Health

Why The MAHA Movement Excites Me As A Fat Woman

Health and wellness have come to be tricky subjects in this day and age. We’ve got “crunchy” and “scrunchy” lifestyles and everything in-between as we try to navigate the best ways to live healthfully while carrying a healthy self-esteem. And I know firsthand just how tough that battle is.

By Olivia Lupia4 min read
Pexels/MART PRODUCTION

Growing up, I had the unfortunate pattern of filling out before shooting up and was often a little thicker than my peers. Fortunately, I had a mother who recognized this was just my body’s way and did her best to not let me think poorly of myself, teaching me that health and beauty, though interconnected, are independent measures. But this, unfortunately, wasn’t a mindset that many girls my age shared at the time.

I’ll never forget the day when, around 10 years old, a group of schoolmates asked, “How much do you weigh?” And when I didn’t immediately answer, followed up with, “Why did you suck in your stomach?” an action of which I hadn’t even been consciously aware. Even though it happened almost two decades ago, it wasn’t until recently that I finally realized that incident was the root of so many insecurities, so many lies I believed simply because I looked different and couldn’t wear the same clothes as the other girls.

Then, when I was 12, my family was hit head-on by a drunk and stoned driver at a 120mph impact. I’m a walking miracle simply because I never should have gotten out of the car alive. But through the recovery process and simultaneously going through puberty, my weight fluctuated despite being a varsity lacrosse and field hockey athlete throughout high school.

Though I was at my heaviest just before I left for college, I’d give anything to be back at that weight now. After four years attending a performing arts conservatory college where my 12-hour days were filled with dance classes, theater performances, and workout regimens, I was the thinnest I’d been in a while, rocking a size 14. I felt and looked great, but shortly after graduation, that all changed. I started gaining significant weight for no reason, despite having an even better diet and staying active. 

Years of compounded struggle with hormones and constant weight gain have left me wrestling with feelings of worthlessness and helplessness—often reinforced by a medical industry that simultaneously declares nothing is wrong yet throws the word "overweight" around as if it’s going out of style. Then in the grand finale, despite not even being diagnosed with diabetes, pushes spending a lifetime on pharmaceuticals like metformin, which can have detrimental side effects. Or my favorite option, “Just lose weight. Eat less, exercise more, easy.” Gee, thanks. 

I eat very healthfully and have tired all sorts of diets including cutting out gluten, sugar, and dairy, even trying one low-carb diet that mainly consisted of salad (and made me very cranky, I might add). I work out the best I can, I’ve tried all sorts of programs and supplements, and have spent well over $100,000 on healthcare and wellness in my lifetime. 

Yet somehow, I’m the heaviest I’ve ever been. I’m fat. And it crushes me. Not just because I feel less beautiful or desirable, a mental war I know many women who struggle with weight and health wage, but because I know my body deserves better

I’ve cried in my closet and in countless dressing rooms because clothes don’t fit, or the plus-sized options are unflattering or frankly, ugly. I fell in love with aerial fitness, like lyra and pole dancing, but it's still heartbreaking to look at photos and see myself gaining weight, despite taking more classes and consistently improving my diet. Now, I rarely like having my picture taken at all.

Through years of navigating the medical and wellness industries in so many of its forms including traditional western treatments, holistic, naturopathic, and functional, I have so often been told that nothing is wrong upon reviewing my test results. I've been told that I should just learn to live with my ailments, or I’ve had doctors give up entirely because my problems require too much effort.

The upside to this ever-evolving journey is that I’ve learned so much about wellness and food and the body and become a subject matter expert and advocate for myself, as I hope all women can become. Enter the Make America Healthy Again movement (MAHA). 

MAHA excites me because it’s brought so much attention to the poison (both literal and figurative) in our food and healthcare industries. It embodies what so many women have struggled with for so long. We’ve done the best we can with the information we have, but we've been betrayed by institutions and systems touted to have our best interests at heart time and time again.

Our food is poisoned by toxic pesticides and herbicides, and processed foods full of sugar and artificial ingredients are promoted as superior to whole, natural foods. Our water supply is tainted by chemicals like fluoride, and micro-plastics and PFAs (forever chemicals) permeate almost every area of our daily lives, from clothes to mattresses to household appliances. And then we’re told that we’re to blame. That we don’t do the right kinds of exercise or eat enough of a certain food or eat too much of the foods we’re told are safe but end up doing just as much damage. How incredibly nonsensical is that? 

While we each have the overarching responsibility for our health and a call to perform due diligence to make nourishing choices (for the body and soul), MAHA has helped assuage some of my turmoil which I believe is shared by many women who are trying our very best. It’s offered a sense of vindication, reassurance that there is not some fundamental flaw with me, but with the systems designed to keep me unhealthy and dependent.

MAHA, by reintroducing these topics to the mainstream, has shed light on so many toxic practices that pervade our everyday lifestyle, particularly through a healthcare system that values drug kickbacks over patient care and a food industry focused on improving the bottom line, often using falsehoods to do it. It’s past time that these institutions are exposed and taken to task for the harm, many times irreparable, that they’ve caused in pursuit of the dollar.

I’d never advocate against the occasional treat (believe me, I have a very intimate relationship with chocolate), and I believe life is certainly meant to be enjoyed with all things in moderation, but we need to have confidence in and transparency about the choices we make that are best suited for a healthy and well-rounded lifestyle. And thanks to MAHA, for the first time in a long while, America finally has champions in the fight. And I credit that not just to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s passion for making our nation healthy, but to the sisters, moms, wives, friends, and daughters who are no longer passively accepting the lies and broken systems.

The FDA’s recent ban of Red Dye No. 3 is just one example the MAHA effect is already cultivating. Though I wish they would have done this 35 years ago when it was declared unsafe for cosmetics, the public pressure and advocacy showcasing the detriments of chemicals like food dyes has resulted in a great step toward reversing America’s health crisis. 

I’ve witnessed the movement’s momentum give multitudes of women a sense of common purpose and community as we all learn together and advocate for the tenants that are near and dear to us. We have become outspoken in the fight for our own wellness, the health of our loved ones, and reinvigorated efforts to leave a better way for the generations that follow. 

I can’t wait to see how releasing the guilt and shame over thinking that our best isn’t enough will help us to better love ourselves but also embolden us to help readjust the crowns of the women who journey beside us. 

I wholeheartedly believe we are beautiful because we’re fearfully and wonderfully made, and our precious bodies are a reflection of that beauty, not their defining standard. I am so grateful to see a resurgence in this mentality as lots of women are reclaiming our right to soft, beautiful, powerful femininity instead of suffering under lies that radical feminism and the medical industry have promoted. My hope is that we continue to uplift one another through edification, empowerment, and education as we all work together to Make America Healthy Again!