From Big Fat Delicious: Some Thoughts on Fat Identity

I found this blog entry interesting...

"Some Thoughts on Fat Identity"

In it she talks about girls who are thin, who are critiqued over their weight and memories about being younger and really not that big and told how she is fat over and over.

Now, before y'all start flaming me - understand where I'm coming from as a DEATHFATZ woman who, when I look back at pictures of me as a kid/teenager, wasn't really fat back then but sure as hell thought I was because that's all I heard. Sure, I never wore single digit sizes in my life (well, maybe as a baby and a toddler), and I don't remember ever wearing a size that wasn't classified as "Chubby" in girls' sizes or ever getting to wear any of the clothes like my peers wore when I was teen (I had to shop in the womens' sections of the stores to find anything over size 14/16 to fit me). But I wasn't fat like I'm fat now

I think about the times I was younger, and remember being 12-13 years old wearing size 12, and ironically remember being told how fat I was. At that age, I sunk to the level where some of the teasing stopped, but it was short lived, a summer where my parents had bought a pool membership, probably brought me more exercise, and the 100lb weight gain that would come in high school and from the blossoming of PCOS, would still be acouple years in the future and would begin after the trauma of a move on my 13th birthday. [Remember the 12 plus years I speak of where I was in the mid 200s before my massive fast weight gain that drove my weight to nearly 700lbs?]

There is one moment that stands out in my mind, where the brown size 12/13 pants suit with vest I wore on New Years Eve no longer fits 6 months later and my mother is very angry at me, at the time, I felt devestated and like I was being blamed for something beyond my control. Later I would wonder why didn't anyone take me to a doctor since my weight would skyrocket so fast especially between 1983 [the summer I went out West with my family and 1984?]

My life where my average weight was around 240-250, with a few 30lb up and downs for many years is ironic now, as I remember the job discrimination, losing jobs-over my bad lungs where the doctors gave me prednisone would put back on weight I lost and then later more, the health problems and it seemed the unyielding unending abuse just for being bigger [remember I was 5'11] then the average person.

I think how did all of this affect me in the long haul? It seems they just want to bombard fat people further, rather then come up with any real answers of making lives more happy and healthy? Consider I was later diagnosed with at least one endocrine condition related to stress and high levels of cortisol, what did all this do for me but hurt my health worse?

How many people especially women live under a rain cloud of despair for an extra 20,30, 50 plus pounds? What does this do for their health in the long run? Maybe they are ensuring more fatter and sicker people down the road! I think so.

She goes on to talk about the expected perfection and more things they pressure people to fulfil, mostly to make money.

I think more and more our society has lost its mind. The feelings are very poignant when I look back at the pictures of myself at age 12-13, and see a very pretty girl who may have a little plumpness to her but who otherwise was very good looking.