Bullies and Fat People

This is an emotional subject for me, so I hope you will allow me the freedom to expose my soul to you for a few moments.  You see, I have spent my entire life living with obesity and since at 53 it doesn't look like I will finish my life in any other state, I have been working very hard to accept myself, flab and all.

Obesity seems to be one of the last free-for-alls when it comes to bullying, snide remarks, rude comments, or demoralizing and embarrassing expressions of opinions.  As a child in the 1960's I was certainly in the minority but not alone.  There were others who took much more teasing than I did, but it was always a very painful experience to stand on the scale in front of everyone for the annual weight recording by the school nurse or disrobe in the locker room after PE class.

Unfortunately, school was not the only place comments were made to me about my size, and at home food was a huge subject of conversation.  I was large (tall and big boned) for my age and many seemingly harmless comments about my size were casually thrown around without regard as to how they would affect me for the rest of my life.  I recall being around six when my mom tried to buy me a bathing suit and had to get an adult size because of my long torso.  My parents meant well, but my dad believed overweight to be among the worst physical attributes a person could have, so his jibes were more pointed and consistent, especially after my mother died when I was nine.  If subtle reminders weren't working, he went on a more direct attack with humiliation.

My weight has fluctuated through the years, and I have tried so many diets and weight loss routines I have quit counting. I have not only dieted and exercised, I have done meditation, EFT, and any other thing I could find that gave me hope.  I drew the line at gastric by-pass surgery, even though my doctor at one point recommended it.  That was when I quit trusting western medicine for anything other than a broken bone.

The first time anyone actually regulated my food intake was the summer my mom died.  My aunt and uncle had gone to Arizona to visit my mom and offered to take me with them for the summer.  We drove across the country and as was their way, ate from a cooler along the way.  The first night we stopped at a hotel with a pool and I swam for a couple of hours.  When I emerged I was famished, having had only a peanut butter sandwich for lunch.  My aunt felt I needed to go on a reducing diet, and fed me a small tin of fruit cocktail mixed with a teaspoon of mayonnaise for dinner.  I was actually hungrier after I finished than when I started, and that was all I was given until the next morning.  It was during that summer I began sneaking food a habit that continued until high school when I was caught and had things 'splained to me with a paddle.

The next diet I went on was a few years later, when as an early teen I was encouraged to join Weight Watchers.  I dutifully went to the meetings and my sister diligently prepared the food for me to eat.  I don't really remember if I lost much weight, but I do remember being hungry all the time.

I ended up attending Oral Roberts University for college, and one of the stipulations for matriculation was to pass an HPER (health, physical education, recreation) course each semester.  They were big proponents of Kenneth Cooper's Aerobics program, and it was misery for me.  Eating cafeteria food ended up driving my weight up instead of down, making the exercise (which I had never enjoyed) even more painful and challenging.  I eventually flunked out of college, feeling like a failure on many levels, mostly because so much emphasis was placed on my physical condition.  The university has since changed their policy, but it was unfortunate for me they ever had that stipulation in place to begin with.

When I met Ornery, I weighed about 175 lbs.  I am 5'9" tall, so that isn't way overweight, but I still felt like the fatty I had been led to believe I was all while I was growing up. He tried to encourage me to accept myself, but just before we married, I spent a couple of months at home dieting (starving myself) so I would look good for our wedding.  I managed to drop down to my lowest weight since before my mom died, and married in a size 13 dress, weighing 145 lbs.  That was the last time I saw those numbers on the scale.

Fortunately for me, Ornery wasn't interested in a skinny girl.  He says he always looked at them and thought they looked unhealthy.  His grandmother Miller was a larger woman and always healthy and jovial, so he found nothing offensive or wrong with my size.  We were married in May and in November our first child was conceived.  I gained about 70 lbs. during my pregnancy and lost only a pittance after Elizabeth was born.  Of course my doctor was horrified every time I stepped on the scale, and he warned me that I shouldn't gain so much weight.

(According to scientific study, a link has been noted between childhood obesity to having a mother who dieted during pregnancy.  This makes sense since the body automatically adjusts to starvation conditions attempting to preserve itself.)

Whatever.  I didn't eat more or less than usual, but certainly less than my trim husband! I have never had a huge appetite, and it has always been a mystery to me why my body was so sure it needed to store fat.  I was always busy, tried to eat a well balanced diet, and other than a few years when I had a horrible Dr. Pepper habit, I have generally speaking eaten fairly healthy. I have never been a big exerciser, tending to get most of my activity from cleaning, gardening, and working on various other projects.

I gained about the same amount with our second child, and while I don't remember how much I weighed at his delivery, I remember being mortified and ashamed of my body.  I was actually much more active during that pregnancy because we lived in the Marshall Islands and had to bike or walk everywhere.  I never really lost the weight from that pregnancy either, and it was at that time that Ornery decided having babies was too hard on my body to have any more.

Between the time Ryan was born and my 40th birthday, I played a little at losing weight from time to time, but never really got serious.  A couple months before I turned 40, Ornery and I went to Cancun for a week get-away.  While there I twisted my knee walking on the beach and had a steroid shot to help the pain.  I wasn't aware I was allergic, and by the time we started home, I had developed some really odd symptoms. Several trips to the doctor later, I was mis-diagnosed as having Hodgkin's Disease, since all the other tests (Epstein Barr, etc.) came back negative. I was really sick!!!

While lying on the table getting some sort of medical test where they injected some sort of dye or iodine (I don't remember what) into my system, my fever broke, my symptoms went away and I was fine again. (The doctor never did really know what was wrong, and it wasn't until a couple years later after having another cortisone shot with the same symptoms that I made the connection.)  The relief was so great I decided I would make some lifestyle changes because I was sure I was way too young to die.

