I feel fat.

Except, do I? The sentence doesn't really make sense. I feel fat. Fat is visual, not emotional. I feel happy? Yes. I feel tall? Um, ok, I can see that. I feel fat? Unless you're having a hands-on experience, it doesn't jive.

At some point, we've turned it into an emotional state that is synomous with unwanted, unaccepted and just plain wrong. Despite what YouTube thinks, it is not synonymous with ugly. It's just fat. That's all. Fat. Say it. Fat. Not that big of a deal, really. Fat. I can understand the urge to avoid judgments, to avoid saying I feel fat around our daughters and sons, except that really, it's just a word, folks. Think of the difference between the way that the idiotic girls in the beginning of "I Like Big Butts" use the word "black" and then compare it to the way Jesse Jackson uses it. Same word, two different feelings behind it.

Words are only as good as the emotion behind them, so forbidding a word, any word, in a household--without changing the pervading paradigms behind it--isn't going to do you a lot of good. I'll bet that there are some racist households out there who never, ever utter the word "black" in relation to ethnicity, and yet, does that make them more enlightened? No, not really. I do feel fat. Mostly because I am fat. I put my hands down, and they find some fat. It's okay. I'm okay with that. It's my fat, after all, so I get to make that call.

In George Carlin's book Brain Droppings, he takes a slightly more blunt approach:

You probably noticed, elsewhere I used the word fat. I used that word because that's what fat people are. They're fat. They're not large; they're not stout, chunky, hefty, or plump. And they're not big-boned. Dinosaurs are big-boned. These people are not necessarily obese, either. Obese is a medical term. And they're not overweight. Overweight implies there is some correct weight. There is no correct weight. Heavy is also a misleading term. An aircraft carrier is heavy; it's not fat. Only people are fat, and that's what fat people are. They're fat. I offer no apologies for this. It is not intended as a criticism or insult. It is simply descriptive language. I don't like euphemisms. Euphemisms are a form of lying. (Carlin, Brain Droppings, 1997)

So there it is. I am a fat girl. I'm not saying this to be self-deprecating or for you to tell me that I'm not. I'm not saying this to be radical or all in your face like some kind of riotfatgrrrrrl23 on Myspace (Note: I totally made that name up, but my God, if there really is a riotfatgrrrrl23 on Myspace, the world is a strange and tragic place) but rather because it is what it is. I am fat. It's not a judgment, just a description. I am fat. The sky is blue. Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise are married. The Golden Gate Bridge is in San Francisco. This is the last Friday in June and I am fat.

That's all there is to it. --Weetabix