0:00:16.513,0:00:19.623
You may have noticed by now

0:00:19.623,0:00:21.714
that I'm really fat.

0:00:21.714,0:00:22.739
And that's okay;

0:00:22.739,0:00:24.584
you wouldn't be the first.

0:00:24.584,0:00:27.265
Back in 1997, when I was in seventh grade,

0:00:27.265,0:00:31.445
I heard a question posed about me[br]in the locker room of my middle school.

0:00:31.445,0:00:34.525
I sat hidden in a bathroom stall,

0:00:34.525,0:00:37.226
hunched over, not wanting[br]to give myself away,

0:00:37.226,0:00:39.145
when I heard a girl ask,

0:00:39.145,0:00:42.236
"When was the last time[br]Whitney saw 90210?"

0:00:43.676,0:00:46.206
I was like more of[br]a Saved by the Bell girl myself,

0:00:46.206,0:00:49.810
and I'd actually never seen[br]an episode of 90210.

0:00:49.810,0:00:51.717
So I clenched my muscles and held my pee

0:00:51.717,0:00:54.187
and waited with bated breath[br]for the answer.

0:00:54.187,0:00:55.872
And when it came -

0:00:55.872,0:00:58.227
"When she stepped on the scale" -

0:00:58.227,0:00:59.918
the girls erupted into laughter,

0:00:59.918,0:01:05.258
and I felt the familiar sting[br]of embarrassment seeping into my cheeks.

0:01:05.258,0:01:09.069
It took me back to my fifth-grade year,[br]on the soccer field,

0:01:09.069,0:01:12.449
where the boys had taken to singing[br]a song about me called "Baby Beluga"

0:01:12.449,0:01:15.529
that ended with[br]"She's got a whale of a tail."

0:01:16.129,0:01:20.840
You might be picturing now[br]how fat I probably was.

0:01:20.840,0:01:22.960
It's easy to conjure up a mental image

0:01:22.960,0:01:25.380
of an awkward girl[br]spilling out of her shorts,

0:01:25.380,0:01:28.310
running up and down the sidelines[br]like, "Hey, I'm open!"

0:01:29.340,0:01:32.120
But if you have that mental image,

0:01:32.120,0:01:33.741
you would be wrong.

0:01:34.361,0:01:38.251
Because in 1995, when I was 10 years old,

0:01:38.251,0:01:39.911
I looked like this.

0:01:41.221,0:01:42.842
When I look at that picture now,

0:01:42.842,0:01:43.847
my heart aches

0:01:43.847,0:01:47.462
because when I was just[br]becoming aware that I had a body

0:01:47.462,0:01:50.433
and that other people[br]had opinions about my body,

0:01:50.993,0:01:53.052
I became a statistic

0:01:53.052,0:01:58.503
like eight out of ten 10-year-olds[br]who, today, are afraid of being fat.

0:01:58.503,0:01:59.563
10-year-olds!

0:01:59.563,0:02:01.833
That's a real statistic.

0:02:01.833,0:02:06.124
I bought the lie that diet culture[br]sold me when I was 10 years old

0:02:06.124,0:02:09.534
that told me if I am thin,[br]thinner, thin enough,

0:02:09.534,0:02:11.704
then I will be happy.

0:02:12.184,0:02:15.374
But at 10 years old,[br]I felt the furthest thing from happy.

0:02:15.994,0:02:20.794
And so the emotion that I most connected[br]with my body was shame.

0:02:22.105,0:02:23.506
After that,

0:02:23.506,0:02:25.655
shame followed me like a shadow.

0:02:25.655,0:02:27.975
And after the 90210 incident,

0:02:27.975,0:02:30.626
I knew I had to take action.

0:02:30.626,0:02:33.186
So I grabbed the handle[br]of my father's toothbrush

0:02:33.186,0:02:35.906
and shoved it down my throat[br]until I vomited.

0:02:35.906,0:02:39.957
And thus began my nearly lifelong battle[br]with eating disorders.

0:02:40.307,0:02:45.377
I continued to excel in school,[br]to play sports, to dance.

0:02:45.377,0:02:48.457
Shame and I won[br]lots of awards and trophies.

