4th Estate
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by 4th Estate in 2019
Copyright © Sofie Hagen 2019
Photograph © Matt Crockett
Illustrations by Mollie Cronin (Art Brat Comics).
This book contains health – or medical-related materials or discussions. The content is the opinion of the author and is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of a qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.
This book is based on the author’s experiences. Some names, identifying characteristics, dialogue and details have been changed, reconstructed or disguised to protect the identities of those involved.
All reasonable efforts have been made by the author and the publisher to trace the copyright holders of the images and material quoted in this book. In the event that the author or publisher are contacted by any of the untraceable copyright holders after the publication of this book, the author and the publisher will endeavour to rectify the position accordingly.
The right of Sofie Hagen to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9780008293901
Ebook Edition © March 2019 ISBN: 9780008293888
Version: 2020-08-24
To the canaries in the coal mine
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Introduction
PART ONE
1. My fat body
2. We need a fat Disney princess, and how to actually ask for one
Stephanie Yeboah
3. Public bathrooms and other places where fat people can get stuck
Dina Amlund
4. Clothes and why it’s okay to dress almost exclusively in orange
5. Love, friendship and fat fucking
Kivan Bay
6. Why you should chuck your scales in a bin
7. ‘But what about health?’ But what about you shut up?
Matilda Ibini
PART TWO
8. How to be a good friend to fat people
9. How to love your body
10. Afterthought
Thank you
Recommendations
Footnotes
End notes
About the Author
About the Publisher
Hi, I am fat. I am also thirty years old, Danish and a Scorpio. I am a person who only recently felt adult enough to buy non-plastic plants. I have owned more instruments (three) than I have learned to play (zero). My favourite colours are red and purple. I have worked in an antique bookshop, a bakery, a sex shop (where they either believed me when I said I was older than I was, or just didn’t care), a video store (from which I stole sweets), a posh grocery shop, a kindergarten (from which I got fired when the children asked me to pretend to be a Sleeping Grown-up and I actually fell asleep for an hour), and various charity organisations as both a street fundraiser and a telemarketing fundraiser. That was my last normal job before I started doing stand-up comedy. I have won a few big stand-up comedy awards such as the Edinburgh Comedy Award for Best Newcomer. I have a poster on my wall of a flying llama saying ‘¿Que Pasa?’ and I laugh every time I see it. I had my first article published when I was thirteen. It was about the pop singer P!nk and it was in a Danish teen magazine called Vi Unge. I had my first two-page spread published in a free newspaper called MetroExpress when I was fifteen. It was about How to Be the Best Westlife Fan. I love musical theatre and I love going to the cinema alone. I prefer dogs to cats. I also prefer dogs to most humans. I am many, many things other than my weight. I am sure you are too. I don’t wish for my fatness to define me any more than I want Kindergarten Sleeper, Westlife Fan or Dog Lover to define me.
But when people see me, they see the fat. They judge and notice the fat. Despite this, they rarely say the word fat. That is why it’s part of the title of this book. FAT. I say it as often as I can. FAT. In the hopes that the more I say it, the less scary it will seem. We all have fat on our bodies, it’s only the volume of it that differs from person to person. Fat is essentially energy. Fat is protecting our organs. And fat is just a descriptive word. The negative connotations came later; hissed at us by a parent, shouted from a moving vehicle, or written in yellow all-caps letters on the front cover of a magazine as a warning.
A lot of effort is put into denying fat. Phrases like ‘You have fat, you are not fat’ and ‘I am not fat, I’m just easy to see.’ The intention is sweet, but it does nothing but reaffirm that fat is bad. This is all called fatphobia. The fear of fatness. This is a message we see constantly – from adverts on television, through fat characters in movies who either don’t