Imagine this situation: you’re a young middle school girl thumbing through a clothing rack at a department store and realize not a single cardigan nor a single sweater nor a pair of those super cute jeans with the bedazzled butt pockets will fit you. All the clothes in your section are too small. It’s disappointing, however, your bad news isn’t over: your only choice is the walk of shame to the plus size section. There’s one thought the average middle school girl will think while holding back tears and frustration at this moment:

“I’m fat.”

"Fat." It’s a word of three, measly letters put together, yet it has a connotation that can cause earthquakes. The word is haunting. It can be found hiding in the bathroom mirrors, sneaking up on people after climbing stairs and realizing they’re out of breath and laughing when someone tries on clothes that are too small. Unfortunately, “fat,” also resides inside people’s mouths, waiting to jump out as a nasty insult or even as an innocent descriptor. Either way, “fat,” has one mission and one mission only: to make you feel like complete and total scum.

Backtrack to me, circa 2007: I was that middle school girl who cried in clothing stores because I couldn't shop with other people my age. I constantly tried to squeeze into clothing that was quite literally too small to “fit in.” Not only did I have issues like that, but I also was bullied by my volleyball team, hearing rumors like, “I beg to sit the bench so I can sit on my fat ass,” and, “she's lucky she's tall so she can block. She's so fat she can't even get her feet off of the ground.” The bullying happened because I made varsity after working hard every day after practice. They wanted to find something to pick wrong with me and ended up putting me in the counselor’s office bawling my eyes out.

So, you can imagine my anger, a couple of years ago, I was a part of a group conversation that still burns in my memories today. Someone said that she saw a couple on campus that made her feel very awkward. After I asked her why, she said it was because, “The guy was skinny and the girl was fat.” Oh, boy was I livid. She claimed that fat girls just don’t get with skinny guys, as if overweight women were some disgusting rubbish that no one should touch. When I asked her why she thought that was awkward, she just shrugged and said, “I don’t know…it’s weird because she’s fat.”

It is incredibly disheartening to hear someone’s worth compromised because of his or her weight. The beautiful thing about being human is being so complex. We cannot be defined by something so surface level. That's why it's shallow to call someone, “fat,” it's purely surface level. I'm all for having opinions on every individual, but we need to stop using the word “fat.” It puts people in too dark of a place and is not worth it. Even if you are innocently describing someone as, “the fat girl at the counter,” to point someone out, just don't. There is a wide variety of more tasteful qualities you can use to describe someone.

Bottom line: Being fat doesn't make someone a bad person, but judging someone because they're fat does.