0:02:49.167,0:02:52.490
Sometimes, shame was like[br]a really overbearing adult

0:02:52.490,0:02:54.458
begging for a piggyback ride.

0:02:54.458,0:02:55.573
And other times,

0:02:55.573,0:02:58.585
shame trailed a few feet behind me,[br]dragging its leash

0:02:58.585,0:03:01.968
like a faithful dog[br]never leaving my sight.

0:03:03.269,0:03:07.909
By the time I was 18 years old, in 2002,[br]and becoming a young woman,

0:03:08.479,0:03:12.480
shame had solidified itself[br]as my most faithful friend.

0:03:12.480,0:03:14.780
It accompanied me[br]to every dance performance,

0:03:14.780,0:03:16.071
to every soccer tournament;

0:03:16.071,0:03:18.730
it was even there in the bathroom[br]with me at my prom

0:03:18.730,0:03:21.240
as I hunched over a toilet[br]and threw up my dinner

0:03:21.240,0:03:24.751
just minutes before being[br]crowned prom princess.

0:03:25.841,0:03:27.911
When I moved to college that fall,

0:03:27.911,0:03:30.571
I brought shame along into my dorm room,

0:03:30.571,0:03:33.401
and I noticed that my body was changing.

0:03:33.401,0:03:35.446
By the time I went home[br]for Christmas break,

0:03:35.446,0:03:37.641
I'd gained 50 pounds.

0:03:37.641,0:03:38.751
And I'm thinking, like,

0:03:38.751,0:03:40.092
"Okay, I'm an overachiever,

0:03:40.092,0:03:43.112
so clearly the "freshman 15"[br]is just not enough.

0:03:43.112,0:03:44.112
(Laughter)

0:03:44.802,0:03:48.152
I was getting mysterious bruises[br]all over my body, and I was like,

0:03:48.152,0:03:50.564
"Why am I bumping[br]into doorways and furniture?

0:03:50.564,0:03:52.652
When did I get so clumsy?"

0:03:53.092,0:03:55.934
But then I realized I wasn't clumsy:

0:03:55.934,0:03:57.875
my body was expanding so quickly

0:03:57.875,0:04:01.220
that I had lost all[br]kinesthetic awareness of it.

0:04:01.774,0:04:05.315
My body literally didn't know[br]how to fit in its physical space anymore,

0:04:05.315,0:04:08.895
and similarly, I didn't know[br]where I fit in the world.

0:04:09.445,0:04:13.765
To say that my weight gain was difficult[br]would be an understatement.

0:04:14.545,0:04:17.085
By the time the second[br]semester was finished,

0:04:17.085,0:04:19.575
I'd gained nearly 100 pounds.

0:04:19.575,0:04:21.626
There was the sympathy[br]from the pretty girls

0:04:21.626,0:04:24.486
who asked me if I'd, like,[br]ever had a boyfriend.

0:04:25.456,0:04:26.936
And there was that one frat boy

0:04:26.936,0:04:28.936
who'd taken me[br]on a dinner date in August -

0:04:28.936,0:04:32.337
granted, it was to Ruby Tuesday,[br]but it was a dinner date.

0:04:33.397,0:04:35.027
And when he saw me in March,

0:04:35.027,0:04:38.177
he looked right through me[br]like I didn't even exist.

0:04:38.776,0:04:42.622
It was like I'd been forced into[br]some social experiment against my will,

0:04:42.622,0:04:45.746
to put on a fat suit[br]and parade about in public.

0:04:46.187,0:04:47.428
The differences in the way

0:04:47.428,0:04:52.449
that people treated "average Whitney"[br]and "fat Whitney" were striking.

0:04:52.449,0:04:57.939
Suddenly, I was assumed to be lazy,[br]desperate, sloppy, stupid.

0:04:57.939,0:05:01.089
And with every single pound that I gained,

0:05:01.089,0:05:05.471
my self-worth continued[br]to shrink further and further.

0:05:06.161,0:05:08.680
So I became a different person after that.

0:05:09.210,0:05:10.825
I quit my dance classes;

0:05:10.825,0:05:13.250
I failed a lot of my academic classes;

0:05:13.250,0:05:17.071
and in a world where it felt like[br]being a fat woman was the biggest taboo,

0:05:17.071,0:05:19.261
I didn't have anyone to talk to.

