Just like the Salt n Pepa song...

She's "artfully" demonstrating the "O" in Obese, here.  Isn't she just lovely?

So if you are at all cognizant of the Twittersphere and YouTube (and I am only minimally aware), you may have seen some of the hullabaloo over the last few days about the lady in the picture above.  She appears to me to be some sort of failed actress/dancer person who has now decided to call herself a comedian?  I'm not sure, but I'm sure that any of her fans who read this will make sure to correct me. She posted a video to her YouTube recently which she claims was a stand up routine created at the direction of her fans - I've never met a real comedian who let fans tell him/her what to talk about, but whatever.  The basic message was that fat people are awful and that shaming them is necessary to get them to be skinnier.  She made sure, of course, to disclaim the whole thing by saying it doesn't apply to people who have a bonafide health issue that affects their weight, but I guess that means that she has some sort of magical power that allows her to look at a person and automatically know why/how they got fat?  Anyway, her YouTube channel has been mysteriously dismantled, so the video is hard to find, but the rebuttal videos are plentiful and some of them are downright hilarious.  This one happens to be my personal favorite.

I tend to focus this blog around the positives of eating right and my running goals.  What I don't talk about very often is that, according to the BMI scale used by most physicians, I am classified as obese.  I've struggled with my weight all my life.  All. My. Life.  I won't talk about the bullying I endured as a kid because I'm 37 years old and what happens now is up to me.  But I will say that kids are killing themselves because of the kind of stuff I experienced when I was younger and it's not ok.  I will also say that my feelings about the fat acceptance movement as a whole are mixed.  Nonetheless, I don't think that skinny wanna-be celebrities have a place in that movement, either for or against it, because...

It's none of your business.

When I go out for a run in a sports bra, tank top, and running tights, just like every other runner on the streets of Philadelphia, I don't need someone to give me the old "up and down" and laugh.  Why?

Because it's none of your business.

And when other people pat me on the back like I'm a child and say, "I'm so proud of you!" when I return from said run all sweaty and spent, all I want to do is point out to them how incredibly condescending they are.  My fitness is a point of pride, but I'm not a child who needs a pat on the head for doing it.

After all, it's really none of your business.

I eat what I eat and I do what I do because it works for me and it keeps me accountable...TO ME.  Because it helps me fight off an actual medical condition that has made my weight a daily focus for more than two decades.  However, whether or not I have a "real" illness shouldn't matter to some comedian who just wants exemption from being called a bigoted asshole.  If she thinks that all fat people sit around not caring about their weight, she is clearly oblivious to how impossible that scenario is when people like her exist.  But I guess that doesn't really matter.

'Cause it's definitely none of her business.

Truth is, I have it pretty good as an "obese" person.  I fit perfectly into single seats on public transportation and on airplanes.  I can shop in most clothing stores, albeit at the high end of the size range.  I can run and jump and pick up my kids and all of the physical things that many people assume I'd rather not do in exchange for sitting on the couch and eating bon bons...or something. But there was a time when that wasn't the case, when I had 50 more lbs on my frame.  And I've seen how people treated me then versus how they treat me now, and it's disgusting.  I suppose people like that person up there think I should be happy to at least be getting a little less shit now that I'm a little less fat. 

But have I mentioned that someone's weight is no one else's business yet?

That's right.  How much I weigh and how I got there is my business.  And how much Nicole Arbour weighs is only her business too.  Yeah, sure, I'm blogging right now so I've at least made the words on this page the business of people besides me, but that's about it.  So if it annoys you that people like me have the gaul to walk the streets in clothes that make us feel confident, or that we have the nerve to insert food into our mouths anywhere outside of our own homes, or that we deign to think that public transportation was made for us too, I implore you remember one thing:

WHO WE ARE IS NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS.