my weight-love journey by Olivia messina
Never in a million years did I think a fat girl like me would gain the confidence to do what I do. Modelling for the biggest internet fashion brands, attending exclusive invite-only events, having a large supportive audience, and being self-employed all at the age of 27… my younger self never pictured this for me.
Although I was a loud and quick-witted girl that made friends easily, I had body image issues in abundance and low self-esteem due to being fat. Like many other people who grew up fat, I harboured so many negative feelings towards my body at such a young age. Being influenced by fatphobic messaging in media, receiving unsolicited diet advice and body criticisms by family members and getting called “fat ass” from boys in my grade, my self-esteem did not stand a chance. By the way, isn’t it funny how these same boys grew up to be men who type “fat ass” in their porn directory search bar? How ironic. But I digress.
Fast forward to my early 20s and I am slaying my undergraduate degree. Despite the negative memories of my earlier school years, university was different, and people were self-interested and focused on getting their money’s worth of education. No one gave a flying fuck that a fat girl was in their class, or that her seat had sweat marks when she got up from it. I thought the biggest accomplishment of my life would be attending university. While I am extremely proud of myself for obtaining a Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree, living my life as an unapologetic fat woman would be my defining life moment.
It was after my undergrad and before my graduate studies that I lost a lot of weight. Partly because I left a soul-sucking long-term relationship and started a new retail job at my favourite plus-size clothing store that had me walking 10,000 steps a day. I gained so much confidence during this period that I started a YouTube channel and began to post vlogs and fashion hauls. I started to love my body and enjoy dressing it in clothing that I would never dare to wear as a previously fat person.
However, when I started to gain the weight back during my graduate studies, I felt like a failure. Then, I guess, I knocked some sense into myself and I kept posting on my social media. I filled my YouTube with more try on hauls and posted more model shots on my Instagram. I was not going to let this weight gain stop me from dressing cute and feeling sexy as hell, nor would it stop me from sharing myself with the world. I did not want to go back to that negative self-sabotaging mindset that I had before I lost weight. It was with my weight loss and subsequent weight gain that I understood the secret to being confident as a fat person. The secret is that confidence is not dependant on your weight; rather it is a conscious choice to love yourself unconditionally. It is not a conditional love that only exists if you drop a few pounds. I’m talking a big fat love that exists for yourself as you are right now, fat rolls and all.
It is this big, fat love that I have for my big, fat body that has resulted in where I am today. I have an online career in creating fat-positive content to help inspire others to not be afraid to take up space and live freely and happily in their fat bodies — a dream job that my younger self never had the capacity to envision. Working for inclusive fashion brands that send me so much clothing I have no space for it is a problem that my younger self could have only dreamed of.
I also learned to embrace my body sexually while creating content that reveals my big fat natural body to an audience that loves it. Honey, they love it so much that my bills are always paid. Take that, fatphobia! Before, I never enjoyed being intimate with people because it meant I had to undress myself and reveal my uneven fatness, stretch marks, discolouration, and cellulite. So, making a modest living on showing my fat body off is ground-breaking for me.
Although my weight-love journey came with so much heartache and stress, it resulted in me feeling empowered and in control of my destiny. My only wish is that my story can inspire so many others to feel and do the same.
Illustrations by Eliane | IG @lily364 | Series: Your Body is Your Home
Words by Olivia Messina | IG @OliviasWorld95
Olivia is a Toronto based content creator and model. She began her online career by uploading fashion hauls to her YouTube channel, and has since amassed a combined total of 1.4M followers on her socials. She is a proud advocate of self-love, body acceptance, and FATshion liberation. In the future, she is planning on putting her extensive educational background in Sociology & English to good use by writing self-help books that will help encourage others to overcome their own body insecurities.