0:05:19.791,0:05:22.841
Sure, there were times[br]where I pulled myself up by the bootstraps

0:05:22.841,0:05:24.696
and I said, "I'm going to go to the gym

0:05:24.696,0:05:26.742
or I'm going to venture[br]out to this party."

0:05:26.742,0:05:29.672
But there was always a whisper,[br]a dirty look, an insult

0:05:29.672,0:05:34.134
to remind me why I didn't deserve[br]to be in those spaces.

0:05:34.572,0:05:37.022
So I would come back home to my apartment

0:05:37.022,0:05:39.952
to the only friend[br]that had never deserted me:

0:05:39.952,0:05:41.133
shame.

0:05:41.813,0:05:44.194
We would stay up late[br]into the night commiserating,

0:05:44.194,0:05:45.981
getting drunk to numb our pain.

0:05:45.981,0:05:48.264
I'd order takeout for us both

0:05:48.264,0:05:54.084
and do anything to avoid going out[br]in a world that didn't want me.

0:05:54.084,0:05:57.035
And of course, all the things[br]that I had done to cope

0:05:57.035,0:05:58.750
only compounded the problem,

0:05:58.750,0:06:00.965
and I continued gaining weight.

0:06:01.835,0:06:04.855
In 2005, I weighed 280 pounds.

0:06:04.855,0:06:06.955
And my nurse practitioner[br]swiveled her stool

0:06:06.955,0:06:08.866
from in between my legs in the stirrups,[br]

0:06:08.866,0:06:10.071
checking her chart

0:06:10.071,0:06:12.876
and announcing a little too cheerfully

0:06:12.876,0:06:15.876
that she thought I had PCOS.

0:06:15.876,0:06:16.876
Well!

0:06:16.876,0:06:18.386
My mind started reeling

0:06:18.386,0:06:20.717
because I did not remember[br]learning about this STD

0:06:20.717,0:06:22.386
in my seventh-grade sex ed class.

0:06:22.386,0:06:23.556
(Laughter)

0:06:24.426,0:06:25.597
But the more I learned

0:06:25.597,0:06:28.397
as I pored over the brochures[br]and the pamphlets -

0:06:28.397,0:06:30.578
PCOS wasn't an STD.

0:06:30.948,0:06:31.953
It was a syndrome,

0:06:31.953,0:06:33.658
a grouping of symptoms with no cure

0:06:33.658,0:06:36.599
that affects one out of every ten[br]women in America

0:06:36.599,0:06:39.568
and is the leading cause of infertility.

0:06:39.568,0:06:43.628
And then, like putting together a puzzle,[br]other stuff started to make sense.

0:06:43.628,0:06:46.119
The handfuls of hair[br]that had come out in the shower,

0:06:46.119,0:06:49.048
the coarse dark hairs all over my face,

0:06:49.048,0:06:54.040
my period that had visited me only twice[br]when I was 15 and never again,

0:06:54.040,0:06:55.040
and, of course,

0:06:55.040,0:06:58.520
my sudden and severe weight gain[br]in my freshman year of college.

0:06:58.520,0:07:02.281
I didn't have an explanation for it then,[br]but I had an explanation for it now:

0:07:02.281,0:07:04.271
I was insulin resistant.

0:07:04.620,0:07:08.851
So would life with PCOS[br]make it impossible to lose weight?

0:07:08.851,0:07:10.461
Absolutely not.

0:07:10.461,0:07:12.436
Would it be even harder?

0:07:12.436,0:07:14.592
Absolutely yes.

0:07:14.592,0:07:16.992
And for a woman who wanted[br]anything but to be fat,

0:07:16.992,0:07:19.472
this felt like a death sentence.

0:07:19.472,0:07:21.652
And then I got pissed off.

0:07:21.962,0:07:22.962
I wondered,

0:07:22.962,0:07:25.383
"Why have I never heard of this thing?"

0:07:25.383,0:07:26.383
I wanted to know

0:07:26.383,0:07:29.048
why I'd always been dismissed[br]when I went to the doctors,

0:07:29.048,0:07:33.083
told that I was "young and irregular"[br]or I was drinking or I was on Prozac.

