[tw: eating disorders, sexual abuse]

Once upon a time, there was a girl who moved from the city to a small town. And when I say “small” town, I mean that in more than one sense of the word: everyone in this new place was thin. The girl was fat. It didn’t take her long to realize, no matter how much she excelled or what she excelled at, “fat” was the only identity she would be allowed to have.

Soon after her arrival at her new school, the abuse started, and soon after it started, it escalated. Snickers of “fat bitch” and “fat whore” turned into assault, sometimes with weapons, sometimes sexual. She was pulled off her bike by her hair and stoned. She was stripped and forced to search for her hidden clothes. She was blocked off from her inhaler by a group of thin students because they thought it was “funny” to watch her “pant” while she had an attack. She overheard teachers refer to other students by their names and her by her body (“Do you have the test scores back for Sarah, Timmy, and that heavy-set girl?”). And while most victims of bullying find sympathy and support from others, this girl was told, in no uncertain terms, that it was her fault these things happened to her. Teachers weren’t going to protect her from “the consequences of her own laziness;” if she wanted the abuse to stop, she’d stop overeating and exercise more.

This girl ate the same bowl of cereal for breakfast, the same tray of school lunch, and the same scoop of whatever mom made for dinner that the thin children ate. She played the same games they did. She did this in full view of society. Yet they still refused to believe her size was just naturally different. She had to be overeating and under-exercising, because That Is How You Get Fat. When you are a fat child, the truth is what thin adults say it is. So at age twelve, the girl started crash-dieting.



Thus began her lifelong struggle with eating disorders and yo-yo weight. By cutting her calories, purging, and exercising vigorously on top of her usual activities, she could lose a little weight. Never enough to be truly thin, but enough that the blows and taunts would turn into smiles and compliments. But as soon as her body adjusted, the weight would creep right back on. The smiles and compliments would turn back into blows and taunts. So the girl would cut her calories more, exercise more, purge more. And she’d lose a little weight. And then her body would adjust and the weight would creep right back on. This cycle lasted through high school. It lasted through college.

What finally ended it?

I was angry. I’d cut my calories below what was safe. I was either running five miles a day or cycling fifteen. I spent most of the time I wasn’t at work exercising. And one day I stepped on the scale and I’d gained three pounds. Then I stepped on the scale a few days later and had gained three more. Then a few days later… it was happening again. My body was yet again figuring out how to get back to where it liked to be. I knew I’d be putting myself in danger if I cut my portions or increased my exercise any more. I’d tried every fad diet in existence. In a fit of desperation, I began to search the Internet for real weight loss studies, hoping they might reveal the magical point where I was going wrong and finally make me thin and worthy of those basic human rights to which we are all supposed to be naturally endowed.

And, basically, I discovered I’ve been lied to my whole life. There are no real weight loss studies. There are “studies” funded by weight loss companies to sell their products, and there are non-biased studies that show there’s no need to lose weight because fat actually doesn’t matter all that much. Those awful, awful health problems I was going to inflict on the poor thin people of the world? A myth. Weight loss as a miracle cure for every disease? Doesn’t work. The biggest pile of BS of all? Body homogeny; the unfounded belief in one single “ideal” weight and BMI. One study’s blunt way of putting it finally lifted the blinders: “[A naturally fat person] has a better chance of surviving being shot in the head than losing weight permanently.” I read that sentence over and over again, and I got even angrier. But not at myself. Not this time.

I knew that was true because I’d lived it. I saw myself eating the same things and playing the same games as the children who mistreated me. I heard the thinnest boy in my high school health class brag about eating four thousand calories a day while my “tank ass” mercilessly restricted itself to a fourth of that. I even remember my requisite trip to Fat Camp, and how I’d ruined an intervention session by refusing to “confess” to sneak-eating because I’d never sneak-eaten (or even heard of it before). Later, several of the other children who’d played along admitted to me they didn’t sneak-eat, either. So why did they say they did? Because their parents were ashamed of having a non-thin child, and “confessing” to sneak-eating and promising to “stop” made those ashamed parents happy. I knew all these things, and still allowed myself to be gaslighted into seeing my fat body as a sign of weakness and failure.

I’m done with that. I bought Health At Every Size and The Obesity Myth and am in the middle of reading them. Over the past few weeks, I’ve been trying to train myself to remember how to recognize when I’m hungry and when I’m full. I’ve cut the time I spend exercising to a reasonable amount and thrown out the activities I don’t actually enjoy. I bought myself a set of makeup, which I haven’t worn since I was teased for showing up at school in it (“That’s not gonna help, lardass!” on an infinite loop, with each person who says it apparently believing they are the first and that it is clever enough to make Mark Twain cry green-tinged tears of envy). I’m not going to say I don’t care if I gain weight, because I’m new at this whole body acceptance thing, with years of internalized fat hate to overcome, and it probably will upset me at first. But I’m done starving myself. I’m done comparing myself to everyone who walks by. I’m done refusing to be photographed. I’m done eagerly gnawing whatever scraps of thin privilege people deign to toss me (i.e. “You’re much thinner than so-and-so”).

That little girl wants to thank this blog for being part of the fat acceptance movement that woke her up before she really hurt herself.

~~~This story has been a part of This is Thin Privilege’s International No Diet Day Celebration. Want to submit your story? Details in this post.~~~