The Punchline: Fat shaming isn't a joke

<img alt="" src="/media/inline_insight_image/1000225383.jpg"/> They say it casually.Like a weather report.Like their words wouldn’t lodge itself under my skin. “You’d be so pretty if you lose weight.”“You have such a fat face.”“Do you really need seconds?”“Have you tried not eating so much?” It’s so normal now.Too normal.We live in a culture where commenting on people's bodies is small talk,where fat shaming hides behind jokes, laughter, and "I didn’t mean it like that," Well then what else did you mean? Everyone feels entitled to an opinion.At the dinner table.On the street.Online.As if bodies are community projects instead of homes. They laugh.Nudge each other.Say it’s just a joke.Say people are too sensitive these days. But it’s never funny.At least not to the person living inside the body being discussed.Not to the one carrying those words home,replaying them in the mirror,swallowing them with every meal. I had to learn quickly that being fat means being loud, even when I am silent.That my body speaks before I ever open my mouth.That no achievement outruns the space I take up. I start measuring my worth in shrinking.Smaller portions.Smaller clothes.Smaller apologies for existing. I learn how to disappear without leaving the room.How to suck in my stomach until breathing feels like something I have to earn.How to smile while hating myself for every bite, every curve, every inch of proof that I am real. They teach me to punish myself in private for the crime of being fat in public. They don’t see the nights I cry on the floor, hands pressed to my stomach like it is something shameful.They don’t hear my heart begging me to stop hating the very thing protecting it.They don’t care that their jokes, their “concern,” their comments dressed as humor are slowly hollowing me out. And I know it's not only me. I hate myself.A lot.I hate my body for refusing to be acceptable, for failing to be thin enough to deserve kindness. But somehow, I hate them more.And that terrifies me—because hating myself is already exhausting.Because it takes a special kind of cruelty to make someone despise the body keeping them alive. Fat shaming doesn’t motivate.It wounds.It teaches people to be at war with themselves.It teaches people that pain is discipline and hunger is virtue.It turns food into fear and mirrors into enemies.Imagine hating the very thing made to keep you alive. And sometimes, it doesn’t end with confidence or self-love. Or a biography about overcoming it all. Sometimes it ends with silence. Dead silence. ....... So when you speak about that "fat boy," or that "fat girl", remember:You’re not talking about health.You’re not talking about concern. Don't lie to yourself.You don't actually care. You’re talking to someone who already knows how cruel the world can be—and might be trying, desperately, not to believe it.You’re participating in a culture that thinks cruelty is comedy—and the punchline is someone’s life.

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