0:07:33.483,0:07:35.668
But out of all those emotions that I felt,

0:07:35.668,0:07:39.664
the one I felt the most of was shame.

0:07:40.274,0:07:41.614
So after college,

0:07:41.614,0:07:43.724
I packed two suitcases -

0:07:43.724,0:07:45.945
my clothes and shame -

0:07:45.945,0:07:48.865
and I set off for Korea to teach English.

0:07:48.865,0:07:50.885
I got promotion after promotion,

0:07:50.885,0:07:52.905
and I traveled the world.

0:07:52.905,0:07:57.365
Shame and I made it all the way[br]to the top of the Great Wall of China;

0:07:57.365,0:07:59.420
we ate sushi together in Tokyo;

0:07:59.420,0:08:02.456
we vacationed in Malaysia and Vietnam;

0:08:02.456,0:08:04.496
we even sunbathed in Bali.

0:08:05.216,0:08:08.167
But all of these experiences[br]that should have been so wonderful

0:08:08.167,0:08:11.187
were tinged with that[br]disgusting, insidious shame

0:08:11.187,0:08:14.298
that sucked the life and the color[br]out of my memories

0:08:14.298,0:08:17.187
and left me nothing but black and white

0:08:17.187,0:08:21.648
and a never-ending wish to be thin[br]so that I could really start my life.

0:08:22.998,0:08:24.668
Now, living abroad wasn't all bad -

0:08:24.668,0:08:27.058
I had some of the best experiences there.

0:08:27.058,0:08:28.598
But the discrimination I faced

0:08:28.598,0:08:32.428
was so much more overt[br]than anything I'd had at home.

0:08:32.428,0:08:35.609
I got laughed at, pointed at,[br]and called a pig every single day

0:08:35.609,0:08:38.539
in the street, in the store,[br]in the nightclub.

0:08:38.539,0:08:40.350
I'll never forget when I got in a taxi

0:08:40.350,0:08:42.420
and the driver snorted[br]at me for every mile

0:08:42.420,0:08:44.790
until we reached our destination.

0:08:44.790,0:08:48.865
There was the guy that swerved his bicycle[br]dangerously close to me on the street,

0:08:48.865,0:08:50.200
stopped pedaling,

0:08:50.200,0:08:51.995
looked at me, said "pig,"

0:08:51.995,0:08:53.411
and then spit.

0:08:55.361,0:08:56.366
I chased him,

0:08:56.366,0:08:58.901
which was a futile effort[br]because he was on a bike,

0:08:58.901,0:09:02.391
and I hurled every Korean insult[br]that I could remember

0:09:02.391,0:09:05.110
until I saw him vanish in the dark.

0:09:05.110,0:09:08.550
And then I headed back[br]to my apartment to cry.

0:09:10.584,0:09:12.223
But it wasn't until ...

0:09:12.923,0:09:14.573
I was assaulted in a bar -

0:09:14.573,0:09:16.562
a man raced up behind me

0:09:16.562,0:09:19.102
to start punching me[br]in the back of the head -

0:09:19.102,0:09:20.558
that I realized,

0:09:20.558,0:09:21.896
"Hold up.

0:09:22.936,0:09:25.314
I don't deserve this."

0:09:25.314,0:09:28.639
It took such an aggressive, abusive action

0:09:28.639,0:09:32.784
to jolt me into the realization[br]that I was a fat human,

0:09:32.784,0:09:34.474
but I was human.

0:09:35.015,0:09:36.600
And I told myself,

0:09:36.600,0:09:38.555
"I'm going to go back home to the States,

0:09:38.555,0:09:41.865
and I'm going to prevent this[br]from ever happening to me again.

0:09:41.865,0:09:43.745
I'm going to lose weight."

0:09:44.575,0:09:48.036
So I moved back home in 2011.

0:09:51.006,0:09:52.896
In 2011,

0:09:52.896,0:09:57.547
I weighed 329 pounds.

0:09:57.547,0:10:00.917
And I lost 100 pounds in eight months.

