Over at Big Fat Blog, BuffPuff said: “…if it were simply a matter of physicality - learning to live comfortably in a fat body – that, in itself, wouldn’t be so hard. But it’s not that simple. It’s learning to survive in the current societal climate. It’s living each day knowing you ARE the very thing the inch-pinching, self-castigating, dieters fear they will become. It’s surviving the infantile humour, the stereotype-foisting, the all-out loathing demonstrated by the Craig’s List cretins. It’s living in a world that never misses a chance to remind us that it hates us for the way we look.”

This is exactly how I would explain my struggle with being fat. When I think about it, I’m pretty darn comfortable with my body, fat or not. Physically, I can get around okay, and I can do everything that any smaller person can do. My health is pretty good, in general.

My biggest body problem is my lack of physical fitness, and I can honestly say that the main reason I don’t improve it is that I do not feel comfortable exercising like a normal person would. This is a social issue, not a personal issue, and certainly not an issue of laziness. I am either afraid to exercise because I am afraid of the harassment that would ensue, or because I associate exercise with restrictive, punitive regimens of body-control. If I were all alone on this planet, neither of these reasons would exist.

The other problem with my body is clothing. Again, another problem not inherent to my body itself, but the culture I find myself in.

And another: my general level of self-consciousness when going outside. Yet again: not me.

I’m sure I have thought about this before, but tonight it struck me on a different level. Effectively, all the problems I have with being fat, all the ambivalence I feel about it, and all of the times I wish to God I could just be not-fat again, have nothing to do with my body itself. My body is not the enemy; the culture is.

My only problem with my body is that I care what other people think about it.