I'd rather be "fat" than vindictive

I read this in the miscellaneous section jkrowling's website (jkrowling.com), and it is not Harry Potter related-- I was quite surprised and pleased to find these words of wisdom... I'll repost a condensed version here (my favorite part):

'"Fat" is usually the first insult a girl throws at another girl when she wants to hurt her,' I said; I could remember it happening when I was at school, and witnessing it among the teenagers I used to teach. Nevertheless, I could see that to him, a well-adjusted male, it was utterly bizarre behaviour, like yelling 'thicko!' at Stephen Hawking.

His bemusement at this everyday feature of female existence reminded me how strange and sick the 'fat' insult is. I mean, is 'fat' really the worst thing a human being can be? Is 'fat' worse than 'vindictive', 'jealous', 'shallow', 'vain', 'boring' or 'cruel'? Not to me; but then, you might retort, what do I know about the pressure to be skinny? I'm not in the business of being judged on my looks, what with being a writer and earning my living by using my brain...

I went to the British Book Awards that evening. After the award ceremony I bumped into a woman I hadn't seen for nearly three years. The first thing she said to me? 'You've lost a lot of weight since the last time I saw you!'

'Well,' I said, slightly nonplussed, 'the last time you saw me I'd just had a baby.'

What I felt like saying was, 'I've produced my third child and my sixth novel since I last saw you. Aren't either of those things more important, more interesting, than my size?' But no – my waist looked smaller! Forget the kid and the book: finally, something to celebrate!

The trouble is, when you say "well, yeah! I'd rather be "fat" than, say, vindictive, or bitter, the retort is "well, of course you'd say that, you're fat, hahahahaha" It's hard to actually believe it, but who you actually are has so very little to do with your physical appearance. You are more than the size of your waist, you are the choices you make. And while some choices may regard what to eat for breakfast, and you may chose a cookie, when you could have chosen yogurt, the much more important choice regards how you chose to treat people.