clevermanka (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
clevermanka) wrote2013-10-09 09:35 am
clevermanka) wrote2013-10-09 09:35 am
Entry tags:
She can scream and she can sing and she can lift up the world
This is a good post.
I didn't know I was fat until my mother told me. I felt fine with myself. I didn't notice that I ate more than other kids (I don't think I did, to be honest), and none of my friends ever said anything to me about being fat. But I remember when my mother first commented on my size. I was probably between eight and ten years old. I don't have a lot of childhood memories, but I vaguely remember the conversation in the dressing room. It was something like "You can't wear that. You're too chubby for it." "I'm not chubby." "Yes, you are. Look in the mirror." "Oh."
And it was a like a light switch flip. When we walked into the dressing room, the reflection I saw was just me. When we left the dressing room, the reflection I saw was fat me.
My mother thought I was fat enough to take ten-year-old me to specialists to make sure there was nothing wrong with me. There wasn't--at least nothing they found.
When I was fourteen, the extra fat just...went away. I wasn't doing anything different. Puberty simply took care of it for me. However, I was damned if I was going to leave the maintenance of my newly-thin body to chance. I started starving myself. I never exhibited signs of severe anorexia, so nobody ever did anything about it. But I remember tracking my calories for a Home Ec project and the teacher being (justifiably) concerned that I was only eating 800 calories a day. She never said anything to my parents, though, and didn't raise the subject with me again. I survived on 800 to 1,000 calories a day (with occasional weekend binges of pizza, burgers, tacos, and malts and secret night binges of powdered sugar gem doughnuts or Reese's Mini Peanut Butter cups with my grandma) for more than three years.
It's no surprise that my body is such a mess.
I'm not laying all the blame for my health woes on my mother, but I can't help wondering: If she'd ignored the fact that I was chubbier than most of my peers, kept her opinion to herself, and just let me be a chubby kid, unaware and unselfconscious of my size, would I have all these issues today? In her defense, my mother also frequently told me that I was the most beautiful girl in the world. But why did she feel that only applied to my face?
With society's insane marketing culture today, kids can't eat whatever they want, whenever they want, and never engage in any sort of physical activity. I'm not saying parents shouldn't try to raise healthy kids. But I know from personal experience that putting a value judgement on a child's size and shape can cause permanent damage--not all of it psychological.
I didn't know I was fat until my mother told me. I felt fine with myself. I didn't notice that I ate more than other kids (I don't think I did, to be honest), and none of my friends ever said anything to me about being fat. But I remember when my mother first commented on my size. I was probably between eight and ten years old. I don't have a lot of childhood memories, but I vaguely remember the conversation in the dressing room. It was something like "You can't wear that. You're too chubby for it." "I'm not chubby." "Yes, you are. Look in the mirror." "Oh."
And it was a like a light switch flip. When we walked into the dressing room, the reflection I saw was just me. When we left the dressing room, the reflection I saw was fat me.
My mother thought I was fat enough to take ten-year-old me to specialists to make sure there was nothing wrong with me. There wasn't--at least nothing they found.
When I was fourteen, the extra fat just...went away. I wasn't doing anything different. Puberty simply took care of it for me. However, I was damned if I was going to leave the maintenance of my newly-thin body to chance. I started starving myself. I never exhibited signs of severe anorexia, so nobody ever did anything about it. But I remember tracking my calories for a Home Ec project and the teacher being (justifiably) concerned that I was only eating 800 calories a day. She never said anything to my parents, though, and didn't raise the subject with me again. I survived on 800 to 1,000 calories a day (with occasional weekend binges of pizza, burgers, tacos, and malts and secret night binges of powdered sugar gem doughnuts or Reese's Mini Peanut Butter cups with my grandma) for more than three years.
It's no surprise that my body is such a mess.
I'm not laying all the blame for my health woes on my mother, but I can't help wondering: If she'd ignored the fact that I was chubbier than most of my peers, kept her opinion to herself, and just let me be a chubby kid, unaware and unselfconscious of my size, would I have all these issues today? In her defense, my mother also frequently told me that I was the most beautiful girl in the world. But why did she feel that only applied to my face?
With society's insane marketing culture today, kids can't eat whatever they want, whenever they want, and never engage in any sort of physical activity. I'm not saying parents shouldn't try to raise healthy kids. But I know from personal experience that putting a value judgement on a child's size and shape can cause permanent damage--not all of it psychological.