#and then no fat ppl on the larger end of the spectrum.

[eightw]

that dumb victoria secret song has way too much hype. “body positivity” anthem, sure, if you’re a thin woman who needs to be told she isn’t fat

[fatphobiabusters]

Unsure where else to ask this

I've been using midsize to describe myself to avoid talking over larger folks - but I saw a post saying that is harmful because it's acting like they don't want to be associated with fat ppl.

I tried to find more info and found a chart saying I should be using the term small fat to describe myself instead of midsize.

If u have the spoons, can u explain what this is about?

I've never heard of the term midsize being fatphobic. I have heard of a fat person here or there against the idea of midsize being an identity, but I've always seen that as just exclusionism.

Midsize people are people who are not fat but also aren't exactly thin either. They're different from small fat people who are fat but on the smaller end of the spectrum. So a woman of average height who shops in the women's section of a store, if they wear an XL, they might be midsize. If the woman's size is more like a 2XL, they're probably a small fat person.

It's difficult to put set definitions on it since everyone's body is different. A person could wear a medium but be very short and thus be fat, for instance. I know someone who is I think under 120 pounds but is about 5' or 5'2", so she's actually a little chubby and I would possibly call her midsize. As you can see, clothing size or weight isn't always the be all end all criteria for whether someone is midsize or fat.

If you don't have body dysmorphia, looking at yourself in the mirror might help you better determine this. Do you look like the wide range of fat bodies posted on fat positive blogs? Then you're probably fat. If you don't think your body quite matches the sizes of the people on blogs like this one, then you might be midsize.

And of course, your body can always change. I'm fat now but was midsize in high school because I had unhealthily lost weight out of a desire to conform. I wasn't fully skinny, but I still felt separated from fatness to a degree. I was in between.

I hope this helps! I know the desire to find a label can be strong, but know that you don't have to figure something like this out right away.

-Mod Worthy

[heavyweightheart]

really want to acknowledge what some folks are mentioning about the difficulty of finding and affording clothes for ppl on the larger end of the size spectrum, which is a structural issue and not something that can be fixed by fat ppl adjusting their perspectives on clothing!