SERENDIPITY - PART II

Tracey E continues her "Serendipity":

"Because my body was always inclined to be fully shaped, and then overly shaped as I entered puberty, I became more withdrawn and shy. I was fearful of going to places where there were people and I was terrified of spending my life unloved.

The thought of marriage and children were high in my hopes. I had left school in my early teens, and with a determination that surprised me, I set out on a learning expedition. My inclusion with girlfriends in outings and going to the films or dances was near enough to zero. I was the odd one out - overlooked by some of the family and certainly never shown any spontaneous affection from aunts and uncles. The pretty little blond cousins were adored, but the big, brown eyed girl was not. I never gave a thought to the possibility that there may have been other reasons over which I had no control whatsoever - it always seemed to me that it as because I was stupid and/or fat.

My low self-esteem, I have now discovered to my absolute delight, was based on nothing more than negative thoughts implanted in my fertile brain at a tender young age, by people around me, including some of my family.

As I grew older I started to look at how this same attitude had effected and impacted on other women within my family, forcing them to hide behind a veil of shyness and timidity, afraid to stand up for what they thought was right, and buckling under the hard rule of the supposed "adults".

This timidity however, once released, as these women became aware of how discriminatory the attitudes of many of the family were, showed the world what a tower of strength and resilience they had become. And in tearing through the veil, they showed me quite literally and clearly, how to do likewise!"

How do we see ourselves?

Look at yourself!

We do. Many times a day when passing a mirror or the reflections in shop windows. So often though we shy away from actually "looking" at ourselves because we fear being reminded that we are not exactly perfect or meet society's perception of what is ideal.

But if we are serious about changing attitudes, and perceptions, we have to make ourselves vulnerable to our own inspections. We have to expose our real personality and character from behind all those layers of protection we wear. Many of these layers are quite invisible and forgotten but have to be shed just as though they were fabric.

Next time you shower or bathe, take time out and actually look at yourself in the mirror. The whole you. Don't just look at the double chin, the drooping boobs, the fat sloppy tummy, the thick thighs, the bulging knees, and the thick ankles. Ankles? you ask - do I have any? Yes, they're there just as you have a waistline, and just as you have a decollete.

Take note of what you see. Thrust away any ideas of comparisons. In other words when you do look at yourself, don't see a fat and ungainly edition of Angelina Jolie or Nicole Kidman. See and appreciate the special limited edition of you! There is no other. You cannot be copied, or cloned. You are you, and you are unique. Even if you are a large, economy size!

And don't make excuses and don't feel guilty. Your body has a certain shape and size for very good reasons. Only one of those reasons MAY be because of the wrong diet or lack of moderation. We have to throw out these archaic ideas that just because we are taller, heavier, wider and broader than the so-called "ideal" women (who are after all in the main genetic freaks - not my words but womens clothing manufacturers. commentators and even some fashion writers), then it is because we over-eat. That's what we've been told for far too long, and unfortunately that's what we come to believe.

Stuff and nonsense! Let's get things into perspective. There are very good reasons why we sometimes eat food that is supposed to be bad for us. There are very good reasons why sometimes we eat too large meal or snack. But those reasons are not because we are undisciplined, it is because our body and yes our mind, tell us that this is the way we can handle situations, or people, and it gives us comfort combined with the incentive to move on from those particular situations and people. Psychologists give us all sorts of technical and chemical reasons, but we know what happens when we feel down, stressed, out of sorts, when we feel sad, and/or feel unloved or unappreciated. "Professional" people treat the chemical person, we live as a physical and spiritual person.

There's a lot of discussion recently about whether a fat person does in fact eat too much! This subject crops up every decade or so, and nothing ever changes in the attitudes of society or people who could make a difference in the public's perception and acceptance of the plus size (such as journalists, editors of women's magazines, as well as the fashion industry itself). And why don't things change? Because it's too darned easy to blame someone for their inappropriate attitude - they'd have to change policies within their industries and that wouldn't do. It wouldn't do at all! Because as a consequence they'd have to admit they were wrong.

