February 20, 2024
My story isn’t different than hundreds of thousands of people. Rest assured that I know that. I’ve always been fat. Until about five years ago, I never called myself fat, just used “overweight”. Fat had that super gross connotation. Always made me think of Roald Dahl’s description of Augustus Gloop in the book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory:
“…who was so enormously fat he looked as though he had been blown up with a powerful pump. Great flabby folds of fat bulged out from every part of his body, and his face was like a monstrous ball of dough with two small greedy curranty eyes peering out upon the world.”
The rest of the book goes on to mention the gluttony of the character at every available moment. I always thought of that as fat. I never walked around with chocolate all over my face, demanding the next treat.
So despite being called fat from as far back as I remember, I didn’t use the term to describe myself. I didn’t see myself like Augustus Gloop. I knew I was “overweight” – my peers, family members, magazines, teachers, friends of parents, movies – everyone and everything told me I was too fat, too heavy, too big. I was just ashamed to say it. Well ashamed to say it and also confused about why my value seemed to be based on my size.
Anyway, I remember in elementary school I kicked the shit out of this kid one day – hard as I could right in the ankle. I wasn’t a bad kid. I didn’t get in trouble, had good grades, mom volunteered. But that kid would not stop calling me names. He was relentless! Every damn day. And one day I just couldn’t anymore and kicked him good. He cried and told the teacher. I was sent to the principal for the ultimate punishment…sitting on the steps. There were like six steps right when you walked in the door to the school – and kids that were in big trouble had to take a seat on the steps where every person entering or exiting the school and every single student walking through the hallway to lunch or recess or art class walked right by to see who was in trouble. Matthew, that little name calling bastard, didn’t have to sit on the steps. You know why? Because I didn’t tell my teacher or principal why I kicked him. I was embarrassed that he was calling me fat. What the hell is that logic?
Later in elementary school, my dad decided he wanted to send me away to some kind of fat camp in the northeast. Still don’t know how I got out of that. Then there was the week-long visit to Little Rock, Arkansas to get a bunch of tests run to see what was wrong with me. Skinny parents and a skinny sister – what must be wrong with this kid for her to be fat? Oh and then Weight Watchers. Nothing like being a ten-year-old girl at a Weight Watchers meeting – getting to weigh in front of a room full of women and have my weight loss or gain announced.
I think I was in Middle School when I lost a predetermined amount of weight and got an Atari. I gained it back and kept the Atari. And I think it was my freshman year of high school that mom took me to Dr. McMasters. Still not clear on what kind of doctor he was. All I know is that I couldn’t eat fruit or carbs…so no grapes or mangoes or flour tortillas or chips but I could eat all the bacon, eggs, beef, chicharrons, refried beans, cheese, chicken I wanted. The best part was these “vitamins” I had to take with it – one was this small black capsule that was fun to take because it made me super hyper. Hmmmm.
And don’t think for a second that the teasing stopped in high school. I walked to my car after school one day to see “Call 222-2222” shoe polished on all my windows. That was the number from a local weight loss clinic that advertised nonstop on television. I was too embarrassed to tell my mom (who was very confused to see me come home crying). I couldn’t tell her. She and my dad would try to send me away again.
In college there was Nutri/System. Nutri/System wasn’t bad just expensive and a lifetime of prepared unrefrigerated food. So I lost some good weight. Then made friends and started being a college student – going out to eat, drinking, late night studying, football games – not things conducive to bringing my cardboard dinner box looking for a pot of boiling water to prepare it in. I also wasn’t prepared for how differently people treated me, including the attention from men.
Here’s the thing – I was a well-liked kid. I had lots of friends (well “friends”), was invited to parties and sat with the gang at lunch. I never walked around in clothes inappropriate for my body or tried to trick a guy into being my boyfriend. I didn’t try to force feed people to make them fat. It’s weird to think back because as a 53-year-old, it still doesn’t make sense. Who taught all of those classmates to be so cruel to me just because my body was different?
