[tw: eating disorders].

Thin Privilege is not having an ED at 12 because of weight.

Hi there. I’m 14 currently, and since moving schools I’ve noticed that there had been a great change in how others perceive me.

As a kid, I’d always been chubby; not even fat, just a bit jiggly. When I started Year 7, I was okay, but I was always left out when my friends went for ‘private talks’ which another girl (slightly larger than myself) and I were always left out of; I presumed it was because we needn't be involved, but recently realized it was because we were the odd ones out; the 'fat ones’. (This entire time I was healthy weight for age and height).

Things fell out with these people when I confronted them about this, asking if it was because I was the fat one. Afterwards, I spent most of my days in Year 8 reading in the toilets, crying because I was too 'ugly’ to have friends. I didn’t conform, so I was exiled. I would look on in envy at the skinny girls, and withdraw myself from society. I was 12.

I developed Social Anxiety and an Eating Disorder, which I managed to conquer, and I look a lot different to back then (mostly because of a height change, that makes fat lie differently). I will forever count calories, search for mirrors and berate myself when eating something deemed unhealthy. But attitudes towards me at the school didn’t change; I’d never been seen as attractive and I still wasn’t.

But this Easter I moved schools and a LOT more people have talked to me; boys message me and actively talk to me instead of just asking for the homework answers, and the popular girls talk to me. I believe it’s because they didn’t know me when I was 'chubby’ and as such do not associate me with the 'negative’ effect of that.

I should not have been exiled at such a young age because my peers deemed me too unattractive due to weight to socialize with me. They should not have the mindset that thin = pretty and I should not have had to realize that I am much more approachable now that no one knew me when chubby. Thin Privilege is not having the eating habits of the rest of your life effected by how people deemed your worth when a pre-teen.