Today I read something in the news that really shocked me.
It really struck me because, just last week, a friend was telling me about her memories of being a chubby child - the constant nagging and comments about her weight or needing to lose weight. My childhood memories are the complete opposite. I was a skinny sickly kid who got nagged to put on weight!
You see, my mom was picked on at school, only in her case it was for being too thin. Mom was born in the era when children with dimpled cheeks and girls with curves were considered beautiful and healthy, not wispy waifs like my mom was.
So when I came along, as scrawny as she'd been, she was determined I wouldn't get bullied for being skinny. She made sure I ate three full meals a day with lots of cake and biscuits for snacks and school break. It never worked - I stayed skinny. Did anyone pick on me for being thin? I did get teased now and then, but only mild joking stuff, like 'being invisible' if I stood sideways. If I did have any issues with my body it was me getting angry at it for not allowing me the freedom other kids had - for being sick with allergies and fevers so often. But mostly I enjoyed being a kid and having fun.
Then somewhere between nine and eleven everything changed. We moved to the coast and my health improved... and I started to put on weight. I never noticed anything at first except that I actually felt healthy. Then one day at school the teacher asked everyone to pick partners for a game. I was always last to be picked for games. As the sickly kid I never played sport and I have zero co-ordination skills. I was used to being last to be chosen, but this time was far worse than the usual stress and humiliation of no-one wanting me on their team. When the teacher tried to pair me with another last left-over girl she threw a fit and yelled, "I don't want to be with fatso!"
Marsha Coupe was travelling home from London when she was attacked. She heard herself called a "fat pig" and then she was kicked in the stomach and punched in the face. Her crime was to take up two seats on the train. Her attacker was a middle-aged woman.Punched and kicked for not being an acceptable weight?
And we call ourselves evolved?
It really struck me because, just last week, a friend was telling me about her memories of being a chubby child - the constant nagging and comments about her weight or needing to lose weight. My childhood memories are the complete opposite. I was a skinny sickly kid who got nagged to put on weight!
You see, my mom was picked on at school, only in her case it was for being too thin. Mom was born in the era when children with dimpled cheeks and girls with curves were considered beautiful and healthy, not wispy waifs like my mom was.
So when I came along, as scrawny as she'd been, she was determined I wouldn't get bullied for being skinny. She made sure I ate three full meals a day with lots of cake and biscuits for snacks and school break. It never worked - I stayed skinny. Did anyone pick on me for being thin? I did get teased now and then, but only mild joking stuff, like 'being invisible' if I stood sideways. If I did have any issues with my body it was me getting angry at it for not allowing me the freedom other kids had - for being sick with allergies and fevers so often. But mostly I enjoyed being a kid and having fun.
Then somewhere between nine and eleven everything changed. We moved to the coast and my health improved... and I started to put on weight. I never noticed anything at first except that I actually felt healthy. Then one day at school the teacher asked everyone to pick partners for a game. I was always last to be picked for games. As the sickly kid I never played sport and I have zero co-ordination skills. I was used to being last to be chosen, but this time was far worse than the usual stress and humiliation of no-one wanting me on their team. When the teacher tried to pair me with another last left-over girl she threw a fit and yelled, "I don't want to be with fatso!"
Fatso?
I was shocked at the comment, but even more shocked at the anger and hate behind it. I felt like I'd been punched. How could anyone hate me that much? What had happened to me to make me so disgusting and loathsome? I went home and looked in the mirror and saw an entirely new person. I looked and saw the new fat ugly me.
Looking back I now can see that I was actually a fairly average girl going through puberty, but to my mind I was a walrus. I dieted constantly; I never ate chocolate from the age of 13 to 19. I had always enjoyed being outdoors and swimming as a child, but not anymore. Being on a beach meant being in a swim suit and that was something I was NOT going to do!
