Let’s Talk About The ‘F’ Word

Growing up, there were two ‘F’ words I tried to avoid at all costs - the one we all already know and the word fat.

For most of my life, I thought that being fat was a secret that I had to keep. Something that no one would know about if I just didn’t acknowledge it, something that kept me awake at night as I went over and over the ways in which people might discover my shameful, impossible-to-hide secret. For years I couldn’t go a single minute without wondering what other people were thinking about my body. Not a single moment of any day that I was not, at least a little, thinking about the fact that I was fat and what that meant for my life as a whole.

Even though I now love my body for all that it is and all that it isn’t, the way in which I exist in the world as a plus size woman, and the way in which I existed as a chubby little girl, has made my experience of life different in ways that might not be immediately obvious to those who grew up in thinner bodies.

I’ve always been on the heavier side - I was a chubby kid with chubby kid cheeks, and when all the other kids grew into and out of their baby fat, I just couldn’t seem to shake mine. When I first realized that I was actually considered “fat” - which mind you was in the fourth grade (how horrifying, right?), it kickstarted a self-hatred spiral that would last the better part of the next 10-12 years.

I spent over a decade embarrassed to eat in front of anyone, sneaking snacks when no one was looking and hiding the wrappers under other things in the trash. If no one else was eating, I had to refuse food that was offered, even if I wanted it. Even if I was starving and could hear my stomach growling, I would have rather gone hungry than be the token fat girl who was always eating. I spent every Winter telling myself this would be the year I got “skinny”, and every Spring terrified of the bathing suit season to come. I squeezed into too-small jeans and spent days with angry red lines across my abdomen where the denim met my skin, knowing that to go up even one size was a failure, but as I got older I couldn’t seem to help it. I didn’t understand why I didn’t look like the other girls or why my body seemed to only get bigger, but I knew that it was somehow my own personal failing and I hated myself for it.

We learn to feel ashamed of our bodies at such a young age that even as an adult, I could not wrap my mind around the fact that I did not have to be.

It breaks my heart to think about the things that I missed out on, or felt like I couldn’t partake in because I was chubby and wrongfully assumed that it was the worst thing a girl could be. I was genuinely a child, and yet I spent every waking moment preoccupied by thoughts of “is my shirt sticking to my stomach too much?” and “how can I be a better person, so that I can make up for being fat.” My 9 year old self deserved better, and it devastates me to think that her experiences were only the beginning of the shame I had yet to experience about my weight.

By the time I got to my teens and early twenties, I had convinced myself completely that I was inherently unloveable and somehow still spent all my time thinking about dating and relationships. It felt so far out of reach for me, the thought that someone would ever find me attractive, that someone would ever want to kiss me or date me or be seen with me in public. I dreamt of love and romance, but at the same time I hated myself and was certain that, given the chance to really get to know me, other people would too. I wanted to ignore the fact that I was fat, ignore the fear that someday someone would notice, but there was no escaping it. In every area of my life, the experiences I had were different because of the size of my body and my brain never let it escape my notice.

I saw it at 14 in the bedroom of my friend before the homecoming dance, where they talked about being “fat” like it was a dirty word and complained about sizing up from a 0 to a 2, while I was sitting in the corner pulling on the fabric that clung to my body and desperately wishing I looked more like them.

I saw it at 16 in my high school gym on a Saturday night, when a “hot” guy asked me to dance, but no one - not even the guy in question, was shy about letting me know that it was out of either pity or a misplaced sense of friendship, because it just wasn’t plausible that someone like that would be into someone like me.

I saw it at 18 sitting on the bench of every sport I played, knowing deep down that I was just as good, if not better, than the other girls on the field, but also knowing that no one would ever care about my skills more than they cared about my size. Knowing that coaches and teammates could not reconcile the fact that I could be both fat and an athlete.

I saw it at 20 in my college dorm room getting ready for a night out, listening to friends who looked like models talk about how scared they were of the freshman 15 and how they had to hit the gym while they pinched the skin that covered their fat stomachs, not-quite-trying to be subtle about glancing in my direction as they did.

I saw it at 22 in the crowded bar with my friends when a group of guys approached and introduced themselves to every single person in the group except for me. Like somehow being the “big” friend meant I wasn’t even worth the time it would take to acknowledge me, not even worth a nod or a fake attempt at politeness, as though I didn’t even exist - like the more space that I took up, the less people could see me.

And so I ended up doing anything I could to make them see me, to somehow become worthy of their acknowledgment, as though I wasn’t before.

I played up my assets and I learned what flaws I was supposed to be hiding. I sexualized myself so that I could feel hot and attractive and worthy of attention, even though I was fat. As though I couldn’t be all of these things in addition to, rather than in spite of, the size of my body.

All of these misguided attempts at validation were only confirming my greatest fears - that I was hot enough to hook up with, but not hot enough to date, but I couldn’t seem to help it. I watched so many of my traditionally beautiful friends get into perfect relationships with other traditionally beautiful people, while I listened to yet another man tell me I was beautiful in private, attempting to convince myself that these secret crumbs of affection would be enough.

And of course, every new man came with an excuse, some reason as to why they’re “not ready for a relationship” or “not looking for anything serious” even as they pushed for the benefits of one without putting in any of the effort. But it wouldn’t matter if they gave you 100 reasons why, because even if you know it’s masochistic and you could simply choose to believe whatever bullshit they’re feeding you, you can never be totally sure that it wasn’t the size of your body that deemed you ineligible. You can never get rid of the burning question, never escape the horrible thought that if you had been thinner, if you had been a size 4 instead of a 14, would things have turned out differently? It’s impossible to say, which makes ruminating on it an exercise in futility that’s hard to give up.

The good thing about it is that whether or not the size of my body had anything to do with it, they were never worthy of my time and energy to begin with.

Now, does that stop the intrusive thoughts that work so very hard to hang onto all of my old insecurities? Definitely not. They’re still there, waiting for my brain to let it’s guard down, waiting for me to glance in the mirror and not love what I see so they can once again trap my mind in a self-hatred chokehold. But just because the thoughts are there does not mean that I have to let them hurt me, or make me feel bad.

When I start feeling negatively about my body, I remind myself that there is actually nothing inherently bad about being fat. You can be fat and healthy. You can be fat and happy. You can be fat and in love and confident and achieve all of your wildest dreams.

Contradictory to what I was led to believe, being soft and full of curves is, in fact, not the worst thing a woman can be.

In learning to embrace my body, I’m learning to embrace all kinds of other exciting parts of myself that I had tried to ignore. Without shame to hide behind, I’m able to get to know who exactly I am, who I’ve always been but tried so hard not to be, and who I want to grow into and become. I’m realizing just how much there is to like about myself after years of thinking otherwise. And while it’s not always easy, at the very least I am trying. I may be a work in progress, and there may be days that I want nothing more than to pick myself a part, but I am talking about it and writing about it and refusing to allow misplaced shame to scare me into continued silence. And to me, that’s a win.

So the secret is officially out - growing up fat was hard, but embracing myself exactly as I am has been the best thing I’ve ever done. It’s made me love every curve and dimple on my body, helped me cut off relationships that no longer served me, encouraged a healthy level of self-obsession and made me realize that through it all, even as cliche as it sounds, I wouldn’t change a damn thing.