0:10:00.917,0:10:04.297
I worked out for 12[br]to 15 hours every week;

0:10:04.297,0:10:05.667
I counted my calories;

0:10:05.667,0:10:06.898
I obsessed;

0:10:06.898,0:10:09.688
and I hid my shame[br]from my personal trainer

0:10:09.688,0:10:11.918
and from my family and from my friends,

0:10:11.918,0:10:13.998
even from strangers who said,

0:10:13.998,0:10:15.849
"You're remarkable.

0:10:15.849,0:10:18.459
This is the hardest thing[br]that anybody could ever do,

0:10:18.459,0:10:19.868
and look at you doing it.

0:10:19.868,0:10:23.901
I've never been more proud of you[br]since the day you were born!"

0:10:26.278,0:10:31.519
Pretty soon, I was eating[br]500 to 1,000 calories a day,

0:10:31.519,0:10:35.570
and I was throwing up everything[br]I ate on Friday, which was my "cheat day,"

0:10:35.570,0:10:39.091
and my eating disorder[br]had returned in full force.

0:10:40.231,0:10:43.701
One day, I walked out of the gym,[br]having run a few miles on the treadmill,

0:10:43.701,0:10:47.131
and a car drove by slowly[br]and lowered the windows,

0:10:47.131,0:10:48.811
and they yelled at me,

0:10:49.421,0:10:50.722
"Fat ass!"

0:10:52.222,0:10:55.392
When I climbed into my own car,[br]dripping with sweat,

0:10:55.392,0:10:58.319
what happened next was nothing[br]short of a nervous breakdown.

0:10:58.319,0:11:00.173
I had literally been working my ass off

0:11:00.173,0:11:03.262
to do the one thing[br]that everybody told me would fix it,

0:11:03.262,0:11:06.942
the one thing that everybody told me[br]would make me worthy.

0:11:06.942,0:11:08.993
But that guy in[br]the parking lot didn't care;

0:11:08.993,0:11:12.763
he didn't know who, why, where I was[br]or what I had done to change.

0:11:12.763,0:11:15.674
And I fantasized about losing[br]the rest of my hundred pounds

0:11:15.674,0:11:17.294
and thinking about my goal weight.

0:11:17.294,0:11:20.735
But then all I could see[br]were sagging breasts and loose skin

0:11:20.735,0:11:23.335
and crow's feet around my eyes.

0:11:23.335,0:11:24.625
And I knew, intellectually,

0:11:24.625,0:11:28.932
that as long as I let my self-worth[br]be determined in the eyes of others,

0:11:28.932,0:11:31.174
I would never be content.

0:11:31.174,0:11:36.756
But I could not disengage from the belief[br]that I had to be thin to be happy.

0:11:36.756,0:11:41.306
And so in that moment,[br]all of my hope was extinguished.

0:11:41.956,0:11:45.267
I had grown tired of the calorie counting,

0:11:45.267,0:11:46.537
of the weight loss,

0:11:46.537,0:11:50.428
of the obsession with everything[br]food and exercise.

0:11:50.428,0:11:53.357
I wanted something more to live for.

0:11:53.947,0:11:55.988
So, naturally, I got a job in radio

0:11:55.988,0:11:59.558
where I had to wake up at four[br]in the morning every day for minimum wage.

0:11:59.558,0:12:00.838
(Laughter)

0:12:01.638,0:12:03.988
And like the vast majority of people

0:12:03.988,0:12:06.508
who lose a substantial amount[br]of weight in their life,

0:12:06.508,0:12:07.748
I started to gain it back.

0:12:07.748,0:12:11.159
And within a year and a half,[br]I was the heaviest I'd ever been.

0:12:11.159,0:12:13.468
I was 350 pounds

0:12:13.468,0:12:16.798
and in the deepest place[br]of depression I'd ever known.

0:12:17.590,0:12:19.610
I didn't have any money[br]to pay my own rent,

0:12:19.610,0:12:21.380
so I'd moved back in with my parents.

0:12:21.380,0:12:25.750
And on my 29th birthday,[br]I found myself sobbing in my mother's lap,

0:12:26.388,0:12:30.691
lamenting about the dismal direction[br]of both my professional and personal life.

