Jes Baker is blogger and mastermind behind the Militant Baker. She is a body image advocate, a fat model, and author of the new book, "Things No One Will Tell Fat Girls." Jes shares her inspiration for why we all need to accept ourselves in our bodies.
A little more than two years, I was struggling after a horrible breakup and feeling quite low. I believed that I would never find a partner who loved me and loved my body.
I thought that someone would simply put up with how I looked. I also felt like only certain people could love a fat girl; there were just some people I could never date. I channeled those feelings into a blog post and began feeling more empowered.
Over the years as I continued blogging and speaking all over the country about body image, I realized the flaws behind my thinking—and I realized that societal norms inspired many of these thoughts. That idea that fat girls remain unlovable is just a lie.
Everyone deserves to be love and accepted.
And, fat girls can have authentic, sexy, enduring love.
The idea behind that blog eventually became part of an idea for my book, Things No One Will Tell Fat Girls. It’s full of things I wish I had learned a lot earlier in life and info I hope will help other women.
While it is a book about fat girls from a fat girl’s perspective I believe the message remains basic — and it’s one I hope that resonates with everyone.
We need to accept ourselves in our bodies.
There are so many bodies and so many people struggling with how they look in those bodies. I want fat girls to accept that fat is just an unbiased word to describe how a person looks. But I also want skinny girls to feel good about how they look, too, no matter how many times someone sneers at them to eat a hamburger.
As part of the social media campaign associated with the book, we developed a hashtag #FatGirlsCan and a trailer to accompany it. The hashtag encourages women to show visually what fat girls can do. There are fat girls whitewater rafting, rock climbing, practicing yoga, running marathons, wearing horizontal stripes, and so many other things. This was really incredible. I was never expecting to feel so inspired by seeing women doing things some of which I’m afraid I to do. I know I can swim, dance, and ride a bike, but I don’t trust my body enough to rock climb or whitewater rafting.
Loads and loads of women have sent in pictures of themselves in love — all types of partners and all types of love. That feels like really powerful imagery.
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Loving our bodies can really change the world.
When we liberate ourselves from our physical oppression then we are free to live our incredible lives. We become kinder to ourselves and to others. This book is for fat girls because that is who I am.
But it’s also for girls of all sizes told that they cannot do something because of how they look. Acceptance remains incredibly important and with that we can do so much more.
We can change society.