The fat girl glow-up is usually a solo journey, laments Natasha Matila-Smith.

After watching two seasons of My Mad Fat Diary on YouTube, I eagerly anticipated the third, expecting to see three, perfect, hour-long episodes where the two main characters finally reaped the romantic rewards after two seasons of conflict. To my dismay, when they finally released it, the honeymoon phase was already over. 

The show follows Rae as she navigates life as a teenager with the added pressure of hiding her mental illness from her friends. The hint is in the title though; Rae’s issues are exacerbated by how she is treated by others as a fat person. My own experience of fatness found a mirror in Rae. Both Rae and I were taught that, from conception to the grave, fat people are a stain on the perfect fabric of human existence. Fat people are everything bad; gluttonous, selfish, unhealthy, ugly, unlovable. So MMFD, where the fat protagonist is in a relationship, was groundbreaking television for me and a show that I excitedly latched on to. 

At the end of the second season, Rae finally accepted herself and her body, and reunited with the teen love interest Finn, only to see all of the work she did on herself unravelled in season three when he abruptly cheats on her. The problems they face as a couple in season three are largely to do with Rae’s low self-esteem. They eventually decide to remain just friends. Rae, fat but smart girl™,  goes off to uni in Bristol and Finn, the working class lad, stays behind in their comparatively small hometown of Stamford. 

Now, this pissed me off. Not only was cheating out of character for Finn, but it erased every single positive thing that Rae previously learned. I didn’t expect Rae to be magically well-adjusted by the age of 17, but I craved an example of a healthy relationship, and a reliable partner that wouldn’t abandon Rae at the first sight of a mental-health relapse. Sure, it’s unrealistic that a teen relationship will last forever, but we need to see more positive examples of fat people, still learning, in relationships. Representation matters. What I wanted was hope, and instead I found an on-screen depiction of a fat teen’s first heartbreak. 

I am not the target age group for such a show, with about two decades more life experience than Rae, but my desire for such fat-love content demonstrated to me that I am maybe still like that teen, impacted by a lifetime of media and social interactions that have demonised me for having extra visual fat on my body. It still confuses me that I, an intelligent and somewhat-accomplished person, can be disarmed by the word “fat”, particularly when it is used as a retort. Why is it the worst thing in the world? 

Growing up, my role models for love weren’t great. I saw male relatives consistently cheat on the women in my life. It took some growing up to realise that it had nothing to do with the women being undesirable in their fatness, and more to do with the men carrying their own insecurities and needs, toxic or not.

To return to MMFD, Finn ultimately is a flawed human who bumps himself off the pedestal Rae put him on but why does Rae have to be sans-boyfriend to realise that she’s loveable? I don’t know if I’m entirely convinced of what I suspect is a lazy writing trope where fat characters have to be alone to become the best version of themselves; the fat girl glow-up is usually a solo journey.

I really wanted to see the characters communicating and talking through their problems, with the one character feeling supported enough to work through their insecurities and body issues within the relationship. Maybe not the most entertaining watch if there is no real conflict but when Rae has to ultimately decide between growth or her boyfriend, I felt like the writers robbed her. I demand a re-write. 

I have been looking at a lot of Instagram accounts about disordered eating lately – albeit created by thinner people – asking questions like, on your deathbed will you regret eating that muffin? They talk about having an abundance mindset (keeping more “bad” food in your cupboards so you don’t feel as if you are being deprived) and instinctive eating. So much content to re-write the indoctrination that fat is bad, though it is often only acceptable for visibly thin people to discuss their toxic relationship with food. In MMFD, Rae is afraid to eat in front of others in case they make connections to her being fat, in case they are disgusted by how she looks when she consumes food.

I still have to spar with myself every day about whether or not cream in my coffee was a good idea, or if I should offset that cake I ate with either two hours of walking or a week’s worth of mental anguish. I’m trying to retrain my mindset. If I go for a walk, it’s because it makes me feel physically and mentally good, not because it’ll entice people to treat me with basic decency. Now, I want to regret things I didn’t do, not the things I ate. I’m so frustrated at myself for all of the opportunities I missed because I told myself (and society reinforced this belief) that I don’t deserve things because I am fat. I don’t look the right way, so I don’t deserve to be loved, was the biggest lie of all. Many years obsessing over food and how I looked, and I should have just been permitted to enjoy being alive. 

Loving yourself should have little impact on how another person treats you, but being loved shouldn’t rely on being picture perfect, or confidence perfect either. I’m in a relationship now and I still find it hard to believe that someone wants to be with me. My mind is constantly trying to self-sabotage so I have to continually re-affirm for myself that I am worthy of being loved, worthy of contributing to a healthy committed relationship. Whatever happens in our relationship, I try to make sure that the way my body looks (as opposed to feels) doesn’t factor into any of the decision-making. 

It’s kind of corny to bring up but beauty really is in the eye of the beholder. And it should go without saying that every individual has more to bring to a relationship than their body fat content. If someone does desire you, it’s not just because they are attracted to the way you look. I’m not entirely sure I’ve made a great argument for proving to fat people that they are in fact desirable, but the point is that we shouldn’t have to prove that we are. Fat people – we are desirable.