Story Time: “You Need To Look More Like Her”

The fat acceptance, body positivity, and HAES (Health at Every Size) movements have grown in popularity over the years. One of the main pillars of their mission is to eradicate the bullying, harassment, and ridicule of larger bodies that is quite normalized in our society.

As a little girl I have been inundated with opposing messages from black culture and the mainstream society. From a young age it was quite obvious to me how it obsessed over thinner bodies. But as a black child I received a very different memo. Being too skinny was the perfect set up for jokes, as having a little “meat on the bones” was more acceptable when you possessed black skin. Based on the standards of American culture I was the perfect size. But in my community I was a scarecrow with long braids.

“Why are you so skinny?” my friends would ask me from time to time. I was as young as six years old when I realized that I wasn’t good enough to avoid being scrutinized for my small body. My classmates would place their middle finger and thumb around my wrists, confirming that I had tiny limbs.

I used to daydream and imagine being shapely like the video vixens I saw in the music videos on BET. More than anything I wanted more curves. My obsession began decades before the sensationalized, surgically-enhanced slim-thick body we see all over the…