People want so badly to believe that fat is bad and that if you are fat it is because you do bad things. Well I've got news for you: no part of my body is bad. My body is healthy and it does really fantastically good things for me. It gave me four normal pregnancies and births. My women's care doctor said, astonished, that it looks like I haven't given birth at all. I don't believe that would be unusual in a world in which birth was not routinely pathologized, but the point is that my big, fat body did that. It is powerful, it works. It carries me anywhere I want to go, it protects me from viruses, it responds with passion to my lover's kiss, it feels the sun and hears the wind. It is a really lovely piece of machinery. Viscerally, too, it feels normal and right and good to me. My children sing praises to its softness, its squooshiness. Those are all great, enormous gifts that I will not take for granted, that I will believe despite all the strident voices telling me I shouldn't, that I will not shove aside in disappointment over not having society's approval.

For my part, I am really quite nice to my body, thank you very much, good lord no I don't do bad things to it. I have in the past but that is over. I will not ever, ever, ever again force it to do things that it doesn't like in the name of "virtue" or refuse it good things in order to assert personal power in the face of the pressure to be "virtuous". I put good things in it because that is what it wants. I move it around because that is what it wants. I don't try to make it different from what it tells me it wants to be; I trust it. All your notions about virtue can go to hell, because my body knows better, and it always has.

And I am fat. Oh, I am fat. I am the "obesity epidemic exclamation point!" This body that is security and comfort to my loved ones, that has protected itself beautifully against enforced starvation and harmful exercise, that has a blood pressure of 120/70, that is able to hike through forests and swim in rivers and squat to pull weeds, feel sublime pleasure, and grow and nourish four people with the food it made itself: this is the body I am supposed to dislike, be angry with, be afraid of. Because other people dislike it, are angry with me for having it, are afraid of it.

No. They are superstitious and brain-washed. Certainly there are plenty of people who would benefit from treating their bodies nicely, which would result in their bodies become smaller or, yes, BIGGER or perhaps not noticeably changing in appearance at all. My body, however, is fine, and I am fine in every way except for the continual onslaught of the judgment of others. It is alarming and scary and depressing to have fingers pointed at you in disdain when in fact you haven't done anything wrong. If any of those people are reading, here is what I would like you to do: I would like you to please shut the hell up. You who find yourselves opposed to the existence of my flesh, keep your "fat is unhealthy" nonsense to yourself. Fat is crucial to the proper functioning of bodies, and though you consider yourselves experts, trust me, it really truly is not for you to decide how much fat that means for me.

Fat is also just nice. I have friends and family whose round forms I really appreciate. Meaning, it makes me happy to see them, to be around them, to hug them. While I might appreciate the aesthetic appeal (as I've been taught to) of thinner bodies, I cannot deny that my preference is for healthy bulk. I like bigness. I like that my husband is large; I am bowled over by the beauty of my children's stocky bodies. That's not to say that I regard thinner bodies as wrong in any way. Why make a point of it at all, then? Because maybe if more people were to come out and admit to it, the perception of it as a shameful perversity would cease to have so much power. In the worship of thinness, there is often the disclaimer that of course the exception is thinness which is debilitating or the result of ill health. I say the same thing applies to fatness: that which is debilitating or the result of ill health is not good. Otherwise? GOOD.

For those to whom it occurs that there might be an alternative to feeling that I'm deluded and that all would be well if only you could enlighten me about how dangerous and ugly and costly my body is, you might appreciate some reading that calls into question our culture's cherished assumptions about why some people are fat and others aren't, as well as what constitutes "attractiveness" (hint: it isn't objectively extremely narrow in scope.) I won't list links because there are too many, and what speaks to me might not be what speaks to you anyway. Some helpful search terms are: health at every size, Linda Bacon, junkfood science, genetic fat, Kate Harding, Paul Campos, fat acceptance, fatosphere, Jules Hirsch. Keep in mind that whatever you find, you will also find people rending their garments in outrage and distress at what this world is coming to that people like me actually exist. There is a huge amount of resistance to critical thinking about fat; I'm just saying, be prepared for some ugliness.

To those of you who are allies, whether large-bodied or not: I thank you from the bottom of my heart. It is because of people like you that I feel able to say any of this at all.