Open Eyes.

I started reading The Obesity Myth by Paul Campos yesterday and I feel like I’ve been hit between the eyes.

All those years. All those years of thinking my body was flawed because it was fat. All those years of thinking my health was suffering because my BMI wasn’t below 25 and my pants-size appeared at the back of the rack (if it showed up in the store at all).

What horsespittle.

I bought into that horsespittle. I believed that I had to beat my fat into submission because it was unhealthy. I had to be lean and tight and my abs had to be visible and I had to practice acts of self-denial whenever I felt hungry because giving in to the hunger was weak. It was indicative of low willpower, that same failing of character that had made me fat to begin with.

Because, of course, being fat means you’re lazy. You eat too much. You don’t get off the couch. You’re probably sitting in front of Jerry Springer with a box of Krispy Kremes and a liter of Coke right now.

It’s all such a lie. It’s such a mean, horrible, abusive lie. And we perpetuate it whenever we feel like we have to lose weight to be beautiful or to be healthy. We feed the lie whenever we join any diet program or measure our efforts for improved ‘health’ by the size of our jeans. When we hold up our bodies, our beautiful, strong, resilient, life-giving bodies, as objects of revulsion or shame. When we grab handfuls of thigh or stomach or upper arm and despair of the thickness, the heft, that we find there.

Right now, my body is healthy. My limbs bend and move, my heart beats ceaselessly, my muscles respond immediately. I can run. I can ride a bike. I can feel my breath moving out through my fingertips as I hold the Warrior pose in yoga class. I can take my dogs for walks and play tag with my nephew and dance badly with my husband.

I just wish I’d known I could do all that when I was fat. I wouldn’t have thrown away so many years thinking I wasn’t good enough to have a splendid life.