from my fat power book...

“…. I debated long and hard before I broke off our therapy the following week. At first he didn’t understand why. He assured me that he was only trying to be helpful, that he didn’t judge me. but in my heart of hearts I knew that HE JUST DIDN’T GET IT. another doctor with good intentions and faulty execution.

What I told him and what I would tell anyone in a white coat, or anyone holding out his or her arms to me, is that IT’S NOT THE FAT. you can’t be overweight in the twenty first century and not have a clue. You can’t carry extra pounds and not know every diet in the book. If your fat, its not because you want to be. It’s a pain in the ass to be fat. it adds stress to your musculoskeletal system. You sweat a lot. You have to deal with comments from the peanut gallery all day and night. It’s hard to find clothes that look good on you. it’s literally more challenging to pack a suitcase, because your clothes are bigger and can’t be wadded up into little balls and thrown in an overnight bag. Fat girls have bigger baggage, in every way. If we had it in our power to wish it away, we probably would. I would. I’ll say it again: NO ONE WANTS TO BE FAT….”

“Maybe it’s just that white guys have different standards of attraction than other races. God forbid a white man be attracted to a woman as big, or bigger then he is – what an affront to his Neanderthal masculinity! But if I had a dime for every black guy who hit on me… I get lots of attention from guys who are nonwhite – or at least non-white collar. I can’t get into a cab without being hit on. I wonder are white guys just snobs? Have men of color in America learned to accept sloppy seconds? Or do men from other cultures genuinely feel attracted to bigger girls?”

“We cannot be kind enough or thin enough or generous enough, we cannot be successful enough or attractive enough for those who abuse us to stop abusing us. We cannot make anyone love us. We cannot change anyone. It is not our job to hurt someone who has hurt us, to change someone who is self destructive, to convince someone who doesn’t love us to love us. As long as our well being and self worth are dependent on those around us we are children hanging on our fathers affection, waiting for our mothers to call us “darling” our teachers to tell us we are smart, our friends to include us in their clubs, we are waiting, waiting for enough kindness to break open the tight bud of our hearts.”