Last week I dared to speak out. I know, who’d have thought it… a fat girl even contemplating the thought of speaking out and standing up for her body – but I did. As any fat girl will know, this takes a lot of courage: if you’re anything like me you’d have been bullied throughout your years and confronted many a demon in your time, but in spite of these demons, I’ve managed to find peace with my body and the way that I look. I owe a lot of my newly discovered confidence to the likes of Honour Curves and Tess Munster – hashtags such as #honourmycurves and #effyourbeautystandards have given plus size, curvy, big fat babes the space to find acceptance of their bodies. Sadly, some people have taken a disliking to this fat positivity and have taken to slandering these hashtags – I myself have been no exception to this trolling.  

I recently uploaded a photo that struck a nerve with the fat haters out there and I was met with a tirade of abuse. I was told amongst other things, that I was unhealthy, heading to an early grave, disgusting and, originally, I was called a ham beast. As I pointed out to my perpetrator: if I’m what a ‘ham beast’ looks like… then I’m ok with that. Now these trolls, in their ignorance, have standardised and appropriated a set of ‘rules’ that they seem to think applies to us plus sized goddesses… In light of this, I thought I’d tackle the problem and nip it in the bud to prove that ‘rules’ are made to be broken. So listen up, because here are my top fat girl misconceptions…

You’re fat, so you MUST be unhealthy!