Her response is so empowering.
Runner Latoya Shauntay Snell was taking part in the New York City Marathon when she was heckled by one of the spectators.
Latoya was on the home stretch between the 22nd and 23rd mile when a man shouted at her from the sidelines.
“It’s gonna take your fat ass forever, huh?” a man shouted at her.
She wrote about the incident in her blog post:
“As a mere spectator, he saw my 5-foot-3-inch, 218-pound body as a joke. And I – an exhausted runner who was so close but still so far from the finish line – fell for the bait, as he lured me with insults.”
Hurt by the words, Latoya stopped running to shout back at the man. Two women who had seen the confrontation comforted her and told her that he wasn’t worth it.
By the time Latoya had calmed down enough to start running again, however, the damage was done. She had added minutes to her time and wasted valuable energy caring about this man’s opinion.
At the time of the marathon, Latoya was still grieving over the miscarriage of her twins three months earlier.
She would often refer to running as “oxygen” but the loss of her twins was such a blow that she considered giving it up altogether.
Latoya said running meant so much to her and that it had helped her with her own self-confidence. Running had helped her gain confidence in her own body and made her realise that her weight did not dictate her happiness in life.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BbKTpaWlQf0/?taken-by=iamlshauntay
However, even the most body-confident person can have bad days and bad moments. No matter how much you have worked to feel happy about yourself, someone’s words can still do damage.
“In the years since [running], my confidence has become as strong as my endurance. But despite my generally positive outlook on life, I’m still human. And on any particular day – like marathon day – words have a way of empowering or crippling a person.”
However, when Latoya saw her friends cheering her on at the sideline, she realised that she had nothing to prove to her heckler or to anyone else.
She had her own reasons for being there. Every runner has their own reasons for running. The feeling she got out of the achievement of finishing that marathon meant so much more than the opinion of an inconsequential onlooker.
As a response to the man who fat-shamed her, and to any person who has ever fat-shamed anyone, Latoya wrote an empowering remark about her own power and self-worth.
“I’m fat. Full-figured. Thick. Plus-size. Powerful. Capable. Empowering. Phenomenal. And in the end, my real clapback that day came from the power of my thick legs shuffling me from New York’s Staten Island, across five boroughs and ending in the drizzling rain in Manhattan. I am powerful because I believe I am. And I owe nobody an explanation for what moves me.”
