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While I was at home this past week, a family member said something to me that brought back a lot of memories of growing up fat. This particular relative had commented to another person that I was a lot bigger than the last time they saw me and that if I wasn’t careful I would be fired from my job. Ignoring the ridiculousness of my being fired from a desk job for being obese (although, in truth, I do think it would be difficult for me to interview and be hired for a new job at this weight), this statement is typical of many that I heard throughout my growing up years.
When the second person told me what was said, I immediately was angry that my family was talking behind my back. I was also embarrassed and ashamed. And it brought many memories flooding back to me of all the cruel words that I heard either directly or indirectly by members of my family regarding my size. It has been a long time since I remembered these things or felt this way, mostly because I live so far from my family that I only see them once or twice a year and because until the past few years my weight has been closer to the normal range and so they have had little to comment on. Here are some comments I was reminded of:
From my dad
“All the mosquitoes want to bite Missy because she is sweet. They don’t want to bite you because you are so fat.” I was probably around 10 years old when I heard this one. It was during a weekend stay at a local lake with my dad, his girlfriend, her two kids, and my brother and me. The girlfriend’s daughter, Missy, I remember being a very whiny kid complaining constantly about mosquitoes. So I, wanting to be the “good girl”, pointed out proudly that no mosquitoes were biting me. I was trying to show my dad that I was good and not whiny. I did not get the reaction I wanted when he snapped back with his cruel retort. I remember feeling crushed. I felt like my dad liked someone else’s daughter more than me and it was because she was “sweet” and I was “fat.” Never mind the fact that Missy was a bratty little shit none of the rest of us wanted to play with. To this day when I hear the name “Missy” I assume the person is a bratty little shit. (My apologies to any nice Missy’s who might be reading).
“Amy will have lots of boyfriends when she is older because she is so pretty. You won’t have any because you are so fat.” I don’t even remember what prompted this mean comment. I do know that my family was always remarking at how pretty my cousin Amy was. I don’t remember that ever bothering me until my dad said this to me. I don’t have kids of my own, but I can’t imagine how a parent could say something so cruel to their young child. Again, I felt rejected for being fat.
From my mom
“Jesus, she’s as big as a skinned ox.” I overheard this one Christmas day. My mom had bought me some clothes for Christmas and when I went to try them on they were too small. They made me come out and model anyway. I was embarrassed enough just with that but when I went back to my bedroom to get out of the clothes, I overhead my mom’s comment. I never said anything but my feelings were so hurt.
From a family friend
“You’re sure a big girl, aren’t you?” I was in high school at this point and I was, indeed, a big girl at 5’11” and probably over 300 pounds. I was aware that I was a “big girl” so I certainly didn’t think I needed it so bluntly pointed out to me in front of a table full of people. We were playing cards and this jackass makes his crack. I was much less assertive then than I am now so I didn’t defend myself in anyway. I just sat quietly in shame with my face turning about 18 shades of red as I willed myself not to cry in front of everyone.
I have many more memories of similar things that were said to me as kid. To this day I cringe when I hear someone make a weight-related comment to a child. I remember when my cousin’s daughter, Betsy, was maybe 5 or 6 she was a chubby little girl and her grandmother (my aunt) used to call her “Thunder Thighs”. She honestly did not think this was cruel and was just a cute nickname. But my heart broke for Betsy because I could imagine how it felt. That cruel nickname coupled with the fact that her older sister was a skinny little rail certainly did her no favors. I told my aunt one day that I thought it was mean to call Betsy “Thunder Thighs” but she just laughed it off. I know it bothered Betsy though, even though she was so young. I know this because one day we were walking my brother’s dog together. The dog was overweight and had a funny gait because of it where he would swing his bottom back and forth. I laughed and said, “Look how he waddles he is so fat.” And little Betsy just looked at me with the sweetest little eyes and said, “Debbie, you shouldn’t make fun of him just because he is fat.” My heart broke right there. She was so young to be so empathetic toward the portly pup. I can only imagine she was capable of that kind of empathy at a young age because of her own experiences of being called “Thunder Thighs” by her own family.
The world can be cruel to fat people. And so can our own parents and families.
Being a fat kid made gym class a horror for me. I dreaded it with a passion, never knowing what embarrassment would next be inflicted on me.
