I was five years old when my mother smiled at me and told me that I was losing weight. She expressed her excitement about this to me and told me that I should keep doing whatever I was doing that made me look smaller. At the time, I had absolutely no idea what I was doing but I wanted to do exactly what she told me. Unfortunately, I have never been able to exist outside of my weight since then. 

There has never been a time where I felt that I was at an adequate weight. I was constantly reminded by family how big I was and still am. Adding to this, family and family friends also expressed how abnormal I was in comparison to the rest of my family seeing as I was the only overweight child my parents had. I was continually told that I needed to lose weight because it’s not good for me to be overweight as a girl. My weight also affected the family image as I was the only one with a visible flaw in my appearance. 

As I look back at old photos of myself, I realize that I actually wasn’t overweight in high school. I just had a bigger build in comparison to other girls my age because of the sports I played in combination with my genetics. I wasn’t overweight, I just wasn’t skinny. My perception of my entire being was completely skewed during that time.

I associated my weight with everything. I thought about every step I took and wondered if it sounded heavy. I was aware of my breathing, in hopes that it didn’t sound too loud as I didn’t want to sound like I was panting. I would suck my stomach in on days where I felt like I looked bloated or bigger because I didn’t want anyone to think that I had gained any more weight. I would starve myself so that I could feel and appear lighter. I would purposely wear oversized clothing to give the illusion of a small body hidden under clothing. I would make sure to keep my opinions to myself to avoid being verbally attacked in case someone may have been offended why what I said. 

I often felt physically weighed down by my body because of the amount of weight I believe I carried. Learning that I wasn’t overweight in high school, often makes me reflect on the different perceptions, feelings, and experiences I have had of my body. I often wonder if the feeling of “heaviness” I often felt was something that was entirely in my head. I thought to myself that people didn’t like me or find me attractive because I was too big and thus, undesirable to be around. I now wonder if the negative perceptions people had of me even had anything to do with my weight at all as a teenager. I wonder if the size small that I so desperately wanted to fit into was ever a size that was and would ever appropriate for my body then and now.