Translator: Yara Saleh Reviewer: Mirjana Čutura
A few years ago, I was sitting in a cafe, being fat.
(Laughter)
I was just sitting, being fat, you know,
eating my burger, drinking my milkshake
when four young men walked in.
And at first, I didn't really care because ... burger!
(Laughter)
But I very soon felt the heat on the back of my neck.
You know that feeling when you know that someone is looking at you?
And I noticed that they were staring at me,
they were mocking me,
they were making faces at each other,
they were filming me with their phones.
And I felt so ashamed.
I was drenched in shame.
And I lowered my head.
I tried to push my shoulders in to the middle of my body.
And I felt so horrible.
And the voice in my head said, 'They're right, you shouldn't be here.
You are gross; you're disgusting.'
And I was taken aback
because it's been a while since I last felt that way.
I spent,
I guess, from the moment I learned to walk till I was about 21 years old
just hating my body intensely.
And then, that changed.
And I would love to tell you what happened and how I made that change.
And then, hopefully, if you're in that same place,
hopefully, maybe, you can use that.
What happened was,
I saw a fat woman on the internet
who claimed that she loved her body.
I was like, 'You can do that?'
(Laughter)
'You're allowed to do that?
Like, that's an option?
Like, that had never even occurred to me.'
And realising that just changed everything in my head,
and I started very quickly stripping away
all negative connotations from the word 'fat'.
And suddenly I was like,
'I'm not unattractive because I'm fat.
I'm fat, and I'm hot.'
(Cheering)
'I am not unintelligent because I'm fat;
I am fat, and I am smart.
I am not lazy because I'm fat.
That's more a personality trait.'
(Laughter)
Like, why run? It's not fun, is it?
I don't need to do yoga - I have a personality.
(Laughter)
(Applause)
It was like the world around me just looked different.
Like, when I saw an advert or a campaign or the front cover of a magazine
or a TV show,
it no longer reflected something true.
It reflected this lie that if you're fat,
you're not worthy of love and respect and basic rights.
So, this might sound very simple,
but my first piece of advice, the first thing I want to say to you is:
You're allowed to love your body.
It's okay to be fat;
you can be fat and happy.
The next step was affirmations.
I know.
Like, I know how it sounds.
Like, when you hear 'affirmations',
you just imagine that you have to stand in front of a mirror
and be like, 'I am a beautiful flower.'
(Laughter)
Ugh!
Oh, it's so awful, isn't it?
I couldn't do it the first couple of months;
I just could not do it.
And I kept trying, and I kept standing in front of the mirror like,
'Right, mate.'
(Laughter)
'Nice tits!'
Like, I became a bro.
(Laughter)
I couldn't do it.
But then I thought, 'Why?
Why does it feel so cringe-worthy when we take ourselves seriously?
Why does it feel so awkward to try and boost our self-worth?'
And I was like, 'Hmm, who benefits from women having no confidence?
Hmm?'
(Laughter)
'Oh! It's the patriarchy!'
And then I was back in front of the mirror like, 'You're a goddamn goddess;
you are a warrior princess.'
(Cheering)
'I love my fat squishy stomach.
I love my thick thighs.'
(Applause)
'You are beautiful, and you are a goddamn beautiful flower.'
(Laughter)
I'm often accused of glorifying being fat.
And every time I have to say, 'Yeah!'
(Laughter)
Like, I'm glorious; it's really hard not to.
(Laughter)
The next bit of advice is:
Unfollow every single social media account that makes you feel bad about yourself.
Unfollow people who are, like, 'on a weight loss journey'.
Unfollow people who share 'funny' memes that ridicule and humiliate fat bodies.
Just unfollow people who make you feel
like you have to compare yourselves to them,
and then you feel bad.
And this includes friends and family as well.
Unfollow, unfriend, hide, mute, block, whatever you need to do.
And then, there's my favourite thing:
Look at fat bodies ...
with their consent.
(Laughter)
I'm not like, "Grab your binoculars, and get in the bushes.'
That's not it.
Follow fat bodies on social media.
My two favourite Instagram accounts are shooglet and adipositivity.
They're two amazing photographers who take pictures of fat bodies naked.
And the pictures are amazing. They're so beautiful.
There's a chance
that this might be the first time you see a naked, fat body.
There's an even bigger chance
this is the first time you see a naked, fat body portrayed positively.
It means everything.
These steps, they work for me,
and I really hope that they'll work for you as well
if you need that.
We spend a lot of emotional energy,
a lot of time
on trying to share our experiences
and our knowledge
to people who might feel bad about themselves.
Within the body positivity movement,
we try so hard to create resources for people to use.
We write books and blogs and tweets,
and we create podcasts and radio shows and documentaries,
and we attend and host and perform at seminars, conferences,
performance nights, TEDx talks.
All to try and teach people how to love their bodies.
And then we spend sometimes decades on trying to learn how to do so,
to try and convince ourselves that, 'Yeah! We are beautiful flowers.'
And it's so difficult.
It is so hard.
Meanwhile,
the weight loss industry is a 220-billion-pound industry
that thrives under the capitalist and patriarchal system.
And it spends every single day,
it spends amounts of money,
the size of which are really hard to even comprehend,
on contributing to funding and creating a culture
that makes children feel like they're not good enough,
that teaches children to hate themselves.
It is huge.
It is everything.
There's a US study that shows
that children between the age of three and six,
half of them think they're too fat.
And how do we change that with body positivity?
How do we change that with daily affirmations?
Because even with all the hard work we do,
we'll never reach 100% of those children.
We just won't.
And even when we do, it might be too late.
And then they just have to spend the rest of their lives trying to learn,
or unlearn,
all of this hatred.
And even then, body positivity
is at the risk of becoming this new thing that you can't be good enough at.
So, it's like, 'Oh, great!
I failed at being thin,
and now I also fail at not loving myself enough.'
My point is,
it's not our fault.
It's not our fault that we can't lose weight
or we can't love ourselves enough.
It's not our responsibility to teach each other how to love our bodies
or to teach ourselves how to love our bodies
because we didn't do this to ourselves.
This wasn't our fault; we didn't do this.
It's them.
They fucked up.
They created this system.
They made us hate ourselves.
It's them.
They failed at implementing humanity and ethics
and social justice and compassion
into how they run a business.
It's them.
They need to change; the system needs to change.
So, my final piece of advice is this:
Fight them.
The best thing that you can do for you and your body
is to fight them.
That's why, when I was in that cafe
and I just finished my burger,
and the men were still there, they were still mocking me,
I suddenly arched my back.
I called the waiter over, and I ordered another burger
(Laughter)
and another milkshake.
I was full, but I didn't care.
When that food arrived,
I turned my whole fat body to watch the men,
and I stared at them straight in their eyes
as I ate that second burger.
Oh, I had ketchup on my cheeks and mayonnaise on my thighs.
I didn't give a fuck.
I just stared them down,
eating that burger with the vitriol of a truly pissed-off fatty
just furiously staring them down.
Until first, they pretended to not see me,
and then they got so uncomfortable that they left.
(Cheering) (Applause)
Because I refuse to be the object
of their ridicule and their hatred, their culture.
I refuse to, and I demand my right to exist.
I demand my right to take up space,
and I demand my right to believe what is a fact:
that I don't have to change; they do.
Thank you very much.
(Cheering) (Applause)