In an effort to be real, I'm just putting it out there, sometimes being fat sucks. In the last two days, I've had my self esteem kicked in the teeth.
A couple days ago, while picking up my daughter from daycare, her little friend (who's all of three years old) asked rather directly, "Why are you so big?" She didn't mean any harm, and I just told her this is what happened because I ate junk food for many years. However, what ensued next made it kind of embarrasing. Our daycare lady, who didn't fully hear what was asked, but heard my response, asked incredulously, "WHAT did she just ask you?" Fail #1. I had to repeat the question. Then our formerly-heavy-but-now-thin-thanks-to-lap-band daycare lady says, "___, we do NOT say things like that! It's rude! Say you're sorry!" So the little girl, who looks like she's going to cry, squeaks out an "I'm sorry" and hangs her head. Fail #2. Making someone feel like crap for asking a question out of curiosity, not spite. That made it so much worse than if we addressed the question and left it at that because that added an element of shame to it. The lesson taught to this little girl was "Being fat is something you hide, not discuss and it's bad." I would have rather presented it to her as "Being fat just means you're a different shape and you shouldn't eat junk food, you should eat healthy because it's better for you." And we wonder why we have such body phobias in life.
The second and third blows came yesterday. While sitting at lunch, one of my sweet, elderly co-workers asked out of the blue, "I know you don't want gastric bypass, but have you considered Lap-band?" Like sitting there watching me at my trough at the lunch table brought up thoughts of my should-be-necessary-need to make myself smaller. Then after my 3 o'clock break, one of our aids (who I SWEAR has Aspergers, just judging by the lack of filters and social graces continually exhibited), while waiting for supplies asks me, "So, what made you fall off the wagon? I noticed you gained all your weight back," as he then proceeded to tell me exactly how I needed to telepathically channel my ancestors via the cosmos to beat my genetic predisposition to being fat. Wow. I'm also thinking he may sit around at night in a tin-foil hat trying to intercept alien transmissions.
So last night, I let it get to me. I let it ruin my day. It's one thing to be fat and be comfortable being fat. For the most part I am. I know I want to clean up my eating so that my blood pressure will go down and my breathing will be easier, and shaving my legs isn't an olympic event anymore, but do I care that I have more adipose tissue than the average person? Not really. I still dress up and do my hair and makeup and feel pretty. I think I do a pretty good job. I'm not haggard and slovenly. But it's another thing entirely that other people are sitting around pondering my weight and thinking of the best way to approach me with their opinion of what I should do about it? Why do I care?
I honestly don't know. I don't write this to have a "Whoa is me" pity party or anything like that. For starters, it just reaffirmed that I need to educate people on how fat people like to be treated. It amazes me how many people hate that I use the word fat, as if the word itself is bad. It's a word. And it is what it is. It's a descriptive word. It is neutral, not good or bad. It's only what prejudice we attach to the word that gives it sway one way or the other. I am fat. And I'm ok with that being used as a descriptive word. To use the terms chubby, fluffy, rubenesque, queen-sized, heavy-set, big-boned, etc seems to be just a way to "soften the blow" of a prejudice towards fat. I guess maybe that is why it bothers me when someone questions why/how someone became fat. Do we ask an overly thin person how they became that way? Perhaps if there was a great transition from fat to thin. And it's usually posed with a level of excitement. Because someone has beat the fat curse and attained the thin body that everyone should have. That's never the way someone asks how someone became fat. Truth be told, I don't mind when little kids ask. They're just curious and innocent, and as of yet, there's no stigma attached. It's for gathering information only, rather than the way grown people ask, always with either a sound of sympathy or derision in their voice. It's never a "Hey, I noticed you're fat. Have you always been fat?" Do you think perhaps that's because grown adults KNOW the answer, or at least understand how it works. So why do they act like they don't? We don't go around telling random people how they can get a handle on their diabetes or high blood pressure or acne or whatever, unless asked for advice. Yet, it never fails to astonish me the number of people who want to give me the "cure" for being fat.
I don't want to be cured from being fat. I want to be healthy. I want to have a strong heart, so I will walk. I want to have a body that isn't inflamed, so I will eat non-inflammatory foods. I want to have increased mobility, so I will stretch and do yoga. Undoubtedly, weight loss will accompany many of these things. But will it make me "skinny" - not necessarily. But I don't want to be skinny and unhealthy, the way many are, living on nicotine and caffeine, who manage to remain a size 6 due their regime of Hydroxycut and Diurex with iceberg salads. No, thank you.
Thank you for allowing me to flesh out my thoughts here. To be able to organize my goals, my stance, and my self worth is such a help. I already am feeling better and am realizing that my self esteem is just fine. I'm just reminded that the world is a fractured, fallen place. Not everyone is on the same journey I am, nor understands that journey, but so long as my eyes are on Christ, my self worth is secure. Fat or thin, healthy or not, I am a daughter of the King Most High. He loves me in ways too grand to measure. His opinion of me is the standard by which I hold myself. No matter what size my body is, I'm choosing to honor Him.
1 Corinthians 6:19,20 - "Do you not know your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit...therefore honor God with your body."
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