The private note won’t send, so here it is. Thanks for your deeply insightful writing.
Peer commenting on my size started in Grade 6, a year when I frequently was sick and likely developed immune system problems that became serious a few years later. From being the fastest runner in my grade I morphed into moderate plumpness and relative lethargy. While not grandly fat, I fielded every kind of comment you mention. In my 20s I learned to starve myself to overwhelming approval, but lost muscle mass and further compromised my health and energy levels. Of course, the weight didn’t stay off. My self-image remained deeply scarred, despite the passionate devotion of the man I married. His mostly super-thin family regarded their shapes as a substitute for moral rectitude, which is a remarkably prevalent phenomenon. Knowing better, my toughness grew. My self-confidence grew. It takes discipline to defeat those voices that sneer in your mind, but I was working on other sneer-worthy projects and had learned to ignore all of them. Ten years ago, when I was 66, I made a phenomenal breakthrough in the understanding of behavior, which you can read about here in bits and pieces or at my blog. The role of the ears, especially the right ear, in mental and physical health is relatively new territory and it’s huge. It might even apply to food metabolism, although that wasn’t my focus and still isn’t. The sound energy that reaches the brain organizes and energizes its neurology. Music strengthens weak ears that cannot adequately supply the brain with the high-frequency sound it needs to function normally and to thrive. If you feel like experimenting with music and your energy levels (we’re not talking about weight or size), I can provide some tips. At 76 I am outlasting some of those thin peers, by the way, who have spent fortunes on their health problems or who have already died.
