I'm Four Years Old

At a party, where I spent most of my time hovering over the delicious snack table, the issue of body image came up. In conversation somebody mentioned that if you are anything over a size 8, it’s harder to get any kind of job, even reception work. I am over a size 8. I might soon need to be looking for work. You can imagine how this made me feel while I was inhaling a cupcake- with extra frosting.

The first time I was told I was fat was when I was four years old. It’s funny, I don’t even remember who it was that told me I was fat. I just remember the staggering aftermath. I started reading labels, not really sure what I was looking at but arbitrarily limiting what I would and would not eat based on numbers that I didn’t understand. I started working out alone in my bedroom every night. Most tragically, after a week or two of restricting myself I started finding time alone to eat ‘bad foods’ because I didn’t want to feel judged by those who saw me. Because I lived in a busy household, eating while I was alone meant scarfing down whatever junk I could get my hands on before anyone came around. I would take a fistful of cookies into the bathroom and shove them in my mouth. I would eat dinners slowly so that when I was finished everyone else was already focused on the television and I could sneak seconds which I would eat as fast as I could. I was FOUR! Honestly, I can objectively say I never had a single fat day during my fourth year on this planet. I’ve seen plenty of pictures and I was a tiny little thing, slimmer than average. It boggles my mind why anyone would tell me I was fat, and why I would take someone calling me fat to heart?

I assume it was because I heard the adults agonizing over food choices and whatever the diet fad was in the mid 80s. We had copies of Jane Fonda’s workouts, Richard Simmons, too. I remember being a fan of Sweatin’ to the Oldies, in particular. I saw my older siblings and cousins get teased by other family members because of their bodies, and knew it was inevitable that I would be too. I already understood the stereo types of fat kids- that they were dumb bullies who probably smelled bad. It’s regularly said that kids pick up everything. Less commonly heard is that kids apply what they pick up to how they view themselves.

So here I am, twenty years later, still doing the same things I did as a child. You’d think as a woman I have the logic and reason to know better and act differently. And maybe I would if I still didn’t feel that I’ll be judged and stereotyped. What’s worse is that it wouldn’t be judgment from family who loved me, though they sometimes had a terrible way of showing it. This time, it’s by the masses. When I compare me as an individual to the population of the world, I still feel like a tiny four year old, with too much alone time and the means to buy as many fistfuls of cookies as I can keep down. I don't feel like I'm back at square one, I feel like I never moved passed it.