Finally finding the fabulous in fat

Megan Fontana-Juarez,
Contributor

I was overweight for most of my life and it was hard. In middle school and high school, I was bullied for being bigger than all the other girls.
My weight affected the way I dressed, the way I thought about myself, and the way I presented myself to people. I dressed like a boy, in clothes that were two sizes too big.

I thought that because of my weight, that I was ugly and that I could not dress girly. I presented myself as the tomboy who didn’t care about how I looked, even though deep down, I did care.

When were other people given the right to tell me I was fat?

The “perfect” body came into a bigger role when social media was introduced, bodies of women have been subjected to criticism from others. Social media is telling girls and women of all ages that they must be skinny, and that to achieve the perfect body one must have a thigh gap.

Iggy Azalea recently quit her social media platforms because she was criticized for having cellulite. “Just got back from a great vacation, came online and saw apparently it’s shocking and unheard of to be a woman and have cellulite…” Azalea wrote on Twitter.

Early in February there was a media breakthrough; a plus-size model signed a substantial modeling contract. Tess Munster, or Tess Holiday as she’s known in the modeling world, is the first model of her height and weight to receive such a big contract. Holiday is 5 feet 5 inches tall, 260 pounds and her dress size is 22. She has also started a campaign called the #effyourbeautystandards movement.

“Just because I’m not a size 12, doesn’t mean I have any less of a life to live. I’m a big girl…and I have a big life to live.” Holiday said on her website.
Sports Illustrated announced that they are using not one but two plus-size models in their 2015 swimsuit issue for the first time.

“I know my curves are sexy and I want everyone else to know that theirs are too. There is no reason to hide and every reason to flaunt,” Ashley Graham, a Sports Illustrated model that wears a dress size 16, said in a statement.

The second plus-sized model for Sports Ilustrated swimsuit edition is Robin Lawley who is 6 feet 2 inches tall and wears a size 14. Lawley has that she hopes this will show women to embrace their curves.

All women are created equally, we are all beautiful no matter how full figured we are. There needs to be an end to “fat shaming” a woman because she does not fit into a size zero pair of jeans or an extra small shirt. Fat shaming is a way that people poke fun and bully those who are overweight. It makes a person feel disgusting and ashamed of the body they are in.

In the United States being plus-sized means that a woman wears a dress size eight or bigger. During The Ancient Roman Times, women who were full bodied and had a stomach were seen as the ideal body type and men preferred this. The last time this was seen as the norm was in the 1950s. The ideal weight in the medical world depends on your height, for the average woman who is about 5 feet 5 inches tall; the ideal weight is between 114 pounds to 144 pounds. For a model the ideal weight is between 90 pounds and 120 pounds, and the average height for a female model is between 5 feet 8 inches tall and 5 feet 11 inches tall.

In an article in MaMaia, they describe why models are so thin, because they, the designers, don’t want their bodies to take attention away from the clothes. If bodies are curvier, the attention of the viewers would leave the clothing and focus on the model’s body.

There is a six percent less chance of dying when a person is overweight. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did a study and discovered that a person’s life may be extended if their body mass index was inside the overweight range of 25 to 29.9.

There are risks to being too overweight. Obesity can lead to heart disease, high blood pressure, osteoarthritis and stroke. A person who is obese is also at risk for Type 2 diabetes, and women can even have gynecologic problems; they can have irregular menstrual cycles as well as infertility.

Magazines are starting to embrace the plus-sized community and it is time that the rest of the world did too.

It’s time to stop pointing out the flaws that some bodies carry; we, the people, need to start seeing the beauty that all body shaped have.