0:12:30.691,0:12:31.691
And I asked her,

0:12:31.691,0:12:35.251
"Mom, how can anything ever change?"

0:12:35.801,0:12:38.262
And my mother produced a pendant,

0:12:38.462,0:12:40.227
and on it were the words

0:12:40.227,0:12:42.962
"Something good is going to happen."

0:12:42.962,0:12:48.166
But in my misery, I was hyperfocused[br]on one detail and one detail only:

0:12:48.972,0:12:50.233
when?

0:12:50.813,0:12:52.482
So I started to reevaluate my life.

0:12:52.482,0:12:55.603
I thought back to when I was[br]10 years old and 90 pounds,

0:12:55.603,0:12:57.733
and now I'm almost 30 and over 300,

0:12:57.733,0:12:59.493
and it hadn't mattered.

0:12:59.493,0:13:00.663
I'd never been happy;

0:13:00.663,0:13:02.214
I'd never loved myself;

0:13:02.214,0:13:05.104
I'd always carry the weight of shame.

0:13:05.104,0:13:07.734
So I decided to try an experiment,[br]and I made a promise.

0:13:07.734,0:13:11.975
I said, "Whitney, if there is something[br]that you get asked to do

0:13:11.975,0:13:14.435
and your only reason[br]for declining is to say,

0:13:14.435,0:13:16.385
'because I'm fat,'

0:13:16.385,0:13:18.885
then you are going to do[br]that thing anyway."

0:13:19.965,0:13:21.675
The universe was listening

0:13:21.675,0:13:23.105
because you'd better believe -

0:13:23.105,0:13:24.745
three days later,

0:13:24.745,0:13:26.696
I got a message from a local photographer

0:13:26.696,0:13:30.866
who told me she wanted to take[br]some boudoir photographs of me for free.

0:13:32.356,0:13:33.877
I wrote back to her immediately:

0:13:33.877,0:13:39.137
"Sister, I would never in a million years[br]take my clothes off in front of a camera.

0:13:39.137,0:13:40.958
So when should I meet you?"

0:13:40.958,0:13:42.338
(Laughter)

0:13:43.658,0:13:46.918
A bottle of wine[br]and a designated driver later,

0:13:46.918,0:13:48.118
(Laughter)

0:13:48.118,0:13:50.888
I got an unexpected result.

0:13:50.888,0:13:53.018
When I looked at this picture,

0:13:56.708,0:13:59.370
for the first time in my entire life,

0:13:59.370,0:14:01.720
I didn't dissect every flaw,

0:14:01.720,0:14:02.720
I didn't cringe,

0:14:02.720,0:14:05.960
and in fact, I thought I was beautiful.

0:14:06.540,0:14:09.480
So I decided to keep the experiment going.

0:14:10.071,0:14:14.251
My co-workers at the radio station[br]were trying to ask me to do a dance video

0:14:14.251,0:14:15.775
and call it "A Fat Girl Dancing"

0:14:15.775,0:14:17.010
and put it on YouTube.

0:14:17.010,0:14:19.881
And at first, my reaction[br]was "absolutely not"

0:14:19.881,0:14:22.242
because no one has seen me[br]dance since I was 18 -

0:14:22.242,0:14:23.982
fat girls don't get to do that -

0:14:23.982,0:14:26.582
and I'm still balking at the word "fat."

0:14:27.002,0:14:28.362
And I had to ask myself,

0:14:28.362,0:14:30.603
"Whitney, of anyone on the planet,

0:14:30.603,0:14:33.123
don't you know that being fat

0:14:33.123,0:14:37.123
isn't synonymous with worthless,[br]lazy, stupid, undeserving?"

0:14:37.773,0:14:40.158
I wasn't sure that I knew,

0:14:40.158,0:14:41.923
but I wanted to find out if I did,

0:14:41.923,0:14:43.464
so I said yes.

0:14:43.774,0:14:48.694
And I posted this video onto the internet,

0:14:49.614,0:14:53.265
and a few days later,[br]I started getting a lot of phone calls.

0:14:53.705,0:14:55.090
But they weren't normal calls

0:14:55.090,0:14:57.855
like from my dad asking me[br]if I had toilet paper and stuff.

