Too fat. A little chubby. Big hips. Small breasts.
These are words that have echoed back and forth between the walls of mind every time that I have seen myself. Looking into the foggy mirror after a hot shower, catching my reflection in the glass window of a subway train, in the picture that my mom hung of myself and my family in the living room, these thoughts haunt me.
I can remember the first moment when these thoughts entered my mind, uninvited. It was the end of summer and the only thought on my mind was going back to school. Whilst other kids were soaking up every last bit of summer and the mindless joy that came from doing nothing, I felt excited. I was always the kid who would have their first day of school uniform laid out the night before and it wasn’t just because I was looking forward to seeing friends and teachers – I just genuinely enjoyed having a routine.
My mom took me uniform shopping a week before me and my sister had to go back to school. I knew what uniform I needed so went off by myself whilst my mom dragged my sister around trying to figure out what she needed. I picked up a button up white t-shirt and starchy green pants and headed to the changing room. I placed the shirt on the hook of the door and carefully took the trousers off the hanger. I stepped into one of the legs and pulled them up. They wouldn’t go past my thigh. I pulled and pulled until a red ring formed around my pink thigh, because I knew they were the last size up. I didn’t want to tell my mom that they didn’t fit. We would have to have the diet talk again. I remember looking at myself in that mirror and feeling the words of those around me pulsate in my brain.
That was the first moment that I blamed myself for the way that I looked. I took the words above and decided I was going to do everything in my power to disassociate them from me.
Then, 7 years later, I was introduced to Lizzo and that little 13-year-old girl, alone in that changing room, finally heard what she needed to.
Lizzo is a female pop-artist who’s been working in the music industry for years trying to establish her brand: positivity. She released her debut album, “Lizzobangers,” in 2013 and some of her most well-known masterpieces are “Good as Hell,” “Juice” and “Truth Hurts.” She was also TIME’s entertainer of the year in 2019 and one of most nominated artists at the Grammys this year.
Her talent speaks for itself, but what sets her apart from other female artists in the industry is that she consistently uses her platform to defy Eurocentric standards of beauty. As a larger and curvier Black woman who is unapologetically kind to herself, she showed me and other women of colour who follow her music that there really isn’t any other way to live life.
- The yellow bodysuit moment at the 2019 MTV VMA’s
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“It’s so hard trying to love yourself in a world that doesn’t love you back.” These are the words she used to open the first performance of hers that I ever saw and I can still feel a shiver run down my spine when I hear them now. The power that representation holds was made clear in that moment, as I had never seen myself, a curvier Pakistani woman, be represented anywhere in the music industry until that moment. The frustration in her voice is one that I have felt many times before yet Lizzo continues to empower women around her to accept their bodies and most importantly continues to love herself despite living in a world where that is not acceptable for a fat woman to do.
Seeing her perform, I was in awe of her pure talent. She wore a bright yellow bodysuit and allowed her thick thighs and rolls to hang. In that moment, as my friends were all singing along with her as she performed “Good as Hell,” I was looking at myself. I was sitting in the corner of the sofa with a jean jacket on and a blanket spread across my legs. I always sat in a particular way so that my stomach and rolls would go by unseen, hidden.
That was the day I decided that if a woman who defies every single standard of beauty set in the industry that she works in, has the courage to perform defiantly, wearing what makes her confident, then I could maybe start doing what made me happy too.
- The “I know” TikTok moment
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Lizzo is an avid user of social media app TikTok and often uses it as a social media platform to further her message of self-love. Although all of her social media channels reiterate the same message of positivity, this particular incident with TikTok took it to another level. Every time Lizzo would post a video of her in a bikini or swimsuit it would be taken down. There are other users who also upload similar videos but didn’t face the same issue. Lizzo alluded in this TikTok that the social media app was censoring her because of her body.
Oftentimes growing up, I received unwanted sexual jokes and inappropriate comments because of my larger hips. My body was also subject to a higher level of scrutiny than my male and thinner female friends and family members. I often used to think that it was my fault for having a particular figure but this video reiterated the idea that it was never my fault. Instead of blaming herself, she emphasises how people tend to sexualize larger women, even from a very young age. She doesn’t just tell TikTok that she “knows” what they’re doing but showed me I have the power to accept or deflect comments made about me and my body. It is within my agency.
- If I shine, those around me shine too
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In January 2019 Lizzo released her song “Juice.” The lyrics, “If I’m shining, everybody gonna shine (yeah I’m goals)” are ones that I avidly live my life by now. Of all the things that Lizzo has helped promote from fat and body activism to Black Lives Matter to feel-good music, the one thing she has taught all of us is that when you extend kindness and compassion towards yourself, you unknowingly radiate that energy until it spreads like fire amongst those around you.
All of these moments listed here emphasise one point: learning to love and live in your skin is a life-long process but it is a choice.
Standing in that changing room, looking at myself, I didn’t think that those thoughts would ever quieten. Those words that I used to describe myself were not wrong, they were just said in the wrong context. Lizzo has shown us that being fat doesn’t make you unlikeable, that being chubby doesn’t mean you need to try every diet out there and having big hips doesn’t mean your body is meant to be objectified.
That 13 year-old girl is still a part of me but I have learned that choosing to be compassionate towards her, towards myself is the only way I can move forward. Now, when I try on a pair of jeans that don’t go past my thigh – I just find a more size inclusive store!