I want to talk a little about body positivity in the context..

I want to talk a little about body positivity in the context of obesity. Considering that, according to BMI charts, I fall into the categories of either overweight or obesity class 1, I believe I have the right to discuss this topic. I’m not entirely sure how things are in the West, but here in Eastern Europe, there is a firmly rooted opinion that “fat people have stolen body positivity from disabled people.” There’s also a widespread belief that it’s necessary to comment under women’s photos to tell them they’re fat—often just as an insult. I once heard a ridiculous analogy claiming that if someone has an open wound, it’s necessary to point it out, and the same applies to being fat. I won’t bother asking where these particularly gifted individuals have left their brains, because it’s clear their nervous systems haven’t evolved beyond that of a lancelet. But let me explain something about fat people.

We know we are fat. We feel the weight of our own bodies. We don’t fit into clothing at stores—not because of natural body size, but because of folds and excess fat. We see cellulite in the mirror. We hate when others photograph us because certain poses reveal how large our bodies are, showing double chins and more. Our legs and fingers swell in the heat. Should I go on? Nobody—except for rare fetishists—wants to be fat. Fat people suffer.

There are some people who are simply ignorant—for example, someone might not know that fruit juice contains a lot of sugar and drinks it regularly, thinking it’s healthy. Such people lose weight quickly with basic dietary adjustments and education. Then there are people who suddenly develop physical conditions—like hypothyroidism, pituitary or adrenal problems. For them, medical or surgical treatment can help.

But then there’s a third group—people who have developed eating disorders (EDs) over time or who were born with issues in the hunger-satiety centers of the hypothalamus. I’ve never felt full in my entire life. I just eat until my stomach is physically full. This has been the case since childhood—I’m always hungry. Through years of harsh diets (my favorite being one where I drank one bottle of kefir and ate one apple a day while running 10 km daily for a month🥴🥴🥴), I developed bulimia. For a long time, the act of purging brought me a sense of relief and satisfaction. This isn’t just about the psychological desire to lose weight but also about vagus nerve stimulation, which induces a sense of calm.

I had bulimia for many years, even when I gained back the weight and wasn’t trying to lose it—it just calmed me down. In my family’s value system, food was the ultimate reward and comfort. Any time I experienced emotions, it was tied to food. At any moment, in any circumstance, no matter how joyful or pleasant, I was always thinking about eating—almost as if to solidify those emotions and calm my anxiety.

A couple of years ago, due to severe stress and an eating disorder, my thyroid collapsed, and I developed hypothyroidism. Over the course of a year, I gained 30 kg. I was incredibly weak, constantly cold, and my brain just didn’t function. People with the particular “gift” of missing brains tend to say that you’re simply overeating and need to cut calories and exercise more. Luckily, I’m a biologist and medic, not a mentally deficient monkey, so I know that during weight loss with hypothyroidism, your body doesn’t use fat—it just starts conserving energy, leaving you dull and helpless, while keeping the fat reserves.

That year, I just thought I was lazy. When my condition was finally diagnosed, I started taking thyroxine, and miraculously, I gained energy, and the weight started coming off. But the hunger didn’t go away, and mentally, I was still the same person, so I continued to overeat.

When I began to develop clinical depression, the scariest symptom for me was that I stopped enjoying food. My brain simply didn’t release serotonin or dopamine. Despite this, I continued eating because of OCD-like tendencies. With high levels of anxiety, eating felt like closing a mental loop or completing an important task. I could never leave a plate unfinished—I’d get so nervous and constantly think about it, even if I didn’t want it anymore.

The biggest miracle for me came when I started taking antidepressants. For the first time in my life, I became selective about food. Now I eat only when I want to and only what I want. If I don’t feel like eating, I don’t. I can stand in front of the fridge, think about what I want, and just walk away if nothing appeals to me. I might eat once a day or not at all. I no longer stress about hitting the right balance of protein, fats, and carbs. If I want pizza, I eat pizza. If I want marshmallows, I eat marshmallows. I don’t force myself to eat chicken breasts or cottage cheese just to satisfy some internal checklist or calm my nerves. When I go grocery shopping, I buy only what I came for.

And I feel full. Not just in my stomach, but in my head. This is the first time I’ve ever experienced this, and it’s an incredible feeling for me.

As a medic, I understand pharmacologically that antidepressants are finally normalizing neurotransmitter levels that were likely disrupted since birth, because I’ve always been this way. As a person, I realize that all these years, things could’ve been different. I realize how healthy people live. I realize that obesity is a disease, and it’s not about willpower at all.

The goal of body positivity is to perceive illness as an illness in a reasonable way — to understand that these things happen and that it’s a variation of the norm, not a deliberate demonstration of an unhealthy lifestyle. Whether to seek treatment or not is the choice of the person with the illness, not their surroundings. Personally, I’m only saddened by the fact that there are now so many super-morbid bloggers who promote pride in their condition to their audience. True pride would be acknowledging that being sick is completely normal and then taking steps to get treatment.