A Guy Finding Body Positivity

Yup, I am a fat guy…and there is nothing wrong with that.

The author and his belly. Photo by his wife.

Women, more than men, deal with some major body image matters and expectations. Yet they are by no means alone in this struggle.

I grew up in the suburbs of Minneapolis, MN. I was not the norm, because unlike the majority of the people I knew, and their Scandinavian heritage, I came from Eastern European stock. There was much humor standing in lines in High School, me at 5’6” with dark hair and dark eyes surrounded by 6’ and taller blond-haired blue-eyed guys.

Then, just to add another amusing wrinkle to my existence, I was a fat kid. Not to the point of being a totally unmoving slug, but I was always last when we had to run in gym class and among the least athletic people in school.

It is not easy to be the odd man out. Especially when that gets applied to multiple matters. But because of what I was surrounded by growing up, plus the messages from mixed media and beliefs about self-worth and my own value relating to my weight, it made it very hard to look upon my own body with any amount of positivity.

This has carried-on well into my adulthood. Only recently have I begun to really work with not just accepting my body, but learning to love it.

Disliking your body…