Learn to like what you see. Let the female form be seen for what it is - it was created for procreation, and it was created for pleasure. Not lustful pleasure but personal pride. Something which is uniquely yours, and which you can enhance in so many wondrous ways - particularly if your imagination allows you the freedom to do so.

Taking control!

Focussing on "positive" and "feel-good" feelings means having to direct one's thoughts constantly from the negative. Because the negative comes upon us when least expected and can make for a very bad day.

Let's aspire to setting our own goals and dreams; choosing the path we want to follow. We don't have to follow the crowd; we don't have to be the same as everyone else; we don't have to look like everyone else and we can have fun in pursuing whatever it is we want to pursue (whether a career, a hob by, or even a man if that's the way you want to go!).

We have the choice to do things at our own pace and in our own space.

We don't have to make excuses; we don't have to accept feelings of guilt (gee, you have put on weight, haven't you?); we don't have to accept discrimination or indifference or ignorance or arrogance.

Reading - you never know what you'll learn

I love reading. Ever since I was a tiny tot. Before I could say the alphabet or knew what it meant, I would sit for hours looking at picture books (which were few and far between in those days - mostly handed down from cousins or other families) or the occasional "word" book. Even though I had no understanding that the dots on the page were actually words I would make up my own stories by turning over the pages like the grownups.

So I've grown up with books - they are my friends. Some I have had since childhood, others I've collected over the years.

You can gather from this therefore that I enjoy reading - a lot. I love the pictures that words conjure up in my mind. When I read I inhabit other worlds, both imaginary and real. I gain knowledge, I can easily fall in love with a hero or dislike intensely a rogue (even vice versa). I can laugh and I can cry.

At the moment I'm re-reading my series of Precious Ramotswe books. Written by Alexander McCall Smith who has a deep love and understanding of Botswana and it's people, Precious is a woman of our time. Independent, morally strong, valuing good manners, kindness, a love of her country (even though she recognises some faults in both the country and its people). Her intuition and instinctiveness to see behind untruths and pretenses reveals to us many of our own characteristics.

But what I love about Precious Ramotswe is her self-awareness. She is under no illusion that to be happy and to be a contented woman she has to be thin. Quite the opposite. She describes herself and is proud to be spoken of as being "traditionally built". She finds no reason to even think about her weight as a negative within her life. She is fat.

Let me quote from "Morality for Beautiful Girls".

"She finished her tea and then ate a large meat sandwich which Rose had prepared for her lunch. Mma Ramotswe had got out of the habit of a cooked lunch, except at weekends, and was happy with a snack or a glass of milk. She had a taste for sugar, however, and this meant that a doughnut or a cake might follow the sandwich.

She was a traditionally built lady, after all, and she did not have to worry about dress size, like those poor, neurotic people who were always looking in mirrors and thinking that they were too big. What was too big, anyway? Who was to tell another person what size they should be? It was a form of dictatorship, by the thin, and she was not having any of it. If these thin people became any more insistent, then the more generously sized people would just have to sit on them. Yes, that would teach them! Hah!"

I couldn't have said it better!

How to Live with Yourself

Trying to change the unchangeable leads only to misery

Every year sizeable fortunes are made by people who peddle impossible dreams to millions of over-optimistic individuals.

Whenever people buy an anti-aging face cream, a slimming food, or a breast developer, they are falling for the con trick that they can use a gimmick to improve their appearance. They can't, yet people still try, because they just don't stop to think about the realities of their situation.

Learning how to know yourself takes a long time and most of us don't achieve such understanding until we're well on in life. The basic skill in such self-understanding is sorting out the changeable from the unchangeable and then deciding whether you want to put yourself through the effort of making such changes.

We can think of four main areas where people need to assess themselves and their abilities. Once they've done that, they can decide whether they want to alter anything that is susceptible to correction and then settle down contentedly with what's left. The real self ...

Two of these areas are:

SIZE

This is the area where vast numbers of people suffer a great deal of unnecessary misery. We are all bombarded constantly by advice on how to be thin and there is a widespread notion that to be thin is to be right, and to be anything else is to be ugly or shameful. So people who are normal spend much of their time obsessed with their size.

