How to Find the Beauty in Fat

Hello and welcome back to Ask Golda! As always, I am Golda Poretsky. I’m a certified health coach and I specialize in helping plus-size women heal from food and body image issues.

And today we are talking about how to view fatness as attractive and appealing. This is kind of an interesting question I received on my page. It is actually from a fellow fat woman who found herself sort of criticizing other fat women and wanting to stop doing that and wanting to see fat as more attractive.

First of all, I just want to say there is no imperative that anyone find fat attractive. It’s not a basis of fat acceptance that the whole world should find fat people attractive. But, I’m answering the question because it was asked of me.

So, how do you start viewing fat as more attractive? (I think, in turn, what happens is that you find your own fat more attractive  through this process.)

A couple of key places to start: one is to recognize that we’re living in a cultural moment where fat is really vilified. We have this sort of “war on obesity” and this idea that obesity is a big scourge and is costing people money and all this kind of stuff. It’s tough to be fat in this world and it’s not necessarily considered attractive or respected by large segments of the populace. So, how do you change that? How do you change your view to realize that we are in this cultural blip and it’s not forever and it’s not the only way to think that you thin is attractive, fat is unattractive.

I think one thing to do to get yourself out of this cultural blip is to look at art from previous eras where more fleshy bodies were appreciated. I always find this sort of fun; I like to look at art anyway! If you live near a fine-art museum, this is the great place to start. You can also, of course, look at a lot of images online.

There are some really great, also, photography sites like Substantia Jones’ adopositivity site, which is a great place to start for looking at current fat bodies of all shapes and sizes, and sort of seeing the beauty in them. I think that that’s a great place to start: through art photography things like that.

I also just like to think about our bodies not just as visual, but as, of course, physical and sensual. So, if you have a fat body yourself, you might want to start looking at your own body as more attractive and one of the reasons to do that is to just touch yourself with love.

I’m just gonna, as an example, use my arm. So, I’m just touching my arm, I’m just feeling how good it feels to touch my arm and I’m feeling how good it feels to be touched. It’s this lovely feeling. Going within our bodies and thinking about our bodies not just something as visual, not just as something that is an object, but as something that is capable of feeling wonderful things. I think that when you view your body as a source of pleasure, then, it sort of crowds out body hate.

It is easier to do this with your own body, if you have someone in your life that you want to do this with you, you know, to enjoy the sensations of touch. I’ll just leave it there, but just enjoy the sensations and the sensuality of your body as a fat body; that will help you to see fat as this really pleasurable, lovely thing.

Thirdly there is this important concept to me of abundance. Abundance is a defined feminine-type principle; this idea that there is abundance in the world of whatever it is that we might need. That resources, that love, that beauty are not scarce; they are actually abundant. And so, one way to sort of see the beauty in more and more people is too literally look for it.

One great thing to do, let’s say you’re on some sort of public transportation, the bus or the train, and to look at somebody who you may not normally think of as attractive, but to look for something beautiful in them. Maybe it’s their eyes; maybe it’s the smoothness of their skin, something like that. And as you start to train yourself to see abundant beauty everywhere, you start to see it in more and more people and you start to see it in yourself.

So, it’s really a healing thing to do to see beauty in all types of bodies and it will help you to see more beauty in your own, help you to find fat to be more attractive, more appealing.

I hope that was helpful and as always, if you have a question for me, I am happy to answer it on my Facebook page. Facebook.com/bodylovewellness, you can send me a message or respond to a post where I’m asking for questions. Thanks, as always for listening and have a great body-loving day!

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Golda Poretsky is a Contributing Writer for Everyday Feminism. She’s a certified holistic health counselor and founder of Body Love Wellness, a program designed for plus-sized women who are fed up with dieting and want support to stop obsessing about food and weight. Follow her on Twitter at @bodylovewellnes. Read her articles here and book her for speaking engagements here.