Dear Fat People, A Response to Nicole Arbleugh

Just a few weeks ago hardly anyone had heard of Nicole Arbour and now she has sent a wave of mixed emotions across the internet and upped her subscriber count greatly. Some applaud her apparent 'brutal' honesty and others question her motives of supposedly trying to inspire overweight people into losing a few pounds. I personally do not think there were any compassionate motives with this as there is an enormous difference between tough love and mockery. You can't pull all of the 'yo mama so fat' jokes out of the hat and expect everyone to want to be your friend. You can't outright laugh at someone so brazenly and then genuinely think that people; inspired by your tenacity to the cause, will start going to the gym!

This is not the first example I've seen of digs made about weight regardless of the spectrum. Slim men have their masculinity questioned when they don't have a 6 pack #DoYouEvenLiftBro style. Overweight people are filmed on the treadmill for purely malicious purposes. Many times i've questioned why I even follow Gym Memes on Facebook, because of the odd things that come through causing a judgemental stir that i'm not necessarily comfortable with. The labels fat shaming and skinny shaming get thrown about whenever a debate of this nature comes into the limelight. Being overweight in our society is bloody hard and I've never even experienced it. I feel for those who are judged for their 'excess' weight, because everyone questions and scrutinises their life choices, as though they are instantly better human beings for being a size 10 rather than a 18. 

The fact of the matter is, we are all built differently and think differently too. We process failure and success, heartache and joy uniquely. It is not fair to assume and generalise everyone over a size 16 is a lazy, gluttonous 'drain on society'.  What do you know about the intricacies of that person's life and what they maybe are going through other than assumptions.  Without meaning to be callous, would you mock a girl with Anorexia? No. 

For me the issue is a bit deeper than what's been discussed by others who have approached this topic and this eediyat of a woman's video. If obesity is a problem why are we not doing more to encourage change for health and support those who are having difficulties, instead of throwing them in virtual stocks and pelting them with tomatoes.  Why does society apparently only feel sympathy and compassion to people suffering with eating disorders at the skinnier end of the spectrum? Yup that is a sweeping statement I know, but hear me out:

When parents or doctors find out that their child is battling Anorexia, their immediate response is to rally around to support and nurture that child. They are afraid and confused. Now replicate that situation but with a child who is a size 16 at 14 years old.  Maybe quite unbeknownst to the parents, their child is struggling with chronic depression further fuelled by the likes of the 'Nicole Arbours' of the world or a binge eating disorder. They may even shrug it off because 'my child eats a lot and is a growing girl/boy'. The support network is not as noticeably there in my opinion. The child in question then recedes deeper into themselves because no one is noticing anything but the initial visible difference, and everyone is criticising them at school and on the internet. Surely an eating disorder is serious whichever form it takes and we should be trying to support those who are going through Anorexia AND binge eating disorders equally! 

Another thing people seem overwhelmed by is the fact that some of their fellow humans enjoy being the weight they are and like food! They enjoy being slim or they enjoy having a larger frame. If everyone wasn't so freaking critical, a lot of the people who get judged for yoyo dieting probably wouldn't be yoyo dieting in the first place!! They've been shamed into thinking their bodies are wrong for whatever reason and so do things to fit the norm they've been told to adjust themselves to. We get one life. Who are we to judge a size 4 or a size 24? 

We all know a skinny person who eats like a horse and doesn't gain weight. They too are judged, told to eat a burger and made to feel ashamed for the way their body processes things. This in itself is a big problem but comments of this nature appear to stem from jealously rather than socially orchestrated hatred or disgust. Maybe; just maybe,  if we invested more time in creating a support network for those who are struggling with their weight at both ends of the scale, we would have a society more equipped to manage these situations with care rather than social outrage. Also, if we tried to have a bit of self censorship before making sweeping assumptions about people we don't know, maybe the world would be a less catty place. 

To sum up my response to this video in one sentence all I will say is this: Go Home Nicole Arbleugh You're Drunk because if you haven't got anything nice to say don't say it at all! 

Why It's OK to To Be Different.

