Fat
The struggle to feel beautiful.
I was fat. Granted, nobody ever dared to call me that to my face. Instead, they told me that my puppy fat made me look cute. They insisted that a full figure suited me. But I understood the insinuation of the word “curvy.”
I saw it on their faces when I forgot to suck in my pseudopregnant belly. Their eyes always seemed to travel to the muffin top pouring out the waistband of my pants. Every jiggle my arm or thigh made, every too-big smile that caused my cheeks to pinch my pig nose — I caught every lingering stare.
Even as an infant, I wasn’t much of a crowd-pleaser. Adults would gossip behind my parents’ backs. My parents weren’t hideous-looking people, so how did I turn out so fat and ugly? They all cooed over the other babies, the cute babies. When it came to me, their gushing was insincere and forced, merely a formality in front of my parents.
In the early years of elementary school, I was teased for being heavy and as a result did not have many friends. The girls didn’t really want me to play with them, so at recess they did gymnastics knowing full well I couldn’t mirror the graceful whirlwind of limbs of their cartwheels and somersaults. In comparison to them, I felt like an awkward giant. I remember at one point I felt so alienated that my only company was my imaginary friend named Julie. I thought that I could cope by acting like a tomboy who didn’t care about her looks. It was easier to purport apathy regarding my appearance than to attempt (and subsequently fail) to doll up.
My parents desperately wanted to help me lose weight and be healthy. They meant well, but their incessant reminders to watch myself annoyed me. When an extra chunk of meat was picked up, they would ask, “Should you be eating that?” After a particularly rich meal, they’d tell me to go exercise. Dessert after dinner was unheard of in our household. I was so terrified of eating that I always sought approval silently with my eyes before I extended my chopsticks.
Over the years, I grew less and less confident with my body. I felt like boys didn’t like me as much as other girls. I felt ashamed and embarrassed all the time. Each glance in the mirror spurred a pang of self-abhorrence. Looking down at my doughy thighs made my heart sink. I was constantly angry and touchy and defensive. It wasn’t so much directed towards others as it was to my own person. I hated myself for not being able to lose weight. I hated myself for not being strong enough. I hated myself for letting my parents down.
My friends noticed that I wasn’t very happy. I constantly complained about my looks and talked of all the pounds I planned on dropping. They tried to persuade me to stop obsessing over my weight. They told me that I was beautiful, but I wouldn’t believe them. I couldn’t believe them. My parents had taught me that people lie because they want to be nice, and so I had convinced myself that they were holding back the truth for the sake of politeness.
And so I resorted to more unconventional methods. Throughout my first two years of high school, my weight fluctuated ten pounds. I starved myself by skipping meals and I threw out my lunches that I pretended to hate. Doing this made me feel famished, so then I’d gorge on everything in the fridge, even the foods I typically didn’t enjoy. Afterwards, I’d feel so guilty and utterly repulsive that I’d slide my index finger down my throat and throw it all up into the toilet. Then, I would promise myself to stop binging, to lose weight properly, but one way or another I’d get launched into the cycle again and again and again.
I hit rock bottom one Saturday while I was volunteering at a reception desk. Traffic in and out of the building had trickled down to a stop. The night before I had gotten plenty of sleep, but suddenly I was hit by a wave of fatigue. I decided to rest my head down on the table just for a minute. One minute blended into twenty.
I was trapped.
I drifted in and out of consciousness and my body was completely frozen. My arms and head felt so incredibly heavy. I felt nauseous and dizzy, but I wasn’t moving or swaying — I didn’t even have any strength to push myself up. I struggled for a while until my supervisor sensed something was wrong. She shook me awake and forced me to eat some bread and butter. Immediately after devouring the food, I began to feel better. It had been one of the scariest moments in my life.
After that incident I stopped my unhealthy habits. It really didn’t matter what other people thought of my body. I didn’t need to kill myself and my happiness trying to lose weight and please them. I discovered that all along I had been overly paranoid. Nobody other than my parents and myself had thought that I was fat for many years. All the stares I thought I received were nothing but a figment of my hyperactive imagination.
It’s been a while since I’ve started to come to terms with the way I look. I won’t lie: every day is still a challenge when I confront my acne in the mirror and feel my thighs squash when I sit down. The journey of becoming comfortable in one’s own skin is arduous, but I’ve realized that ultimately we’re all travelling in the same boat. As self-absorbed humans, we’re inherently hypercritical of ourselves without registering that nobody is actually paying attention to anyone other than themselves. Everyone is too engulfed in their own insecurities to notice the infinitesimal flaws of other people. It would be absurd to suggest that people should eliminate their self-consciousness altogether. That’s impossible. However, what we can do is foster safe spaces and establish positive support networks wherever we go. We need to teach one another to love ourselves. We need to teach children to love themselves.
I’m ready to commit to a lifetime of love for myself. Are you?
