I didn’t used to feel this way. I barely remember it, but I know that time is there.
I was 8 when my struggle with food began, though I didn’t know it at the time. How could I? I was a child, and all I knew was that food tasted good. My tonsils had just been removed, the surgery freeing my taste buds far better than it freed my airways. The thin, tired child of my second grade yearbook photo began to fill out as I luxuriated in my newfound sense. I spent my pocket change on candy at the mini-mart, savoring each mini M&M, my favorite, one at a time.
It never crossed my mind that there could be too much of a good thing.
Three years later, I was half a world away. I had only lived in Japan a short time—long enough to have survived the breaking-in period of a new school, but not long enough to have found my sure place in it yet. We all filed into an annex building to have a check-up. The metal bar weighed on my head to measure my height. Hands ran down my spine, checking for the slightest curvature. And then I kicked off my shoes and stepped onto the scale.
It was the last time the scale wouldn’t scare me.
As we filed out, we started talking about the physical, comparing our numbers like scar stories. "I was 123 pounds."
"123?" One of the other girls asked. "Really? That’s a lot."
It wasn’t a supermodel on a billboard. It wasn’t a photo-shopped celebrity on a magazine cover. It wasn’t an emaciated teenager strutting down the catwalk. It wasn’t struggling into a pair of skinny jeans in a fitting room. All those things would contribute after the fact, but in the beginning, it was an innocent comment. Just one. And that’s when I knew I was fat.
11 is far too young to feel ugly or unwanted, but there it was.
Photographic evidence belies that deep-seated belief. I was a healthy, athletic kid—maybe with a bit of baby fat left, but nothing that was unhealthy or unattractive or unnatural. But the camera ham—the same girl who refused to get out of the photos of her older brother’s first day of first grade—began to disappear. Bright colors and shorts were traded for baggy t-shirts and jeans. By the time we left Japan, there was no trace of the well-adjusted girl I had been.
I’m not sure if I’ll ever get her back.
Twelve years of negative reinforcement—from both within and without—have ingrained this belief into my very identity. My logical self struggles to end the fat talk. After all, I am not physically limited by my weight. I can fit in an airplane seat comfortably. I can find clothes in my size without having to go to a special section or store. I can exercise normally. I am not at risk for diabetes or heart disease. There is nothing about the number on the scale that prevents me from living the life I want. By all accounts, I am not fat.
By all accounts, except my own. It’s me. I am the one who frowns at the sight of dimples on my thighs. I am the one who agonizes over the size of my "pooch." I am the one who refuses to wear a bikini or short shorts. I am the one who looks at photos of myself and grimaces. I am the one who chastises herself after enjoying a donut or milkshake. I am the one who equates my weight with my attractiveness, and my attractiveness with my self-worth. I am the one who engages in the fat talk.
It’s unproductive. It’s hurtful. But I can’t stop. I am addicted to the idea that I am unworthy.
There are support groups for many kinds of addiction, programs with steps and meetings and sponsors. But what about an addiction that is socially ingrained as normal?
After all, it’s a cliché for a woman to ask her hapless male partner, "Does this make me look fat?"
The two most vocal responses to the fat talk phenomena I’ve encountered are the "fitspo" (or fit-inspiration) and "body positive" (or fat-acceptance) movements. I think there is value in both movements, and I’ve gained helpful advice and tips from both. But I don’t think they reach the root of my addiction. After all, these movements represent only pieces of the famous Serenity Prayer used by AA and other addiction recovery programs:
1. Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, (Body positive, or accepting my body as worthy and beautiful)
2. The courage to change the things I can, (Fitspo, or making sure I am living a healthy lifestyle)
3. And the wisdom to know the difference. (…wisdom?)
Without the wisdom to know the difference, how can I recover? How can I know the difference when the fat talk still poisoned me when I was at my lowest weight? How can I know the difference when I can’t trust my eyes to tell me the truth about what I see in the mirror?
For that wisdom, I need objectivity. It is my objective mind that reminds me that I am healthy—and I can always improve my habits if that changes. It is my objective mind that reminds me that I am loved—and that love will not disappear if I gain 5 pounds or grow if I lose 10. It is my objective mind that reminds me that I am accomplished—and my accomplishments are neither negated nor made more impressive by my appearance. It is my objective mind that overrides the fat talk.
It is my subjective mind that subjugates me. It mires me in the negative comparisons and the self-doubt and the inadequacies that have filled my mind and my conversations for twelve years, making calories and scales and mirrors enemies rather than tools. It ruins days and darkens what should be happy memories.
Even in the safe spaces—at church, at the dance studio, at home—and with safe people—my friends, my family, my boyfriend—the fat talk creeps in. Why are girls nights punctuated by the same sheepish-expressions as someone picks up another slice of pizza or opens another cold one? Why are healthy women self-conscious of the cellulite that the stretch fabric of gym pants only seems to emphasize? Why do I think about the teeny muffin top created by the waistband of my dress pants when I get up for the benediction?
I must take responsibility for my addiction. I must take responsibility for the hurt it causes myself, and for the hurt it perpetuates in those around me. I may be skipping a few steps in the usual 12-step program, but I want to apologize.
- For when I start the fat talk, I apologize for my selfishness by allowing conversations to center around my insecurities.
- For when I join in the fat talk, I apologize for my abetting any insecurities others may have.
- For when I believe the fat talk, I apologize for my lack of trust in the opinions and love of those who try to convince me otherwise.
This is the season of sacrifice, of giving up, but I can’t promise to give up the fat talk for what’s left of the Lenten season. Or even for a week. But I can promise to try, one day at a time.
In the future, I hope to celebrate ten years of sobriety from the fat talk. And I will give myself a chip. It will be fried and made out of potato and I probably won’t eat just one.
But each and every one of those calories will be entirely and truly guilt-free.
