I have been best friends with a girl, we’ll call her A, since grade 6 when I moved primary schools due to extensive bullying.

A immediately made me feel welcome and liked, and when we found out we lived on the same street we instantly became best buds.

We were both really active and loved sports. She was really good at soccer and was in a team, so we’d play soccer together and she would help me learn how to kick goals. We also went roller skating, rode our bikes around the neighborhood, went knick-knocking and played hide and seek in the park.

We had so much in common and we were inseparable.

What I should now mention is; A was fat, and I was naturally skinny.

Neither of us took any notice to this until as we began to grow older it became blatant that I had thin privilege and she was oppressed because of her weight.

I remember the first instance was when we were walking down the street when two boys from the local highschool walked past. They look at me and said loudly ‘that one’s a hottie’ and then looked at A and exclaimed: 'that one needs to start working out like the other one’.

The fact was that at that point, both of us had a LOT of daily exercise. We were extremely active kids. The other factor is of course diet, however I can say with certainty that A’s diet was a lot healthier than mine. She was a vegan, and ate quite well. On the other hand, I went home afterschool everyday and stuffed my face with unhealthy snacks. The fact that these boys assumed, just from looks, that I worked out and A didn’t, is an obvious example of thin privilege. Fat =/.= unhealthy!

During the school year, there was a chance to join the school’s soccer team. A and I of course signed up. There were two teams, the A team and the B team. The A team was for the kids who were really good at soccer, and that team would go on to play other schools. Kids who got into the B team weren’t that good, and just played against each other.

I made the B team, which wasn’t that surprising because I must admit.. I wasn’t that good.

But here’s the thing… A, who had been in an actual soccer team for 5 years, got in the B team as well.

A was literally in tears that she didn’t make the team, and when I asked why, she told me that the coach told her she 'wasn’t fit enough to play’, which was absolute bullshit because A could run for miles without stopping and was extremely healthy.

When we entered high school, I was immediately adopted into the 'popular’ group of girls. On the first day when I was sitting with them, I asked them if A could sit with us. They asked me 'what’s she like?’ and I began to explain how she was funny, smart, pretty….. Then I saw A in the distance and pointed, saying 'that’s her right there’. The girls wrinkled their noses in disgust and laughed and told me 'but she’s fat?’, as if that was all her identity was.

Needless to say, I stopped talking to those girls.

As high school progressed, A and I drifted apart but still remained friends. I often saw her jogging in the park while I was walking with my dog.

One time, A was brought up when I was talking to one of my close friends. She was telling me how A is in her state soccer team. She also remarked that 'A’s diet must be really bad. She exercises so much but she’s overweight.’ Which as I explained earlier, isn’t true.

A passed away a year ago. She was jogging and got hit by a hit and run driver. Her death, and my discovery of this blog has given me a lot to think about, and I feel terrible on behalf of our culture today of what she, and many other fat people experience.

I gave up sport a year ago. Since then, I’ve have little exercise and I eat appealingly. I am still thin, and get praised for my 'efforts’. I have so many privileges that fat people do not, and I do not have to experience the oppression and unnecessary remarks that they do. I try and educate people when they make stupid remarks about fat people, but it usually falls on deaf ears.

I hope this can change someday.

R.I.P A.