Jet hair.
Sparkling eyes.
blinding smile
Resolute, radiant, insultingly young and beautiful, Mara Jiménez enters the Editorial Office of EL PAÍS and it is suddenly summer.
She wears platform sneakers, bubblegum pink pants, and a short-sleeved t-shirt tucked into her with the motto:
I'm the biggest one
(I'm the biggest) emblazoned across her chest.
Anyone takes the opposite.
It is later, during the interview, when she reveals how much work and suffering there is behind so much poise.
Ask.
How long did it take to get dressed?
Response.
Ten minutes.
Q.
How long did it take at the
institute
?
A.
Very much.
I tried and tried until I found a
look
with which it seemed to me that she was going to be the beauty of the class and at the same time invisible, so as not to receive insults.
I felt like nothing fit me.
P.
I wanted to be the beautiful and invisible at the same time.
How do you eat that?
R.
Because, like all teenagers, I wanted my classmates to validate me.
I wanted to be the pretty one because I didn't want to be the cow, the whale, the seal, as they called me.
I thought that if they saw me pretty, they would stop insulting me.
I dressed in dark clothes, but I did a lot of hair and makeup, for example, because I wanted them to see something more than the body they harassed me for.
Q.
When did you become aware of being
different
from the other girls?
R.
Since you were a child, they tell you: "Swallow yourself", "what a pity, with how beautiful you are, and so chubby...".
It is a dagger that stabs you in the entrails.
And the people close to you, the ones who love you the most and have to look out for your well-being, are the first to tell you.
Q.
Did your parents tell you?
R.
My father, my mother, my grandmothers, the neighbors, the clients of my mother, who is a beautician.
I have grown between creams and lymphatic drainage.
Every day I saw girls covered in seaweed and bandages and weight-loss machines, and me, nothing.
In the blacksmith's house, a wooden knife.
Q.
And did they put them on you?
R.
Of course: from a very young age.
Most of all I hated my gut.
Q.
Did she hurt herself?
A.
Very much.
I have self-harmed.
I sank my fists into my belly.
I've spent my life eating guts, on a wild diet.
When they say that fat women don't have willpower, I laugh.
I'm the fucking mistress of willpower.
She had anorexia with binge eating episodes.
People have no idea what an ED [Eating Behavior Disorder] is and judge without knowing.
Q.
When did you lose control?
R.
When I became independent.
At 18 I had two suicide attempts.
I got up with the sole objective of complying with the diet, it was a calculator of calories, compensation, restriction.
Nobody controlled my food, I was the one who had to lead my life and, when you have an ED controlling your head, it is impossible.
It was a very, very difficult time
Q.
What was the click that made her react and get out of the hole?
R.
See how my disorder hurt my partner.
I didn't want to go out to eat, or meet people, I kept binge eating, having panic attacks in front of the closet because I didn't know what to wear.
She was the first couple who really loved me, who took care of me, and seeing her suffer made me react and commit myself to healing myself.
Q.
The ones from before didn't want it?
R.
You settle for crumbs.
It has to do with your low self-esteem.
You think it's the only thing you deserve.
Who is going to love you, you're fat, you're a seal, people insult you, you can't eat what you want.
Who is going to love you if you don't love yourself, you are not valid, you are not worthy of anything.
And if someone tells you, you have to feel super grateful.
Q.
Define fatphobia.
A.
Not fit in the chairs.
That the doctor tells you to lose weight before even asking what's wrong with you.
That they look at you badly on the street or, directly, insult you.
That they judge your health without knowing you or knowing if you are healthy or not.
Let them look at what you eat in restaurants and comment on your appearance.
Not finding clothes in stores...
Q.
My mother could not find anything in size 52. Today there is more supply.
A.
Little, and
online
, they don't want fat women in stores.
Some brands feature fat models in their ads, but then there are no big clothes in their stores.
That's why we fat women give our lives for Shein [
Chinese
online clothing firm].
It saves our lives.
You find sexy, comfortable, practical clothes, everything.
I would like to wear more sustainable clothing, without labor exploitation and Spanish, but there is none for me.
It has given a chance to diverse people.
P.
It's nice to see young people dressed as they want, without complexes.
But there are those who criticize them for that.
A.
I think they call us the crystal generation because we have stopped normalizing suffering.
I prefer to be told that I am made of glass for denouncing discrimination, than to be like my grandmother's generation, that she had to put up with being beaten by her husband and being a woman who was subdued and cut off from society.
We have come out to break everything.
Q.
What did you think of the photo of Kim Kardashian pressed into the Marilyn Monroe suit at the MET gala?
R.
Aberrant.
It's perpetuating that idea that our bodies have to adapt to fit into clothes.
We think that we can mistreat our body at our whim and then come the tolls.
All for, in the end, having to put him on and leave his ass in the air, showing that he doesn't fit.
It's like when an actor is forced to get fat for a role.
Can't a fat actor or actress do it?
Q.
Some people think that including fat models in advertisements encourages obesity.
A.
Sure, but we applaud Kardashian starving herself for weeks to half fit into a suit, and we don't wonder if skinny models have health issues.
We are not concerned about eating disorder risk behaviors, but we are concerned that a fat person has a place in society.
I can't stand double standards.
What annoys that fat people have visibility because it erases the privilege of thin people doing thin things.
Q. That pink glazed
donut
tattoo
on your forearm is still fresh, isn't it?
R.
I did it yesterday.
For me it is a kind of vindication, the fat symbol.
I don't like
donuts
, in fact, in the play
Gordas
, I pretend to eat one and spit it out, because I don't like them.
But I like to play with the ambivalence and that people can think that I am a fat woman who is sweating because she loves
donuts
.
Q.
She calls herself fat.
Is that also demanding?
A.
Yes. I'm fat and I don't hide anymore.
It is an identity and that is to reappropriate something that has hurt me so much.
I had a hard time using the fat word.
But it is that I grew up like this, it is part of my personality, it has made me who I am.
So, reappropriating the term is necessary to be able to be happy, because if not, it's as if they stabbed you with a dagger every time you hear it out there.
Q.
We are in the middle of May.
Are you ready for summer?
R.
Very prepared.
I'm going to wear some freaking bikinis.
ACCEPT AND FLY
This is the title of the book where Mara Jiménez (Sabadell, 26 years old) recounts her life, marked by the bullying she suffered due to her physical appearance, which led her to suffer from an eating disorder, and her healing process, until she became one of the most influential voices against fatphobia in Spain.
From her Instagram account, with more than 350,000 followers, and from Tik Tok, Jiménez, known as @croquetamente_, has managed to make the clinic "Fat people doing things, tell me" go viral, where she addresses with humor and love the prejudices that women endure. Overweight people.