0:14:58.535,0:15:03.455
It was like Steve Harvey and CNN,[br]Good Morning America, and the Today Show,

0:15:03.455,0:15:06.605
and they all told me they wanted me[br]to come on their programs,

0:15:06.605,0:15:08.165
talk about my dance video,

0:15:08.165,0:15:09.886
and explain this new lifestyle,

0:15:09.886,0:15:13.247
this new "body positive" lifestyle[br]that I was leading.

0:15:14.107,0:15:15.396
And I couldn't understand -

0:15:15.396,0:15:19.686
like what is so special or subversive[br]about a fat woman dancing?

0:15:19.686,0:15:21.281
But I went on the shows,

0:15:21.281,0:15:23.377
and I did my little dance.

0:15:23.867,0:15:26.237
And then the letters started coming in.

0:15:26.237,0:15:29.878
I got an email from a boy,[br]a teenage boy in Lebanon, and he said,

0:15:29.878,0:15:32.173
"Whitney, it's illegal to be gay here,

0:15:32.173,0:15:33.759
and I'm gay.

0:15:33.759,0:15:38.410
But when I watch your videos,[br]I feel like my life is going to be okay."

0:15:39.019,0:15:40.479
And I said,

0:15:42.439,0:15:43.436
"Okay."

0:15:43.436,0:15:44.746
(Laughs)

0:15:46.029,0:15:48.550
Then after that, some more letters[br]started pouring in.

0:15:48.550,0:15:52.400
This one was from TLC, and they asked me[br]if I would consider doing a reality show.

0:15:52.400,0:15:55.917
I mulled it over and thought about how[br]it could ruin my life and reputation

0:15:55.917,0:15:57.591
and all the ways it still might.

0:15:58.241,0:16:01.551
But then I thought[br]about that boy in Lebanon,

0:16:01.551,0:16:02.841
and for every other person

0:16:02.841,0:16:05.981
who had never turned on a TV[br]and seen someone who looked like them,

0:16:05.981,0:16:07.441
who struggled like them,

0:16:07.441,0:16:09.582
and so I said yes.

0:16:11.722,0:16:15.862
It wasn't before long[br]that even more letters started pouring in.

0:16:15.862,0:16:19.363
And many of them were from fat women,[br]but just as many of them weren't.

0:16:19.363,0:16:20.903
I was talking to little girls,

0:16:20.903,0:16:21.903
anorexic women,

0:16:21.903,0:16:23.443
people with different abilities,

0:16:23.443,0:16:26.364
grandfathers that had always[br]hated their noses.

0:16:27.483,0:16:31.223
And then I realized, like,[br]it's not about the fact that I'm fat;

0:16:31.223,0:16:33.834
it's about the fact[br]that I am living a shame-free life

0:16:33.834,0:16:37.164
in spite of a society[br]that tells me I don't deserve to.

0:16:38.114,0:16:42.715
We all have something that society[br]tells us we should feel shame about.

0:16:42.715,0:16:44.560
For me, it's visible

0:16:44.560,0:16:48.226
in a world where thinness[br]is championed above all else,

0:16:48.226,0:16:50.465
where we tell women in no uncertain terms,

0:16:50.465,0:16:53.336
"If you are not young enough,[br]thin enough, and pretty enough,

0:16:53.336,0:16:55.726
you're disposable"

0:16:56.156,0:16:58.026
Living in that world,

0:16:58.506,0:17:03.387
deciding to love my body[br]had become a radical act.

0:17:03.387,0:17:07.247
And doing what I loved in that body[br]had become powerful.

0:17:07.877,0:17:11.297
And then came the inevitable[br]questions from everybody:

0:17:11.297,0:17:13.687
"How is this doable?"

0:17:13.687,0:17:15.977
I never used to know[br]how to answer this question,

0:17:15.977,0:17:19.128
because I didn't know[br]how to tell someone to be like me.

0:17:19.528,0:17:23.257
But now I think I know how to tell people[br]to be more like them.

0:17:23.257,0:17:26.949
We think that we have to magically[br]have confidence before we do something,

0:17:26.949,0:17:28.930
but this is backwards.

