Let me and my body be

Let me and my body be

Switched on breakfast TV

Piers Morgan debating personal responsibility

Says I'm glorifying obesity

Just let me and my body be

You say unhealthy but you mean fat

And how can anybody choose to live like that

When fat is the enemy

Just let me and my body be

When you say you're too big,

Or someone else is too small,

It's a reminder that my body is judged constantly,

Just let me and my body be

When I overhear someone say

She'd be pretty if she lost some weight

And a voice in my head agrees

Just let me and my body be

My fat is not a failure

Your thinness isn't a success

Your body isn't better

Because you fit a size eight dress

We live in a culture

That says women must be small

That says women must internalise

Being thin and beautiful

This fucked up diet culture

Affects you like it affects me,

But when I go to the doctors,

They assume that I'm lazy.

Just to exist in this body

I am a cautionary tale,

The before in a before and after,

Who would want to be the fat girl?

If you think that I've lost weight,

It isn't reason to celebrate,

I was as valid at size twenty-two

As I was at a size eight.

Fat people matter,

Fat people are people too

When we die of COVID

don't dismiss it as an underlying health issue.

I know you mean well,

I know you care about my health,

But when I tell you I have history,

I wish you'd let me and my body be.

I don't want to hear how much you weigh,

Don't want to hear about your waist size

Don't want a diet you'd recommend for me

Just let me and my body be.

Cos when you talk about obesity,

You talk about me.