Video: Binge Eating Disorder and "The Good Fat Girl"

When you have binge eating disorder, your weight can sometimes drastically fluctuate and sometimes the way people treat you as a person changes as your weight does. There's a misconception in popular culture that people lose weight in order to please other people and live up to societal ideals of beauty and that when they do, they become deserving of respect and fair treatment and are then granted a voice and a space to exist within this society. I call this concept "the good fat girl."

My Personal Experience With Binge Eating Disorder and Being the "Good Fat Girl"

After I lost weight, both through a starvation diet when I was 19 and through weight loss surgery when I was 27, I noticed how people treated me differently based on my size. Also, how some people assumed that I was losing weight to fit in better, be more attractive to men, get a boyfriend, or a slew of other ideas that indicated that I wanted to please other people and not be happier with myself, i.e., I was being "the good far girl." Although the first time, when I starved myself, I was not doing it in order to be healthy and I didn't really understand what I was doing, when I got gastric sleeve surgery, I was absolutely committed to be a healthier person, both mentally and physically.

The Reality of Living with Binge Eating Disorder In a Shallow Society

But no matter a person's size or their plans for their weight, everyone deserves to be treated with dignity and respect. Another person's body existing in society is not something needs to be commented on, policed or politicized. The sooner that everyone realizes that, the better off the world will be.

http://youtu.be/LaKfitWyWD0

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