We are all born with basically different constitutions. Some of us are programmed to have small breasts, heavy thighs, long torsos or blue eyes, and to see such people falling for the blandishments of 'spot reduction' diets or 'permanent weight loss' diets is distressing. Particularly when they don't work, otherwise the world would be filled with slim, trim, beautifully toned bodies, and the "diet industry" wouldn't be needed any more, and they'd go out of business!

The hard fact is that for some people the only way they can fit into what is currently regarded as a fashionable size is by self-starvation, which brings with it constant hunger and reduced health. Another possibility is cosmetic surgery, which is usually costly and sometimes risky. In fact riskier than the so-called marketers and peddlers within this industry will admit. And even after it is done, many people remain dissatisfied with the results.

There's nothing quite as sad as seeing people we know (whether personally, or through television or even film) to suddenly appear as though their skin is perfect without any blemish or sign or fine wrinkles. That's usually the first step because within a couple of years, looking at their photos or even face to face, we'll begin to doubt whether they are the same person we remember. Their faces take on a plastic, immovable look and many unfortunately begin to look less human. Have they gone under the knife for health or medical reasons? Or have they done this to protect and deny aging. Sadly many become victims of amusement among the ordinary every-day person's perspective of how a person should deal with wrinkles and greying hair associated with aging.

and AGING


So we come to aging. Age is inescapable - and why should or would we want to deny it anyway? Of course the alternative doesn't hold any attraction at all. There are many societies around the world where wrinkles are revered, not despised.

Yet we in the 'sophisticated' West seem to have the extraordinary notion that the only worthwhile people are aged 22 or so, and admitting to any birthday after the 29th is social suicide.

To use light makeup to enhance the face you have or wear attractive clothes to make you look as agreeable as you want to look is perfectly reasonable. But to mourn because you don't look the same as you did 20-30 years ago can be self-destructive - and expensive.


(Photo - copyright Dove) Full permission from "Accentuate the Positive - Now" -an address to High School Students and Size 16 Plus Groups, WA, 2002 ©RP-B Australia

Aging Outrageously!

I'm a "late bloomer". It's taken me more than half a century to realise I'm a delightful, delicious, sensual and sexy woman. The fact that I'm plus size, and the fact that I'm growing older, has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with who I am, what I am, what I can become, my abilities, my capabilities, my strengths.

You see I grew up in an era where little girls were supposed to sit in a corner, to be quiet, and not to be loud or noisy, or a nuisance, or in fact to be anything other than a little mouse. I didn't always see "why" I should be like this, but I didn't dare open my mouth and question things.

Maybe I should have. Because there were lots of things that I needed to know. That I should have been taught and had explained to me. I grew up with much innocence, and with many thousands of other little girls, grew up in strict households, and didn't see anything wrong with that. Because we were all in the same situation.

So I think I was most fortunate in falling into a lot of deep holes as I grew up. Others did, and many never did scramble up out of those holes. Innocence can so easily so mistaken for ignorance, and ignorance can be disastrous if it occurs in changing of influencing a young girls life.

With never ending encouragement from my mother, and I see now much protection (from the world and what was in it) I soon came to the conclusion that I could do something with my life, if I applied myself, if I worked hard and smart, and never lost my focus. If I was always kind and sensitive to other people's feelings and listened to other people's opinions, but there was to be no yielding if I felt they were wrong. Yes, there were times when I told myself I would never get to where I wanted, and then the stubbornness would set in, and I'd push myself beyond what I thought were my limits. This worked so many times, that it became second nature.

This knowledge and experience I soon found could be shared. Women wanted to know HOW to achieve self confidence, HOW to bring about changes in their attitudes towards themselves, and HOW to live contented, although at times difficult, lives. It opened up yet another challenge for me in being able to share what I knew, what I had learned, and many of the hints and strategies that had helped and protected me during my growing up and maturing years.

You might think that I've become conceited in my older age. Not so. I've become more aware of myself. I've become confident. I've become my own "advocate" riding a white charger to fiercely take on anyone who does me wrong. I've become more pleased with how I think and how I live and how I act and interact with other people. I'm spontaneous but I'm genuine.