0:17:29.569,0:17:32.548
Confidence is a product of action,[br]not the other way around.

0:17:32.548,0:17:36.540
If I had to wait to have the confidence,[br]I'd never get out of bed to do anything.

0:17:37.720,0:17:39.275
I had to do the hard stuff -

0:17:39.275,0:17:42.370
in my case, posing[br]half-naked and dancing -

0:17:42.370,0:17:44.960
and then the confidence came as a reward,

0:17:44.960,0:17:47.611
and the confidence[br]came as a building block.

0:17:48.181,0:17:52.361
But living authentically shame-free[br]is not sunshine and roses.

0:17:52.361,0:17:54.501
Every day on the internet[br]and in my real life,

0:17:54.501,0:17:57.673
I'm told that I am disgusting, delusional,

0:17:57.673,0:18:00.672
and should hurry up and have[br]that heart attack I'm bound to have

0:18:00.672,0:18:02.332
so the world will be rid of me.

0:18:03.332,0:18:04.622
But living shame-free

0:18:04.622,0:18:10.463
has also brought more joy into my life[br]than I ever could believe existed.

0:18:10.463,0:18:11.465
It has connected me

0:18:11.465,0:18:14.033
with millions of people[br]I'd have never met face-to-face

0:18:14.033,0:18:17.503
and injected the color[br]and happiness back into my life.

0:18:18.003,0:18:20.474
Now, I often think[br]of one of my favorite quotes

0:18:20.474,0:18:22.554
from my favorite feminist, Audre Lorde.

0:18:22.554,0:18:26.964
She said, "I am deliberate[br]and afraid of nothing."

0:18:26.964,0:18:30.954
And then I think[br]back to this picture - 1989.

0:18:31.725,0:18:33.865
Five years old,[br]before my first dance recital,

0:18:33.865,0:18:36.384
this little girl was deliberate[br]and afraid of nothing,

0:18:36.384,0:18:39.875
serving up all the face[br]and sass in the world,

0:18:39.875,0:18:43.726
completely unapologetic about what[br]she knew she was put on this earth to do.

0:18:44.286,0:18:47.378
I think we get discouraged[br]because we've all been that little girl

0:18:47.378,0:18:50.246
but then the world[br]beats and breaks us down.

0:18:50.246,0:18:52.916
We think that being confident, being happy

0:18:52.916,0:18:55.707
should be as easy as putting[br]on a light switch, right?

0:18:55.707,0:18:59.457
Just do it, just be happy,[br]just love yourself.

0:18:59.457,0:19:02.588
But it isn't that easy, and I know that.

0:19:02.588,0:19:04.128
It's not like a light switch.

0:19:04.128,0:19:05.839
Living authentically free of shame

0:19:05.839,0:19:10.186
is more like stumbling toward[br]a motion sensor light in the dark.

0:19:11.088,0:19:15.478
You have to advance forward[br]to a target that you can't see

0:19:15.478,0:19:17.599
but trust that you'll[br]ultimately get there.

0:19:17.599,0:19:18.789
And the universe is funny

0:19:18.789,0:19:21.169
because the only thing[br]that will turn that light on

0:19:21.169,0:19:24.060
is your movement and your action.

0:19:24.060,0:19:25.425
And if you live this way -

0:19:25.425,0:19:29.470
if you know that every time you're[br]stumbling and spinning and scrambling,

0:19:29.470,0:19:31.630
you are actually doing the hard part,

0:19:31.630,0:19:35.761
you are actually doing the work[br]even if you can't pinpoint your progress -

0:19:35.761,0:19:38.441
if you make a commitment[br]to live a shame-free life

0:19:38.441,0:19:41.771
and know that it's an undertaking[br]that you have to do every single day,

0:19:41.771,0:19:43.091
day in and day out,

0:19:43.091,0:19:46.922
and you are deliberate[br]about choosing that life -

0:19:46.922,0:19:49.792
you will find yourself illuminated.

0:19:49.792,0:19:51.472
And if you're like me,

0:19:51.472,0:19:54.344
it'll probably be[br]when you least expect it.

0:19:54.344,0:19:55.344
Thank you.

0:19:55.344,0:19:57.743
(Applause)