The struggles of a plus sized woman

Hello,

I wanted to write a little article about what it is like being plus sized and the struggles we face from day-to-day. So, being a plus size girl from my late teens, I know and understand firsthand the struggles and the hate that comes with it. I used to question the reasons why it is so bad for somebody to carry more body weight than others? Today’s beauty standards are ridiculous, portraying a biased view of what society should deem as the acceptable female body shape - I have touched on this matter in previous posts, and explored how important it is that we challenge this idea of what is seen as right and/or wrong with regards to women’s bodys and the need to promote self-love!

Why do we grow up thinking that we have to be a certain size or weight? I see plus size people being shamed everyday online for the way they look. It’s wrong. Every size is beautiful. No one can tell you what your body should look like. You are the only person that can direct your life and happiness.

One of the things that really gets to me is when someone will tell me that I obviously don’t care about my body...questioning why I don’t exercise enough or why don’t you eat healthier and so on. These people need to stop. What they don’t realise is that I do care about my body, I do get regular exercise and I do eat healthy. But I also want to enjoy my life, and eat yummy things in moderation. I am not plus sized because I can’t control my eating and do not exercise, I have PCOS which makes it difficult for me to loose weight and I am clearly built to be a bigger girl. None of which I am ashamed of - I am extremely happy and comfortable in my skin.

Another thing that really annoys me is when someone says, “you aren’t fat, you are beautiful”. You are basically implying you have to be skinny to be beautiful. Its literally one of the worst compliments you can give a plus sized women. It’s pretty much the definition of positive discrimination. My beauty does not need to be judged in the view of my dress size! 

Who decided to label the larger person as Plus Size? It’s offensive in itself. It’s scary that society’s standard of what size is ‘plus size’, and what size is not, is absolutely ridiculous. Anything above a UK size 14-16 is classed as a plus size. And yet the average clothes size for a woman in the UK is a size 16. It’s wrong. Doesn’t that translate as women being “plus size” on average?! 

Whilst shopping for my holiday clothes back at the beginning of August, I found it extremely difficult to buy anything in many of the main high street shops. When I did find an item, for example in New Look, I bought a dress from their plus size range where I noticed the dress was more expensive to buy than the same dress in a UK size 16-18. There was a £4 difference. So why should we have to pay more money for our clothes?

There is also the horrible thing of seeing clothes in a shop that you like, yet they only do those clothes in “regular” sizes. It almost feels like the people designing these items are saying, “no, you can’t wear that item, you are too big for it to look good”. Let us decide what we want to wear, and let us decide if we look good in it or not! Something I have also noticed is that the plus size section in shops is almost always next to the maternity section…but why? There is a huge difference between the two, and it would be really nice for the plus size section to not be shoved into the corner of the store!

Moving on...public transport can also be an absolute nightmare for a plus sized individual, especially when you have to share a seat with a stranger. There is always that worry of whether your seat belt going to fit...are you going to be sat slightly on their seat...are you going to be touching bodies with them...are they going to care? Are they going to mind? It all causes so much anxiety for the plus size person, and it has certainly been a worry for me in the past.

You can always rely on your doctor to remind you that you’re overweight, even if you are just going in because you have a migraine. They seem to always find a way to bring it up - loosing weight seems to be their answer to everything!

Eventually you learn not to care, and eat that whole chocolate bar if you want too! Afterall, is being described as “plus sized”, “curvy”, “overweight”, “fat” (or any other word which essentially translates as you’re clothing containing a little more fabric than is “regular”), really the worst thing you can be called? I know for a fact I would much rather be categorised as “plus Sized” than mean, rude or ignorant! So, eat what you want (within reason), and let yourself be happy. I tell myself that I have a six pack somewhere, which is being covered and protected, and I am okay with this.. Ha! So stay humble and be happy in your skin. You’re all Beautiful!

Hope you enjoyed reading 

Lau X

 

 

 

 

Photo credit - Leanne Davies xxx