And I've met thousands of women just like me. Ordinary everyday women who because of many different circumstances never found the opportunity to discover themselves. Not until they were greying, and becoming wrinkled. And the liberation from feelings of "I'm not good enough" or "I'm not intelligent enough" were life-changing.

We don't have to stay in the cocoon of self-doubt; we don't have to believe everything that people say about us to us and to outsiders; we are articulate, intelligent, unique human beings. We're able to feel secure in the knowledge that we know what is best, for us, without any interference from well-meaning but so often very wrong intentions of others. We don't tolerate inappropriate behaviours or attitudes. We know what's what, and we know what we need.

So if that means aging outrageously, because we have the audacity of saying what we think, and explaining what we need, then so be it.

It's a great adventure.

© Rose Davida, UK

The Way We Were!

Models and actresses in the 1950s and 1960s were, in the main, curvy and even voluptuous.

Even women sighed with a little touch of envy when Sophia Loren, Anna Magnani, Marilyn Monroe, Jane Russell and Gina Lollobrigida graced the cinema screen. The men, of course, were almost panting and fainting with imaginations!

Busts were "in", bottoms were "in", hips were "in". Graceful figures, graceful women.

Even though we, as young women of the time knew that we would never, but never, meet the same "perfection" as we saw it expressed in these lovely women, we did however manager to feel like real women ourselves, because our figures were full, and rounded and curvaceous. It was a pleasure to dress our bodies, and if we didn't have the wardrobes of the current stars of the screen, then that didn't really upset us too much.

Of course there were always those people around us who made fun of us, who subjected us to ridicule, but on the whole we were satisfied were ourselves.

But then strange things started happening. All of a sudden it wasn't alright to have a bit of flesh, it wasn't OK to have big bosums and as far as hips and tummy were concerned, then we really missed the boat. We were no longer seen as being "feminine" let alone womanly. But did you notice that the those screen stars didn't adapt themselves to meet the media's demands? How often did we see (and still do) photos in our international women's magazines with rude and abusive texts devoted to decrying their expression of "womanhood" of Elizabeth Taylor, Liza Minelli, and dare I say it, if Marilyn Monroe were alive today, then she surely would be subjected to a tirade of ridicule and abuse. Let's look more recently and see how the media demanded that Kate Winslet and Drew Barrymore transform themselves.

And why? Because these women (and us too) have had the audacity and temerity to change shape and size over the years without their permission!

Without being biased and discriminatory about women who are naturally slim, even skinny, I wonder how it is that society as a whole has become so obsessed with not only shouting "down with curves", but actually denigrating and demeaning the plus size of this world? How have we allowed this to happen?

The media, and the fashion industry, I believe have a lot to answer for. Designers refuse to create flattering garments for women with curves and width; retailers and boutiques may carry a token number of garments for larger sizes, but nothing of any great value or quality. Yet the media particularly refuses to accept any blame for the lowering of self-esteem of their readers, girls, teens, young and older women. Having photos of garish, skeletal models strutting down the catwalks with scowls and glaring eyes, in garments that hardly seem to be holding together, does nothing for the real woman who wants clothing to make her look attractive. And for her to feel good when she is wearing those garments.

If today's media wants to carry on its "war against women" (that that's what it is if you think about it, because slim women are influenced as well), then let it go ahead. But don't for one minute imagine that the larger women of Australia and for that matter the smaller women too, are going to put up with it much longer. I can almost hear my counterparts in the USA and Europe saying: Neither are we!

Let me put this proposition to you. Women's magazines are supposedly for women - right? All women - right? Women of all ages - right? Women of all shapes and sizes - right. No. WRONG! Having a special page supplement of "what to wear when you're fat" is not the way to treat the plus size woman, and we should never have to feel "grateful" for such a supplement.

Women need "positive" pictures and photos; "positive" messages and "positive stories" about women who are women. Just like us, you and me. We don't need the so-called "experts" who don't really know what they are talking about, telling us that unless we're size 6-8 then we're not photogenic and certainly we should never expect to be taken seriously, about anything!

