A few years ago, I woke up and realized
something:
I've hated my body almost my whole life.
That's because
for all, but a few, brief years, I've been overweight. And when
you're zaftig in our society, it carries a stigma; you're labeled
“lazy,” “slovenly,” and undisciplined. Now, of course,
you're also told by doctors that you're unhealthy (despite what
doctors have now learned about the damage that up and down dieting
does to your body).
Growing up, I was the last picked for
teams. My mother shopped in the “hefty” department at Sears
where the clothes were made of scratchy polyester and looked as if
they belonged on old people. Because it was and, to some degree, is
still acceptable to belittle those of us who are curvy, I was mocked
which made me shyer and shyer.
Nowadays, there's greater awareness of
body image and how damaging shaming is, but that hasn't stopped
strangers from continuing to make comments. The worst was a little
boy in the grocery store who came up to me a few years back and
declared loudly, “I've never seen anybody as fat as you!” His
mother just stood and said, “Now, Jimmy, you shouldn't say that”
(if my kid ever said anything like that, I'd drag her out of that
store pronto and we'd have quite a talking to!). I dug my heels in as the
child stared at me and a crowd gathered. “Honey, people come in
all shapes and sizes and that's okay,” I said, still mortified.
(What I should have said was, “You're a rude little shit who should
learn from friggin manners!”)
I've lost weight and gained it back,
lost it and gained it – yo-yo dieting they call it and, as I said
before, doctors have learned that it damages the body severely. At
the moment, I'm heavy again, this despite eating right and
exercising. I'm tired - of dieting and fed up with the criticism.
That day, a few years back, I realized HOW MANY YEARS I'D SPENT
HATING MY BODY! More than half a decade! And I resolved to stop.
I
looked in the mirror, at the body that's born one child and nurtured
another, and realized: I'm beautiful no matter what my weight!
It's an attitude that's served me well.
Every day I look in the mirror and celebrate my curvy body. I've
joined Facebook groups and subscribe to pages that publicize healthy
images, no matter what the number on the scale says. And when my
husband looked at me as I was eating a small bowl of barley with milk
the other day and said, “With what you're eating, shouldn't the
pounds be melting off?” I stared back at him in all honesty and
replied, “I like the way I look.”
There are those who will see me this
Summer at the beach and shake their heads at my voluptuous body in my
bathing suit. To them I say,
“It's my body and I'm happy.
If you
don't like it, don't look!”