As a commenter on the Daily Mail website; not to be confused with keyboard warrior, windup merchant or troll, I was enthused to start my own blog when I realised I got too wound up by the DM, had a lot to say but no where to say it. Luckily for anyone reading this, you won't find any tattoo bashing, Conservative/UKIP plugging, 'working class' hating going on here.

In this world of celebrity culture, corruption and general idiots I will quite happily remain an outsider. When I was a child through to a teenager, I enjoyed being unashamedly myself which was a combination of dare I say it, embarrassingly immature, but also switched on to the world around me and I actively didn't want to be a part of it. Of course I was bullied for this. Now that I am older, I feel like I still can't escape the beady eye of some of my peers. If I don't contour my face every day i'm lazy,  if I don't spend every waking moment of my life obsessing over obtaining a beach body, i'm not going to be considered attractive.

I didn't care to be the most popular at school, I just wanted to enjoy life which has stretched into adulthood.  Metaphorically speaking, I sometimes look around me as though everyone's in a Sims game that I am not a part of, or like I am a creator of a Matrix world just watching over everyone with a large glass of wine and a raised eyebrow... a bit like how I imagine God would...not that I am putting myself in the same category!! What I mean by all this is, I am quite happy keeping myself to myself, reading a good book or even writing my own book and what gets me is that people find this so strange.

The amount of times people look at me questioningly when I tell them that I love science, quantum physics, fixing computers and trying to help fix my boyfriend's car, just as much as I love dressing up for nights out and talking about Mulberry handbags. I enjoy walking around museums, going to parks & discussing the meaning of life over (another) glass of wine with my boyfriend; getting no closer to the answer but closer to the bottom of the bottle, whilst revelling in the mystery of it all. Real life fascinates me and I find it sad that it doesn't do the same for quite a lot of young people now.

What's most important here is that liking all of these thinks is OK too. Having interests that other people find boring or not stereotypically something your gender is supposed to like is OK. If you let sheepy, jealous and insecure people dictate what you should and shouldn't be doing, you not only let them think they are right, you restrict your own happiness.

The older I get, the more averse I become to participating in the rat race that is life's popularity contest. I don't aspire to move into a posh 'bisous' / 'not even a studio flat' just off the Kings Road; that costs 80% of my monthly salary, just to look like I can afford a certain lifestyle. I don't want 1 million Instagram followers and I won't upload a selfie or butt shot every single day to keep them there. I don't pretend to love someone 3x my age to get money from them. I am not a social climber that uses and abuses people for my own gain- all of this instant gratification narcissism bullshit can jog on and for me to feel that is OK.

It's shocking what people are prepared to do to themselves to gain popularity and they don't see anything wrong with it. It's OK to have a boob job because YOU don't really like your boobs, but it's not ok to see a celebrity do it and decide you want one too- just because it's got that celebrity 999,999 likes on Instagram and a free supply of Triangl bikinis. In creating these images for themselves they are reinforcing this idea that conformity wins over everything, or that you can never succeed or be good enough if you are just 100% yourself.  This is so wrong.

If it's not in seeing the likes of the Kylie Jenners of the world, morphing before our eyes into combinations of Blac Chyna and Jocelyn Wildenstein before they hit 20, or seeing the Daily Mail reporting on the rise of knee fat and cankles in women, it's going to be something else ridiculous.  No one can win in this game once they start playing it. The only people who reap the benefits of increased social insecurity are the media, who keep churning articles and magazines out with the sole intention of making you question yourself, your body or your life choices aaaand the plastic surgeons who are getting all of this new business.

I'm going to end on this. People who seek to humiliate you for the way you do things are often intimidated by something...whether it's your confidence, your happiness, what you look like or what you have. Someone with a seemingly 'socially acceptable' & perfect life can be equally jealous of you, for many things and often times they will try and push you off course by making you doubt yourself. Lastly, comparing yourself to the people in the media; who are themselves, either trying to portray a certain image, or being criticised for not, is like chasing a rainbow only to find there is no pot of gold at the end. It is OK to be quirky and like other things. It's the people with something different to offer that will end up leading the best lives overall.