Editors, journalists, features writers, photographers, advertisers and the like need to know that they are displaying blatant discrimination in its rudest form, and it's about time they realised that there is no room for that sort of attitude today.

Let's go ahead, you and me, and the women in your family and groups of friends, and the woman next door, with ATTITUDE! No matter what our age, size or shape.

Beyond the Curve - FAT in a thin society ... Part II

At a time when we're increasingly sensitive about insulting other minorities, fat people are still fair game.

In the real world (our world) it seems that it's OK to discriminate against the fat (even though we are told that "discrimination is now illegal - oh, yes? just who is kidding who?)

Studies in USA, Europe and Australia have found that fat people earn less money than others. They are less likely to be hired or promoted. They routinely face ridicule from their doctors and health facilitators (still!)

We've invested weight with so many meanings
that numbers on the scale have become a shorthand for self-worth.

We're told that:

"slenderness is not just beautiful - it proclaims that you;re feminine, self-disciplined, well-adjusted and sexy" "fat, on the other hand, reveals that you're sloppy and self-indulgent, out of control and out of the running as a sexual being"

It's a disastrous combination. Our ideal of thinness is unrealistic for most of the population, yet we all buy the idea that there's something seriously wrong with us if we deviate from it.

There is however, another value that we attach to overweight that may be even more powerful than a sense of sin. We see fat as "low-class". Our culture equates slenderness with sexiness and even intelligence.

And who, in the main, keeps this body myth alive? Women, yes women. There seems to be a clear connection between the gains women have made in the outside world - bringing confusing and conflicting choices about roles - and our growing hysteria about our own bodies. It's as if keeping the body on a tight rein, or not letting our lapses show, is a way of re-assuring ourselves and the world that our desires aren't voracious, that our needs aren't bottomless, that despite our own uncertainty, we are in control.

However, it's not enough to understand this obsession intellectually. The battle for self acceptance involved unlearning a lot of entrenched ideas. It also involves a lot of pain.

If you've spent most of your life starving yourself without success, it hurts to recognise that all that deprivation was a waste.

That's why a lot of women cling to the promise that thin equals happy. In many cases they want dieting to be a magical way of becoming another person.

It takes great courage to accept yourself in a world that values thinness above all else. The miracle is, that some people manage it.

You can too. If that's really what you want to do.

© Rose Davida, UK

Beyond the Curve - FAT in a thin society ... Part I

Whether we like it or not society says, "if you're thin then you're sexy, self-disciplined and well-adjusted". On the other hand, "if you're fat, then you're out of control, sloppy and self-indulgent".

Let's confront this issue full on, and blast the myths dealing with size and our acceptance by society based on that size, out of the window, right now!

At least 50% of all women are obsessed with a real or imaginary 5-7-1/2 kilos of fat. For a woman who knows she is 20 kilos overweight if not more, then this can become not just an obsession but despair. But in many cases, they're the only ones who can even see that extra weight over and above what they think they should look like. Yet it can keep them from buying clothes, going for a swim, doing anything physical. An inner voice tells them they have to wait until they're thinner.

Women in past years have spent hours debating the "fors" and "againsts" the Scarsdale diet, the Atkins diet, appetite suppressants, carbohydrate diets, grapefruit diets, egg diets, the water, the pasta diets, the Israeli diet, the Mediterranean diet, and even the beer diet. Now we seem to be going through another tunnel of discovery (or denial,whichever) in that many women take pains to explain that they are no longer "hung-up" about weight, size and shape and that they've come to accept themselves as they are. And yet, these women are seen to be popping the latest "diet" shake or nibbling the diet-cracker and attending the gym for fast-loss fitness, or visiting weight-loss "weekends away" at health farms and resorts, including B&B's right around Australia (not to mention Europe and the USA).

In many ways our obsession with thinness has never made less sense than it does today. We know now that body weight has as much to do with heredity as willpower, that permanent weight loss is far more complicated than we once believed. We've learned that the old standards for our ideal weights were set unrealistically low and we know that the starvation diets of the past are counter productive and potentially dangerous.

But for many of us, the message hasn't sunk in. There seems to be a huge gap between what we know in our minds and how we actually feel about ourselves.