I went cold turkey on the Dr. Pepper, joined Curves and worked out five or six days a week. I refused to weigh because I didn't want to know and because I was afraid the scale wouldn't go that high.  Eventually (after I had dropped a couple of sizes in clothes) I weighed and measured for the first time, and was pretty close to 350 lbs. I was on a roll, and lost down to about 275 before life interfered and I quit exercising and starving myself.

It wasn't just exercise that helped me lose weight; I used Advocare supplements and shakes, as well as Weight Watchers again.  That lifestyle was so stifling and limiting I just couldn't keep up with it and work part-time, homeschool, and keep the other parts of my life going. Without all the strict monitoring and self-imposed limits, the weight took no time in piling back on.

The summer of 2008 I was introduced to hCG and The Diet Cure book. I was hopeful after being hopeless for so long as I made numerous adjustments to my lifestyle and even managed to get Ornery to join me on this journey.  At first I made great progress, losing the pound a day the program assured me I would.  In the end I had done 9 or 10 rounds of the protocol and had lost a total of 150 lbs. I think I was at the lowest weight I had been since I delivered Elizabeth when I finally said, "ENOUGH!!"

The dramatic weight loss was life changing for me.  I gained confidence, was interested in clothes for the first time ever, and did crazy things like wear make-up, earrings and even fix my hair.  I joined Toastmaster's and whizzed right through the first book of speeches.  Unfortunately, the rapid weight loss caused my body to cramp--some cramps so bad in my thigh that I passed out. They were excruciating and frequent, and a sure sign my body was not happy with something I was doing.  I lost a lot of hair and had some other uncomfortable reactions.  The diet was so restrictive that my social life dwindled to nil. We missed birthday parties, didn't eat at wedding receptions, and the list goes on and on.

HCG may indeed be all it was touted to be for some, but for Ornery and me it was simply the catalyst for permanent weight GAIN.  Since then, Ornery and I have both put back on weight that we never had before. We are both bigger than ever and we both wish we had never done that program as it apparently altered something in our hormonal make up that has kept the weight from budging.

Now that you have some background information, I will get to the point of my rant post.  Yesterday I read two different posts relating to obesity.  One was a simple remark stating that one significant cause of childhood obesity is not sitting down together and eating meals as a family.  While the fact that a well adjusted, secure child is less likely to develop eating disorders, there is so much more to the complex issue of obesity than just dining together.  If those meals are fraught with negative comments about the child instead of encouragement, they would be better off left to dine alone.  If this concept was the main key to success, then I certainly never would have gained weight as a child, because we always sat down together as a family to eat, often to the haranguing remarks about cleaning my plate.

The other post was much more pointed at the physical appearance of a neighbor who unfortunately had failed to close her curtains before disrobing. More distressing than the post were the comments that followed, and it stirred in me some latent childhood angst against those who seem to believe that 1) fat people could control their situation, 2) that they somehow must be unaware of their state, 3) that they are worth less than those who do not struggle with the condition of their body storing fat instead of using it, and 4) that they should remain hidden out of sight.

I have spent the last two years huddled in my house, embarrassed to go out.  When I do go out, I am self-conscious and uncomfortable. It is reflected in the way I interact with my neighbors and even sometimes my family.  When my sister offers a suggestion about a way to improve my health or weight I snap at her, when I truly appreciate that she is concerned for me.

Unfortunately I have discovered that most of the accepted practices for weight control are ineffective in the long run, and are often detrimental to long term health.  Standard medical opinions suggest that almost any illness can be helped by the loss of a few pounds--everything from high cholesterol to sleep apnea and insulin resistance/diabetes.  If that was the case, thin people would not suffer from any of those conditions, yet clearly they do.  Obesity is not a disease, it is a condition brought on by some other cause.  It is the effect, not the cause of ailments.  While a nominal weight loss may temporarily correct these conditions, it is not a long term fix, and eventually as the body reestablishes equilibrium, they tend to resurface, often more insidiously.

This January when I was "making my resolutions" I determined that 2012 was the last year I would be ashamed of my body.  I have hated myself for my entire adult life. What is sad is that my physical appearance is such a small part of who I am.  I have so much to offer in a relationship--love, generosity, compassion, kindness, creativity, joy and more.  Yet I push people away because I don't want to be judged by my appearance or my inability to conquer this challenge.  I also have a great deal of knowledge and wisdom gained from a lifetime of learning--not a college degree, but the school of LIFE. My unique attributes and skills have languished while I focus on making my body more socially acceptable.

Forty two years of my life have been wasted by being ashamed and focused on that part of myself, but I don't have the opportunity to share my history and anguish with a stranger who sees me out in a public place.  I have to hope they haven't been conditioned to believe that only thin and beautiful people have a right to be seen in public.  I pray they don't judge me as being stupid or lazy just because my body has decided to hold all the fat in case I decide to starve myself again.

So next time you are tempted to criticize that person (stranger or loved one) for being too fat (after likely a lifetime of self-deprivation and embarrassment), offer suggestions about a diet they might try (none of which work in the long term, and if anything promote obesity), ask if they should be eating that food (yes, they should, and without censure) you might instead consider conversing with them about what awesome quality they are hiding out of fear and shame.

Every person, without fail, has redeeming qualities.  It is the act of a bully to point out a deficiency and laugh about it, but the act of maturity to look beyond the surface to see the good that resides in others.  Who knows, you may discover that beneath that excess of fat there is an incredible person hiding.  Let's put a stop to negative remarks about weight--whether your own weight or that of someone else--and delight in the remarkable people we are.  When we show love for our fellow man and woman, we give them the gift of acceptance which frees them to return the gift.