Ambre is 28 years old and works in the audio-visual
sector. Passionate about music, she also does some photography as a model from
time to time. Ambre was one of the clients selected for one of our shoots.
Ambre talks to us about a subject that many people still don't talk about
enough: grossophobia.
Why did you decide to take part in an Elia shoot?
"I have a friend who sent me the casting, as
you were looking for models. I loved the fact that it was open to everyone. So
I checked out this brand I didn't know. I loved the brand story, I thought it
was really cool. I also wanted to switch to another sanitary protection system.
So it was really good timing!"
You told us you wanted to fight against systemic
grossophobia, can you tell us more about that?
"Already, it's deeply rooted in the system,
meaning that people don't realize that they're
Can you play sport if you're fat? How do you deal
with this injunction?
"I've seen a few ads where fat people were
doing sport, and I was too much like, "But yes, we're here!". It's
true that for all the sports brands, you think, 'But actually, we don't exist.
Don't you play sports when you're fat? Yes, we do!". I've been doing
martial arts for ten years, so yes, I do do sport. I've been doing it for a
long time, in fact I've been doing it all my life. I haven't only done martial
arts, but I've been doing martial arts for about ten years. I'm in the mode:
"uh guys, it's complicated to fit into your uniforms. It's not designed
for fat people, because when you normally do martial arts, you're supposed to
be muscular and fit. It's another invisibility thing to say that fat people
don't do sports. Fat people are not lazy people. Being fat doesn't mean doing
nothing and eating badly. That's a cliché. And the cliché of the fat person is
the person who eats on the sofa and doesn't move his butt. This is totally
false. That's not what being fat is about. People can have hormone problems,
there are also people who have disease problems, it's morphology, it's a lot of
things than being fat, it's not just being lazy!"
What's the best way to combat
grossophobia?
"The fact that society is grossophobic, means that people indulge
in remarks about our physique, whether it's weight loss or weight gain. And
that's why, at some point, we develop eating habits that aren't healthy. We've
become so used to the idea that being skinny is good, that we develop eating
habits that aren't good for our health. And yes, our loved ones play a big part
in this. Maybe we behave in ways that aren't good towards our loved ones, so
deconstructing a little of this grossophobia, which we can have by being fat,
is hyper-important too, so that we don't have grossophobic behaviors ourselves.
Do you have any books, podcasts
or people to follow that you'd recommend for learning about grossophobia?
"To avoid repeating discriminatory behavior. You have to let fat
people speak. Let them speak, let them testify, let them say what they have to
say. And not speak for them. There are quite a few pages you can follow on
social networks at least to deconstruct yourself on the subject of
grossophobia. On the subject of "fat acceptance". The "fat
activists" are there and they represent the milieu, so it's good to follow
them and listen to what they have to say. For example, there's the
"corpscools" page, which is great. There's the much-needed
"stopgrossophobia" page. There's also a page I've been following for
a while, which I discovered recently, called "toncorpsappelle". These
are testimonials from people with eating disorders. I think it's a public
service, and everyone should know about it. Because there are a lot of us out
there with eating disorders, mostly caused by those close to us, by the
comments of those close to us. Comments from doctors! Sometimes because we've
been on a diet. Anyway, this kind of thing includes the fact that we're going
to develop an unhealthy relationship with food and therefore develop eating
disorders. This page, it's just necessary, so if you can go and follow it,
that's cool. Otherwise, there's also an activist I love, called Marine, who has
a page called "metauxlourds" and she really talks about grossophobia
and sexuality. Fat bodies also have normal sexuality, and we need to make that
visible. What she's doing is really important."
Getting back to the subject of
periods, how do you live your cycle?
"I used to have painful periods before I went
on the pill
Have you ever thought about going off the pill?
"So I've wondered about it before, but I've
never done it. I've wondered about changing contraceptives, switching to IUDs,
that sort of thing. But I've never taken the step of saying to myself 'I'm
going off the pill' because it's just as convenient for me to say to myself
'such and such a day, I've got my period'."
What do you think of menstrual panties Elia
"I think everyone should switch to menstrual
panties, already, basically, because it's so much simpler. In fact,
"basic" menstrual protection, like sanitary pads, tampons... There's
stuff in there, we don't want to put that in our bodies! We don't want our
bodies to touch it! It's not adapted to our body type, it causes irritation,
it's just horrible! Switching to menstrual panties
Do you have any advice or mantra you'd like to
share?
"If you can't love yourself, how the hell are
you gonna love somebody else?"
If you had to sum up your portrait or your struggle
in one word?
"I'd choose the word 'benevolence'."
Read and listen to other
testimonials: Karine, Bénédicte, Céline
