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Against a magenta background, white letters spell out "Beautiful On the Inside," but "On the Inside" is crossed out with black lines

Understand revolution like Nomy Lamm does, and you’ll understand your own strength. Learn from Nomy’s honest article about fat oppression, disability, and punk. This is what everyone should know about how the media and mainstream feminism get it wrong when it comes to fatphobia – and how we can make it better in our everyday lives as we deconstruct hateful myths.

“Good fatty” is usually used to describe a fat person who at least believes in the socially constructed viewpoint that their number one goal in life should be losing weight. But upon closer inspection, there are a few “good fatty” archetypes that we, as a society, depend on – all with their own unique purposes in the fat-antagonistic machine. Here are twelve to consider in your activism.

“#3. Good Fatties diet.” The “Good Fatty” is the fat person people will tolerate – and the pressure to be one can cause a lot of harm. Here’s how this author’s unlearning these toxic “Good Fatty” lessons.

Can you be body positive and encourage dieting? Some people are missing the point of body positivity, so let’s set the record straight.

It is absolutely OK to be whatever size you are, including hella fat. It is absolutely fine to not be “healthy” or “strong” by whatever definition.

As parents we have a powerful influence in how our kids grow up feeling about their bodies and their relationship to food. Many of them are things we can say (or not say) that have a huge impact.

How can we cut fatphobic language out of our fat-positive lives? Here are some easy tips!

Example #1: “Selling fat loss as health.” People have been trained to be afraid of fat – but it’s time to be aware of how fatphobia is being sold to you for profit.

Just like anti-perspirant marketers had to convince people that underarm sweat and smell is disgusting and kept you from getting dates and jobs, diet marketers had to convince people that fat is disgusting and kept you from dates and jobs. They turned a normal thing – bodily diversity – into a pathology. They keyed in to people’s deepest fears of social ostracism and made scads of money in the process.

Myths and stereotypes about weight are so normalized. So it’s no wonder if you (person who is worried about a loved one) are invested in the idea that fat is bad or want them to be spared the pain of being fat in our society. And it’s no wonder that you (person who has gained weight or is fat) may have some mixed feelings about the “help” that people want to give. Here’s some ways to have this conversation.

There are the people who say that “skinny-shaming is the same as fat-shaming.” That might seem like a fair conclusion, but here’s why it just isn’t true.

Think fat people are “okay” as long as they’re healthy? That’s just one of the signs that you’re not as body positive as you might think.

Person looking unhappy

It takes a lot to overcome society’s fatphobia and love your body. When fat-shaming comments come from your own family, it can feel downright impossible. So what can you do? Follow this author’s journey through shame and guilt as her family led her to believe that being fat was something to be sorry for, and read how she stopped apologizing for her body. (Trigger Warning: Fatphobia)

A person appearing thoughtful as they stand, looking down, tugging at their denim coat with one hand.

Where’s the focus on thin women in body positivity movements? You can’t deny that these are good reasons why it’s missing.

The beauty ideal has changed over time, but the idea that there is only one way to have a beautiful body has not. The current one necessitates thinness. Until we’ve accomplished thinness, we are works in progress, and that there is no excuse for not participating in this. It’s not about policing how we look, they tell us. It’s for our health, for our own good! As if.

A meme reads "You Are Not Fat – You Have Fat." Written under it is "Umm, seriously?"

The campaign this author came up with sounds like a good idea – but once you realize how it feels to fat people, you’ll know why we all need to do better.

A fat person stands in front of their house, smiling and raising their hands to shoulder level.

If you feel pressure to be a “Good Fatty” – like the type of fat person who’s trying to be smaller – try these actions to help relieve the pressure.

Fatphobia is so rampantly internalized that many people justify their attraction to fat people by comparing them to non-human objects. It turns the possibility of mutual desire and appreciation into fetish. In this spoken word performance, Samantha Peterson rejects the dehumanizing nuance of supposedly metaphorical compliments and reclaims her body’s agency, humanity, and beauty.

You’ve been taught, over and over again, that people’s opinions of you matter. You’ve been taught that if someone thinks you’re too fat, or too loud, or too smart, or too dumb, or too whatever, or not enough whatever, that they get to have a say in how you feel about yourself. But today I’d like to introduce you to the deep spiritual practice of not giving a shit.

An elevated view of a thin person and a fat person lying side by side on lounge chairs

If you have thin privilege, and you want to fight fatphobia, what can you do? Here are some clear, practical, and powerful tips that can help.