of me away until I felt like a shell of the girl I used to be.

Somehow, I wasn’t defeated yet. With the last ounce of strength and love that fueled the pulsing of my heartbeat, I made a choice. I didn’t want to break down in front of the mirror any longer - no more teary eyes on the school bus, no more shrinking in futile attempts to hide my body. I wanted more, a better life for myself than being constantly concerned with what others thought of me. Through social media, I discovered a scattered but immensely powerful movement advocating for body positivity. All bodies are beautiful, size does not determine beauty, and other phrases encouraging self-love and self-care ran over and over in my head. I began trying to condition myself to believe in myself the way these other women were choosing to. Instead of falling apart, I stood tall. I tried to believe that I was beautiful the way I was, and I continued on.

As much as I wanted to believe in this movement and the power of positive thinking, I found it nearly impossible to recondition the way I thought. I couldn’t relate to the ultra-toned and ultrafeminine faces of this movement. Plus-sized models like Ashley Graham or Iskra Lawrence were beautiful, and I wanted to be just like them, but their bodies became yet another unreachable ex-

pectation that I held myself to. Because of their beauty, I saw within them this inherent worth, strength, and value that I failed to attribute to myself. Each passing day, I would wake up and walk to the bathroom. My bedhead, acne scars, and sweats caused a visceral reaction of disgust in me. I felt as though in order to be a valuable fat person, I needed to work tirelessly to be the embodiment of beauty and femininity. I would wake up two hours before I needed to, put on a full face of makeup, straighten and curl my unruly hair, wear a constricting and cinching outfit to contort my excess flesh into the correct shape. Pain is beauty - or so I told myself. I expected perfection all the time, and when I couldn’t meet the impossible standards I set myself to, I failed myself.

Despite the honorable intentions of the body positivity movement, its ultimate effect was proving to me how important beauty is as a standard for value in our society. My outlook on self-love eventually began to improve when I started seeing people who looked more like me on social media. Everyday people, fat folks of all genders, ethereal queer and trans human beings danced across my screen and proclaimed their love of self despite any and all normative expectations. They refused to fit any constrictive mold of beauty, gender, or sexuality, denouncing the idea that they had to be anything other than themselves to be valued. I finally found what I had needed to see all along: people who were happy, loved, and thriving without the condition of beauty.

At my heaviest weight, I have begun dismissing society’s notion of beauty as value and reconstructing how I think about fat bodies, thin bodies, and my body. I’ve decided that my whole self is valuable and worthy of unconditional love, acceptance, and care, regardless of what I look like. Bodies don’t have to be beautiful to be meaningful, respected, and deserving of tenderness - we are all inherently valuable just by being people. In a world where self-confidence is so antagonized, valuing oneself unconditionally is a radical act. It hasn’t been easy; in fact, unlearning the fatphobia so deeply embedded in our culture has been made deliberately difficult. Moving forward, it won’t be any easier, but I have chosen to fight for myself and for other individuals that deserve liberation.

There isn’t a step-bystep guide to achieving self-love, but it is a practice that we have to commit ourselves to each day. Not every day will be a good day, progress will not be linear, but I believe that a sustained devotion to this principle of radical self-acceptance will change my life for the better. In doing so, I accept this undeniable truth: fat people are beautiful, fat people are sexy, fat people are precious, but more than any of those things, fat people are valuable and important. Now, it is my turn to wear what I want, refuse to harmfully restrict my eating, take up space, and shout my love for myself from the rooftops. We cannot choose how we are conditioned to think, and we cannot change the fatphobia ingrained in our brains. What we can choose is how we react to it and what we pass on to our family, friends, and our children. Right now, I choose to love them, value them, and hold them dear no matter what they look like. As I join the fight against fatphobia, I stretch out my chubby hands to meet yours. I hope you take them and join me. ■