Dear world:

I was going to lie and say that I don't give a fuck if you think anyone else's body is sub-standard, but then I decided that it's okay to give a fuck. (I also decided that it's incredibly sad and pathetic that caring about things is still seen as a weakness; although it's hardly surprising given that particular attribute's association with femininity, which is the scourge of humanity even though sexism is supposedly dead. But that's a different rant for a different day.)

Instead, I'm going to attempt to stick as closely to the truth as possible. So: obviously, I do care quite a lot that you think anyone else's body is sub-standard. I mean 'you' in the general sense, of course, this isn't a missive aimed at one particular person -- mainly because I've noticed so many people spouting that distinctive body-policing rhetoric lately that I wouldn't know who exactly to address it to.

I don't intend to go to the gym. I don't care if you do. That's your choice. I don't intend to punish myself into a smaller dress size under some pretence that I'm only doing it to get healthy. I don't care if you do. That's your choice. I don't intend to stare judgementally and make bitchy comments every time someone bigger than me walks by. I don't care if you do, but it makes you look so shallow and insecure that I get second hand embarrassment just listening to it. Again, that's entirely up to you. I don't intend to start judging my physical appearance based on how closely I resemble emaciated women with eating disorders. I'm not about to convince myself that exercising excessively isn't frequently a product of the exact same mental illness that anorexia and bulimia spring from. I've given up caring if you do, because I don't have the patience or the training necessary to handle mental disorders. If you want to come to me and ask for help, please do, and I'll do what I can, but I'm not going to jump down your throat unasked and tell you that I think you're unwell.

I'm also going to avoid having that conversation wherein I reveal that fat people are usually either just as healthy as you are, if not actually healthier. For every skinny person who is woefully unfit, weak and sickly, there is an athletic fat person in peak physical condition. I'm not going to mention to you that statistically it is virtually impossible to lose a significant amount of weight and keep it off for more than five years, because your body has other ideas about what your ideal weight is, and you're quite pointlessly exhausting yourself fighting against it. I realize you aren't open to these facts, because they don't gel with that nice little cover story about how you "just want to get fit", but complain when your thighs get bigger and you actually weigh more because you've gained all that muscle. It's a bit inconvenient to have to forgo that intelligent and balanced image you like to project and just admit that you're placing an unhealthy amount of value on looking skinny.

I wish I knew what to say to make you realize that it's not actually that important to be thin. It's like high school: you think it's the be-all and end-all while you're there, and then you leave and look back on it and realize it really wasn't. It was just a tiny facet of everything your life is going to add up to. I can guarantee that if you were to live your life as a size 14, 16, 20, you would still be loved, you would still have friends and family who adored you, you would still learn things and still experience things and you might even realize that there's nothing wrong with it. And if you never did, I guess it follows that you'd also refuse to accept that being skinny won't make you beautiful, it won't make you attractive, it won't make you clever, it won't make you wiser, it won't make you more likeable, and it won't make you any less superficial. It might make you simultaneously more arrogant and more terrified, but that's just a guess.