Beginning in the lower grades, it was the small humiliations that bothered me like waiting as teams were picked knowing you were going to be last or the general embarrassment of not being able to do the things that seemed to come so easily to my classmates. One of those things I remember from grade school was rope-climbing. I remember in 4th grade or so we had to take turns trying to shimmy up a rope attached to the gym ceiling, which was the equivalent height of a two-story building. I am not sure how a rational person would think this was a safe activity for 9 year olds, but what do I know? A lot of the kids could scramble up that rope like monkeys but I could not budge one inch up that rope. I don’t really remember anyone laughing or making fun of me, but I remember being horribly embarrassed anyway.
In middle school/junior high, things became a little more traumatic. This was the age where they started making us change and shower for gym class. I was a shy, modest kid anyway, add to it that I towered 6 inches over my dainty classmates and outweighed them by 60 pounds and I was pretty much mortified by the whole process.
Junior high was also when they started weighing us in gym class. To this day I do not know what the purpose of that was. I just remember the absolute panic I felt knowing what was coming on weigh-in days. I remember sitting in class in the hours before gym class bouncing my leg as fast as I could in some vain attempt to shed a couple of pounds before I had to step on that scale. To make matters worse, it wasn’t just the gym teacher who got to see our weights. He selected another student to write down everyone’s weight as he called it out loud for all to hear. Of course he picks the tiniest little girl in the bunch. I still remember Trisha B’s snicker as he read my weight out loud.
It was in high school where gym class really got bad. Mrs. S. was the high school gym teacher and she was a nightmare. Maybe it was my own 300 pound insecurities but I truly felt her disgust and disdain for those of us who were overweight or otherwise athletically challenged. There were two things I remember most from her gym class. One was gymnastics and the other was swimming.
There was a period of a few weeks that we spent on gymnastics. OK, I was a 5’11” 300 pound girl. How was I supposed to do gymnastics? And I am not talking about your basic “hey, let’s do some somersaults and cartwheels.” We had a springboard and one of those gymnastic horse thingies and Mrs. S. was going to teach us to do tricks. So basically, we had to run as fast as we could at a springboard, jump, and attempt to leap over the horse doing whichever trick Mrs. S. called for. For our “safety”, she would always position one of my tiny 100 pound classmates next to the horse to spot those of us going over it. Yeah, I was 3 times the size of the spotters but they were going to keep me from getting hurt. To this day I have no idea how I did not hurt myself. But I do remember one of my classmates did get badly hurt. One of my friends, D, broke her arm going over the horse. This did not deter Mrs. S. in the least. She did not miss a beat of class to stop and check on her injury, instead she simply yelled at her to go to go to the nurse’s office. Later when D came back to school in a full arm cast I remember thinking, “She’s lucky, that cast will get her out of gym class for weeks.” Yes, I would have rather had a broken arm than participate in gym class.
Gymnastics was bad but my most mortifying high school gym class experience of all time has to be the weeks we spent swimming. I did not go to a fancy school with a pool but Mrs. S got the local rec center to let us use their pool. I can still remember the rock in the pit of my stomach when she announced what we would be doing the following several weeks for class. I was in a panic and immediately began trying to think what I could do to avoid the humiliation of being the only 300 pounder in a bathing suit. Had I not been the academic type and an all around “good girl”, I probably would have just skipped out those periods or faked illness for the entire day.
I tried to talk privately with Mrs. S. to tell her I had my period that week and could not go swimming. She very cruelly responded to me in her loudest, most disdainful voice so that the locker room full of my classmates could hear, “You can use a tampon and go swimming anyway.” I was so humiliated. I wanted to die. I look back and I wonder how a teacher could be so uncompassionate. Only an idiot would not realize that I did not want to swim out of embarrassment for my size. I was just a timid, fat, nerdy kid and she was an adult. She should have treated me with more kindness rather than exacerbating my humiliation. She could have privately talked to me or come up with something I could do in lieu of the swimming. But no, Mrs. S. was a bully and she wasn’t going to miss this chance to inflict humiliation on the fat girl and so I went swimming with my class, boys and girls together, which made it even worse. I remember walking out to the pool in my suit surrounded by classmates. I just sort of put up a mental wall and tried to ignore the pain of my humiliation.
When I graduated high school, I remember very clearly one of the things I was most happy about was that the college I was headed to had no P.E. requirement. I had survived 12 years of weekly torture sessions in the form of gym class and was finally getting a reprieve.
I wish every gym teacher could hear my story and countless others out there that are like it. Who needs a positive physical education experience more than the fat kids? Who more than they need to be encouraged and supported to see that physical activity is something that CAN do and maybe even enjoy. Instead, it seems that too often they are humiliated and traumatized which just reinforces their idea that they can’t do athletic things. It’s very sad to me that these teachers have the opportunity to positively impact the health of their most at-risk students but many choose to belittle instead. Who does that help?
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