How I cringe when I hear someone on a national TV program say some variation of those words. In time the people on the stage and the people in the audience will all be less healthy. Most of those present who are fat when the words are uttered will still be fat whenever they happen to become less healthy. I believe that a far better response then “I am healthy” is “Healthy or not, if I am a decent person then I have the right to be treated with decency and respect regardless of my health or size.”

We must get away from the tendency to justify our size by referring to Our eating patterns, our dieting history, or our blood pressure. We are Human beings and in the U.S., we are members of the American democracy. We do not need to Justify our existence at whatever size and whatever condition of health we Happen to exist in at this time. We do not earn our right to attend a tax rate setting hearing by having lost 10 pounds in the last month. We earn Our right to attend the hearing and to sit down during the hearing by being members of the tax district.

We do not earn the right to attend our child’s graduation by proving that we have low cholesterol. We earn the right to attend and sit down at our child’s graduation the way every other parent in the room earns the right to attend and sit down at their child’s graduation. We earn the right to attend and sit down at our child’s graduation by having a child who is graduating, not by proving that dieting made us fat or that we eat very little food.

We earn the right to sit down in a medical facility not by virtue of Being the size that the doctor thinks that we should be or the size that the doctor wishes that we would be. We earn the right to sit down in a medical facility by virtue of the fact that we are sick or we are accompanying someone else who is.

In summary, when we are asking for the right to sit down in a public accommodation we are not and should not allow ourselves to be put into the position of asking for a favor in spite of our physical appearance. As members of the democracy we have the right to be comfortably seated in a public accommodation and no apology is needed nor should any apology ever be forthcoming from us.

Remember, unless I am taking the food out of your mouth, what I eat is None of your business.

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