I had tried conventional diets and exercise before, and some had worked. But they weren’t effective enough to stop the shaming, because when someone advises you to ‘lose weight’ they’re doing so for no reason other than to make you feel shitty. The rationale behind fat-shaming is that fat bodies are unworthy of love, and its flaw lies in the fact that nobody can demolish their body and build a new one overnight. Nobody is ‘looking out’ for your wellbeing by hurling slurs your way, because your physical appearance is not a direct translation of your actual health. All they’re doing is contributing to existing insecurities, and potentially pushing you to take the same extreme measures that I now recognise as signifiers of a disordered relationship with food.