Believe it or not, but our preference for almost fleshless bodies is fairly rare in historical and cultural terms. Even in the recent past, large breasts and flaring hips padded with flesh were seem to be acceptable if not preferable. The Hollywood icon Marilyn Monroe would be considered fat and overweight today, yet she was seen to be the symbol of sensual and seductiveness in the mid 60s (and to some of us she remains that way). In no way can you compare her curves with today's models and actresses.

Plump women are prized in countries like Sierra Leone and many of the Pacific Islands. Chunky matrons carry themselves with a jaunty confidence in their own worth and desirability. On the other hand, today we regard fat with horror, similar to the attitude held by the Victorians in relation to "sex".

© Rose Davida, UK

What is self esteem - the pressure to have WLS

This subject causes much debate and division between individuals and families and partners. When WLS is offered as a last resort to resolve your personal problems, by Specialists who you trust and have faith in, then of course you must follow your heart and your head. You, and only you, can make the decision to go ahead or not, and that responsibility cannot, and should not, be overridden by anyone else.

But I’m talking about people who use underhand tactics to undermine your self esteem by suggesting, and even demanding, that you should do something quite radical in order to meet THEIR criteria of acceptability.

Subtle and not so subtle references come out in conversations as to the benefits of Weight Loss Surgery. Once again the pressure emanates from all of the following - the medical and health and fitness industry; the media; family and (so-called) friends. Even strangers.

And then partners get their opinions in on the act. “Why don’t you get something done to your boobs or your fat tummy or your thick thighs and ankles; or your face.”

What is it they’re trying to do? With few exceptions (when it is through love and they’re concerned about your health) they’re all about seeking control. They want not only to manipulate your body but your mind as well. They’re not happy in allowing you to be you; they want to be seen as the Puppet Master.

They don’t look at the surgery and what it costs to a person (and I’m not talking about cost here!), but they want you to look like the model on the screen or in the magazine. Do they care whether the surgery does untold damage to your body, or to your mind? Do they care whether the surgery is the first step to multi-surgical applications? Do they care about your feelings or emotions as you try to comprehend what they want from you?

Do they care if in carrying out their wishes that you suddenly find yourself hospitalised for lengthy periods, apart from the surgery itself, for serious infections that attack not only your wound but can in fact mean you are incapacitated for lengthy periods, that may even repeat themselves over time.

No, it is not always as easy as it seems! And it most certainly is not as simple as it sounds!

Emotional Abuse! - 2

At a recent self-esteem talk among a group of women, someone asked me just what forms of "emotional abuse" am I talking about, as it relates to being plus-size. That got me thinking because emotional abuse based on size impacts upon every single aspect of a plus-sizer's life. It effects how that person feels and deals with situations and attitudes within the home, the school, the workplace and the community.

It effects the whole emotional being of a person. It permeates the mind and a person can be faced with constant negative self-talk all day and every day. It manifests itself in guilt - each bite of food brings with it feelings of immense guilt and embarrassment. Such feelings build up until such time as the person loses all sense of proportion and perspective and binges. Then the diets begin. And guilt resurfaces from another angle - more negative self talk - and the spiral downwards into a feeling of utter despair and inadequacy becomes a living nightmare. A monotonous and dangerous life-style of dieting and binging and more dieting can become a habit. Causing havoc all the way.

Emotional abuse can be scathing; can be cruel; can be subtle; can be not-subtle; can be insidious; can be soul destroying. It can become physically destroying as well. Some plus-sizers live on the edge; relying on medication to get them through a day; they live scared and frightened lives, all due to the fact that other people (and sometimes this includes family and/or friends) can upset the balance by saying and inferring and eluding to a person's size in conversation, or through looks and suggestive hand-movements. Plus-sizers can be treated like naughty children; they can be totally ignored; they can be made feel unacceptable in many effective but totally inappropriate ways.

And let me say something so simple that quite often it can be unseen. While there are occasions when family and/or friends are trying to be helpful, the majority of times they are not. They want the plus-sizer to "do what they're told" and doing what they're told means, "lose weight!" The irony of this is that if the person does lose weight, they are still treated as if they were larger or heavier. Then a really weird thing happens. Quite often the women in the family or some within a group of friends turn nasty against the person who has lost the weight; and caustic remarks about other facets of her looks or her life become part of the new vocabulary between them. It doesn't make sense, but it happens. Women sometimes can be our worst enemy!

