Stories

I’m grabbing a drink with a friend and tell her about a new plus-size dating app I’ve discovered. She snickers and tells me that wanting to date bigger people “isn’t a thing.” The interlocutor here has decided that fat people simply cannot be attractive. They cannot warrant the attention of others. They are not desirable. It is a common prejudice, fed by media representation of fat people as lonely, sad and unlovable....

I am seventeen, I go to the gynecologist for a check-up. She weighs me. My BMI is in the “normal” range and I don’t have health issues. However, the doctor looks at me coldly and tells me that I have to lose weight. This triggers additional years of disordered eating. There are several points to note here: First of all, the BMI is not an indicator of health and that is a widely accepted fact within the scientific community....