So if you follow me on Twitter you’ll know that on Wednesday I took Joe to the doctor because he’s quite rubbish at walking (Joe, not the doctor). I wasn’t all that worried because he does walk, he just seems a bit lumbering and he falls over a lot (partly because he keeps trying to, you know, run before he can walk!) but I just thought I’d get him checked to be on the safe side.

Joe was walking around the waiting room and when the doctor opened his door, Joe toddled on through and the doctor said, “He’s walking very well!” I said, “Is he? Cos that’s why we’re here!” and he said something about Joe’s gait – a “rolling gait”, I think he said, which would make sense because Joe does have something about the Father Christmas in his walk. So the doctor said it was nothing to worry about, adding, “He’s just carrying a bit of extra weight” and then, looking at me, “Looks like it’s running in the family.” Or something like that. I was slightly taken aback and also had a moment of “ouch” but then I thought, well, fair enough. (I was actually more offended on poor little Joe’s behalf – Joe ain’t fat!)

When I got home, I tweeted about it because, you know, that’s what I do and I was met with a hail of outrage. Lots of people said it was unprofessional, others thought I should complain, another said it wouldn’t be okay if a man in the street it, so it’s not okay for the doctor to say it. And while it was very sweet that so many of my friends leapt to my defence, honestly, I was a bit bewildered. Because, you know what? I am carrying a bit of extra weight. More than a bit, in fact. According to my BMI, I’m obese. For my height, I could comfortably weigh three stone less than I do now (more than a quarter of my weight, in fact).

But more than that, the responses on Twitter acted like the doctor had insulted me. He hadn’t, he’d just baldly stated a fact. It wasn’t the most tactful thing anyone’s ever said and, yes, there’s an argument to be made that he shouldn’t have commented on my body at all, but he’s a doctor – my reaction would have been different if, say, the postman had said it. If I’d tweeted that he’d said, “Well done on losing the baby weight!” would people have been so outraged? I doubt it.

For me, it was like a lightbulb moment. A couple of people on Twitter said it would either have sent them straight to a binge or they would have immediately gone on a diet. And, in the past, it would have been the same for me. In the past, I would have cried. In the past, I probably would have been outraged. But in the past I was always trying to hide my weight. I didn’t want people to know I was fat. It’s probably part of the reason I love the internet so much – I’m not fat online. I’m just me. And when I’ve arranged to meet people I know online, one of the main things I worry about is “They’re going to be surprised at how fat I am.” But lately I’ve come to accept that I am fat. And that’s okay. Like I’ve said before, it doesn’t mean anything about me as a person, it’s not a character flaw – I’m just carrying a bit of extra weight.

You know when Berger tells Miranda “Maybe he’s just not that into you?” and the other girls are horrified and Miranda’s thrilled by it? That’s kind of how this feels to me. I’m fat. And that’s okay.