catsoupery

Embrace Your Size: My Own Body Positivity

19/05/23

this post talks about eating disorders

During the last couple of weeks I’ve slowly worked my way through haras “Embrace Your Size”, a small essay collection on the author's journey with her body-positivity experience. The manga already looked really interesting from the cover alone, so I wanted to take my time with it as much as possible.
A short note before I continue: I use the descriptor “fat” not as an insult, but as a neutral descriptor. I do not like using “overweight” for describing people, and “chubby” downplays and cutifies things too much for my liking. People are tall and small, thin and fat.
Hara, the author, is an illustrator who loves drawing fat women, especially in fashionable ways. I’ve only learned about her through her first collected manga, but looking through her gallery is making me a huge fan of hers already. She draws women with so much care and love, there is so much beauty and dedication in how she portrays her favourite fashion styles. I recommend looking through her works here.

“Embrace Your Size” is a work that took me by surprise. Hara documents her entire life of struggling with how she views her body. From an early age to where she is now, we get to know her through all her struggles and frustration, through her newfound acceptance and her passions. She makes a point of portraying how prevalent fatphobia is in society, and how even the littlest careless remarks can change the trajectory of another person's life. It’s very cathartic to see her air every grievance she has with how fat people and characters are portrayed in the media. It’s delightful to see her talk about how her loved ones support her through all of this. And it feels so, so liberating when she eventually reaches her current-day, and talks about pursuing the things she loves
One thing that stuck with me were the parts where she talks about the experiences of fat people that often get overlooked in public narratives. Like when she talks about not allowing yourself to be fashionable, because “that’s not how fat people are”.

But once she finds a fashion magazine aimed at plus-size people, her entire world view changes. Suddenly, fat people CAN be fashionable. They can look stylish, cute, sexy and beautiful. And she can too. It’s easy to get caught up in thinking that “fat people can’t be desirable or enjoy themselves”. Some people sink so deeply into these thought patterns that it’s hard to make it out of them. But once you do, your life changes completely.

Hara makes a point out of that fact that it’s important to unlearn beauty standards. They’re subjective and heavily prevalent in society, but ultimately, they’re all made up. Once you figure out you can have your own beauty standards that you can live by, while disregarding the standards of everyone else, that’s when you’re free from the idea “I can’t do x because I am fat”.
Something that made me very happy to see is the logical conclusion hara comes to in regards to this idea: There’s beauty in every person. Her beauty includes people of all cultures, religions, sexuality and gender. This is where I truly felt connected to her. She makes a point of mentioning all the people that inspire her, among them black and queer people. The fact that beauty lies in diversity is something she honestly means. And you can see it reflected in her art, which over time has been becoming more diverse too.

“Embrace Your Size” is a very liberating and comforting read. Seeing the author overcome and learn to live with her struggles, so that she can focus on her passions is an emotional journey that really resonated with me. I hope hara continues to make powerful art like she has been. This work has not only made me a huge fan of hers, but also wants me to look more into fashion for myself and go even harder on expanding my lolita wardrobe.
“Embrace your size” is published in english by Yen Press, translated by Athena & Alethea Nibley, lettered by Chiho Christie.