I hated going shopping for clothes too, because they only reminded me how I wasn't good enough. From age 16 to 36 I was pretty much a constant size and shape - short and curvy. Being short and curvy is not a shape the fashion world caters for. I've never found a pair of jeans that fit - they are always too big around the waistline. It's obviously my natural genetic shape, because no matter if I put on weight, or lost weight, I always return to roughly the same size... except recently.
Since I've had more health problems I've steadily plodded up the dress size scale year by year. I've talked to the doctors. Dr #1 thinks my weight gain is a symptom, Dr #2 thinks it's a side-effect of my medication and Dr #3 thinks it's me being depressed by my health and not taking enough care of my body. They're probably all right. The nurse who handles my medication says that it causes constant weight gain, but this stops when the treatment stops... except I'm not going to stop. I'm most likely going to stay on this stuff for another decade.
What size will I be by then? My mind boggles! (or wobbles, like a giant jelly or blob of blubber!)
After years of fretting about feeling fat I'm finally being forced to face the reality of actually BEING fat. It's a strange experience, because now I realise how perfectly normal I was in my teens when I thought I wasn't. Now I can see how much I missed out on by feeling self-conscious. How many young people are inactive not because they're lazy, but because they're too scared of being called 'Fatso' or being laughed at?
...and if being called 'Fatso' feels like a punch in the stomach, then what does being genuinely punched, because you're overweight, do to your sense of self-esteem? Yesterday I only feared the tubby me in the mirror... must I learn to now fear the stranger on the bus who now thinks he/she has the right to hit me because I'm not as thin as I used to be?
You don't cease to be yourself because your body changes. You do not lose the right to respect because you have a different shape, less limbs, more wrinkles, less height or you skin is a different colour... or your weight is different to the norm. Even if you aren't perfect, why should that mean you can't have fun and enjoy life? I'm not happy to be ill or have physical problems, but I am happy that I'm here and able to keep on enjoying life and all there is to experience. If that has to happen in a more "well rounded" form than I once had... I can live with that! And I can live with my family, friends and neighbours being perfectly average and imprefect too.
Looking back I now can see that I was actually a fairly average girl going through puberty, but to my mind I was a walrus. I dieted constantly; I never ate chocolate from the age of 13 to 19. I had always enjoyed being outdoors and swimming as a child, but not anymore. Being on a beach meant being in a swim suit and that was something I was NOT going to do!
I hated going shopping for clothes too, because they only reminded me how I wasn't good enough. From age 16 to 36 I was pretty much a constant size and shape - short and curvy. Being short and curvy is not a shape the fashion world caters for. I've never found a pair of jeans that fit - they are always too big around the waistline. It's obviously my natural genetic shape, because no matter if I put on weight, or lost weight, I always return to roughly the same size... except recently.
Since I've had more health problems I've steadily plodded up the dress size scale year by year. I've talked to the doctors. Dr #1 thinks my weight gain is a symptom, Dr #2 thinks it's a side-effect of my medication and Dr #3 thinks it's me being depressed by my health and not taking enough care of my body. They're probably all right. The nurse who handles my medication says that it causes constant weight gain, but this stops when the treatment stops... except I'm not going to stop. I'm most likely going to stay on this stuff for another decade.
What size will I be by then? My mind boggles! (or wobbles, like a giant jelly or blob of blubber!)
After years of fretting about feeling fat I'm finally being forced to face the reality of actually BEING fat. It's a strange experience, because now I realise how perfectly normal I was in my teens when I thought I wasn't. Now I can see how much I missed out on by feeling self-conscious. How many young people are inactive not because they're lazy, but because they're too scared of being called 'Fatso' or being laughed at?
You don't cease to be yourself because your body changes. You do not lose the right to respect because you have a different shape, less limbs, more wrinkles, less height or you skin is a different colour... or your weight is different to the norm. Even if you aren't perfect, why should that mean you can't have fun and enjoy life? I'm not happy to be ill or have physical problems, but I am happy that I'm here and able to keep on enjoying life and all there is to experience. If that has to happen in a more "well rounded" form than I once had... I can live with that! And I can live with my family, friends and neighbours being perfectly average and imprefect too.
