I see so much fatphobia in books (published and unpublished) that it honestly seems like writers are going out of their way to be cruel.

It's actually incredibly easy to not be shitty about body shape and size! Here's a list!

—Never tell us how much your characters weigh
—Never show characters asking if they're fat/complaining about being fat (esp if they're straight size!)
—In fact, make sure you never use "fat" as a negative, as a feeling, or as a joke!

—Are the only fat people in your book villains? Guess what, that's fatphobic!
—Do you only ever describe fat characters as grotesque or sexually/romantically undesirable? That's fatphobic!
—Do you ever speculate on a fat person's level of "health"? STOP IT

Like, all you gotta do is *not* write some lines and think for 30 seconds about the balance of body size in your book. It is literally so easy to not traumatize your readers.

Does it matter, REALLY, if someone is squeezing into a size 14 pant instead of an 8? For women's clothes, those numbers don't even mean anything anyway. THESE ARE PEOPLE YOU IMAGINE IN YOUR BRAIN! DON'T BE SHITTY ABOUT IT

(Rant brought to you by me, who encountered really traumatizing fatphobia in the first chapter of FOUR (4) books in the last 48 hours)*

*Half were submissions, half were pubbed