Content warning: This post discusses body image, disordered eating, and internet bullying. Please feel free to skip if these topics are triggering for you.
If you spend a lot of time scrolling TikTok, it's possible you know who Remi Bader is.
To be fair I didn't know who she was in 2020, but Remi Bader is a social media influencer who, in the pandemic days, posted a lot of videos showing "realistic" plus size "try-on hauls." She focused on the fact that sizes are entirely inaccurate, and different clothes look different on different bodies. All straight facts.
Again, I haven't followed this drama from the beginning, but you can bet I'm invested now. Because... Remi Bader started losing weight in 2023, and didn't tell anyone how she was losing said weight. She posted a video indicating that she would no longer be publicly answering any questions about her physical health or her body. That, my friends, is called SETTING A BOUNDARY -- which is something I'd do well to be better at.
Fast forward to the past week, when Remi Bader appeared on Khloe Kardashian's podcast where she announced that she underwent weight loss surgery in 2023.
Spoiler alert: The Internet is BIG MAD. Remi Bader LIED. She cheated. She misled her followers. She changed her whole brand. She sold out. She's not relatable anymore because she's working with brands that cater to her new body type rather than her old one. Oh, and she doesn't have a right to call herself "body-positive" anymore... because she lost weight, AND she did so... with SURGERY and IN SECRET! The entire body-positive community out there on TikTok must cancel her immediately!
Now I don't profess to know anything about Remi Bader's personal brand before she lost weight. Or that I'm a fan of anyone whose last name is Kardashian (I'm definitely not). But I'll tell you what I do know about, and it's that before I started losing weight, I was afraid that I, too, would be cancelled by the body-positive community for losing weight, that I would be hurting "the movement." And I don't have an eighth of the followers of someone like Remi Bader.
I also know that I feel like I am obligated to tell people that I am using a GLP-1 medication to help me lose weight. In spite of the fact that I write about losing weight on social media and here on this blog, I've had a number of folks ask me, "how are you doing it?" And... I never say that I'm making different food choices and working out 5-7 days a week. I always default to, "Oh, I'm on Wegovy." The truth is, I AM making different food choices, both in terms of portion size and in terms of no longer eating food that doesn't make me feel good. I AM working out 5-7 days a week. Yes, I'm on Wegovy... but I'm not ONLY on Wegovy. I'm afraid to NOT say that I'm medicated, and this Remi Bader situation confirms that I'm right to be afraid.
Another thing I know is that I love sharing this experience with every single person who reads this blog and who views my content. Mostly, everyone is supportive, and the fact that I've actually helped friends, family members, friends of friends, followers, and my husband, pursue their own intentional weight loss and fights against food noise makes it all worth it, meds or no meds. But losing weight ON THE INTERNET can be a lot of pressure. I'll be honest: if I have a few weeks where I don't lose weight (and the more that I lose, the slower it comes off, at this point), I worry that someone out there might be wondering why I haven't posted an update. I've made the choice to share, which means that I don't get to complain about said choice. But people should also really learn to be kind. There is a difference between expressing concern for a loved one's health in private, and making public comments on the internet about someone's body, no matter what size that body is.
A promise that I have made to myself -- and to the world, really -- is that I am never going to forget what it felt like to weigh over 300 pounds, to not fit in chairs with arms and worry about plane seatbelts. I've seen some former fat people become real judgmental toward current fat people, and I'm not at all here for that. No no. But... I'm also not going to hide the fact that I've lost weight, I'm continuing to lose weight, I'm happy that I've lost weight, and as long as I'm doing it with health in mind, it's absolutely no one's business what I choose to share and not to share -- either in-person or on the internet. I can have empathy while also completing a mission that I know is the right one for me. I will talk to anyone about how I've lost weight, but I will also sit down with you and share stories about what it was like to weigh over 300 pounds. And I will do my absolute best to do both without judgment.
I watched a TikTok posted by creator Sasha Piton about this entire Remi Bader situation that concluded with the idea that... the BIG MAD reaction is yet another form of policing women's bodies. Let me be clear: you CAN be body-positive and STILL lose weight! I worried about letting down "the movement" by losing weight, and I am going to do my best to not worry about that idea anymore -- because if I do, the internet is policing my body. It policed my much larger body (I once received an anonymous comment in college asking me if I ever used my "chi-chis" as a shelf) and I'll be damned if I let it police my present body OR my future body. Telling formerly fat folks that they are "abandoning fatties" by losing weight is STILL policing bodies, the same as hurling the same old insults at fat folks is, the same as telling thin folks to "eat a hamburger" is. Binge eating is disordered eating, the same as anorexia and bulimia are eating disorders.
The moral of the story? All bodies are beautiful. However you chose to pursue your intentional weight loss and fight against food noise, as long as you're doing it with health and self-care (and not disordered eating) in mind, is up to you. Body positivity that only includes fat folks isn't really body positivity, but thin privilege is also entirely real -- both things can be true at the same time. And we gotta STOP with the SHAME! Enough!
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