But I'm not talking about those trying to help, I'm talking about those who take pleasure in making fun or a plus-sizer within a family or among friends. I have often told so-called friends that they are anything but. Friends don't pull each other to pieces verbally; they don't harp on what a plus-sizer wears or looks like - they do give constructive advice especially when asked, and they do offer to go shopping with their plus-size friends and give advice on simple things like colours that suit; designs that look better than others; hemlines and things like that. That gives the plus-sizer guidelines that she can follow because she starts seeing herself through the eyes of her friend.

Emotional abuse can start as young as kindergarten age and even younger. It can continue right throughout a person's life. What a terrible shame, that plus-sizers have to confront this sort of hostility from people who should care but who don't.

Emotional Abuse!

a
A lot of people, and this goes for most people in western societies at least, form the opinion that because a person is plus-size then they deserve to be treated as less than acceptable. They may not actually put it into words always, but they certainly show by their behaviour that this is what they think.

This inappropriate behaviour can range from disdain and indifference, through intolerance, and then into ridicule. All these behaviours represent one thing and one thing only discrimination based on size and as a consequence those behaviours shout "emotional abuse".

Yet you ask anyone who shows you contempt or treats you unfairly or makes you feel embarrassed because of your size, whether they are abusing you, and they’ll quickly say "of course not!" Just who are they trying to kid?

But emotional abuse and quite often verbal abuse or whatever they like to call it such as this, is discrimination in its lowest and coarsest form. Of course there’s also physical abuse and this is a subject that has horrendous ramifications and while it doesn’t only apply to plus-sizers, it is nevertheless a scandal that society needs to confront and resolve. Not so easy? I agree.

But let’s get back to emotional abuse based on size. It’s very insidious and there are times when you may not even be aware that it is happening. Until you think about it afterwards. Then it becomes crystal clear. The subtle or not so subtle looks, smirks, the eyes of the other person taking in your size and then either looking away or even in the worst scenario actually saying something derogatory about you. The jokes, those jokes that make you cringe, but you laugh at yourself anyway, because you’re so embarrassed by their lack of sensitivity and of course you want to be seen to have an open mind and able to laugh at yourself. Laugh at yourself? Of course there are times when this is OK, but there are countless times when it is not. We have the right to choose when we laugh at ourselves, just as everyone else has. We do not, and should not, have to accept other people's bad manners and distasteful jokes, without having the right to stand up for ourselves. Yet, consistently, if a plus-sizer responds in any way, suddenly the situation is turned against them and they're told "you can't take a joke!". Oh yes we can. But it's the sort of joke and whether that joke is aimed specifically at us, that we should not have to "take" or accept.

And I encourage plus-sizers to never believe anyone who says, when they see you react by blushing or obvious embarrassment or stammering or withdrawing into yourself, that they didn’t mean it.

Look, let’s be brutally honest with ourselves here, they meant it and they meant every word of it. It was in their thoughts and therefore they verbalised those thoughts.

So what do you do? One of either two things. Accept their behaviour - and they’ll keep doing it, be sure of that - or stand up for yourself. How do you stand up for yourself? By being honest with them (and to yourself). Tell them “what you’ve said has offended and hurt me. I’d like an apology.” Now I've found that sometimes they won't apologise and have no intention of ever apologising. This once again leaves you with two options. One, let them get away with it, or walk away from them. The course is open to you. OK so if you decide on walking away, it may well mean that you are lonelier that you deserve to be, but at least you'll have your pride intact. And why look at it as though you have to lose out - if you remove yourself from the situation whereby you are faced with such abuse and ultimate embarrassment, then you'll have the time and opportunity to step out of your comfort zone and to seek out new interests and new friends. And there are new friends out there waiting for you. Believe it. Friends who will accept you for who and what you are right now!

It can be done, and it may be difficult, but you’ll be the winner in the long run.