one thing i don’t think we really ever talk about, at least in a healthy or deep way, is the sensory differences that come with being thin or fat. the things that make even the most basic aspects of our experience of the world different depending on body size, most notably weight, though only due to the emphasis put on it by society. if the world was critical of the diversity in height, (which it is, to a degree. if you’re very short, you’ll know what i mean), people would be hypersensitive of that difference instead.

i’ve been a fat person my whole life, aside from a few-year stint with anorexia. when i was thin and that was new, it felt like living in a whole new world. suddenly i could slip through the world untouched and unnoticed. i didn’t really ever acclimate to not needing to move through the world as a bigger person, though.

i always remember being hyperaware of how tiny i was, how i almost always fit through or between things. i could physically sit and bend in ways i could not before (well, barely. i am the least flexible person ever) and, though there’s nothing wrong with struggling with it, crouching or kneeling etc was suddenly easier. and i have to say, being aware of my smallness only served to fuel the disorder. to this day i still think often about being as small as can be.

and later on, when i began to recover and return to my body’s (adult, by that time) set point (remarkably close to my mother’s, actually), my muscles were very weak due to being cannibalized by my body as it struggled to have even enough fuel to survive. and so every movement of my body was carrying more with less strength. and it hurt. the pain made my asthma spike to dangerous levels, and i couldn’t walk very far or very fast. so, when the elevator in the university parking lot was out, and i had to climb the five flights to campus, you bet your ass i felt something different than what a thin person would. (hell, i almost needed to look into applying for accessible parking, my muscles were so atrophied.)

and unfortunately, because of how we are critical of people’s bodies, this world prioritizes thin experiences. we don’t laugh at all average to thin people because oh no they’re so small, oh no everything is too big for them, they need to change! no, we point at the people who the world is too small for, as if a planet could be too small for any of its inhabitants. even the goldfish, known worldwide to be a creature that will grow to the size of its tank/pond, does not get too big for its environment, its world. and even if the world isn’t right or fair, that it’s the people who have innocently outgrown their world that have to change.

and it’s a damned shame, because this topic could surely bring on interesting findings in the field of perception study, in the very least.

#why are thin people like this