25
Nov
fat Tag
I grew up in Kentish Town in North London, now the house of bouji 20-somethings hooked on kombucha. Back then, within the early noughties, it was the fifteenth most deprived area of the country, with child poverty at 40.3%. I used to be one in all those kids. I grew up poor and in social housing. I used to be the kid and grandchild of Irish migrants who consequently of poverty, social exclusion and trauma lived with tricky relationships with food, booze and medicines. I adopted a few of their addictions and made poverty shame my very own. In consequence I grew up as, and still am, what doctors call ‘morbidly obese’.
As an adolescent I did all the pieces to not...
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Growing up in leafy North London, 22-year-old screenwriter and body image activist Honey Ross had a sophisticated childhood. With each her mum and pop noted for his or her successes within the TV and film industries, she spent her youth somewhat in the general public eye, which she explains gave her a “huge desire for attention, but additionally incredibly severe anxiety.” So whilst spending her teenage years securing internships and odd jobs within the film industry – which paid off when she landed her first skilled screenwriting gig at 18 – her ambition was combined with crippling teenage insecurity and body image struggles. “I really hated myself growing up,” Honey says. “I believe it was a mix of that typical low-level teenage...
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As I open up a PDF containing previews from the The Fat Zine – a freshly-launched publication created by fat-positive writers Gina Tonic and Chloe Sheppard, for fat people – the very first thing I see is a picture of a model called Elyonna Mone. Within the photo, which was shot by Izzy Jackson, Mone’s backside takes centre stage. She’s within the shower as gentle drops of water trickle down her frame. It strikes me that even on this age of supposed ‘body-positivity,’ it’s very rare to see images of fat bodies from behind. That's, from angles that is perhaps considered “unflattering.” It’s especially rarer to see such images of fat, Black bodies (or other bodies of color).
Here, though, drips...
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