In 1981 the CD was born and so was I. Both arrivals were surprising and have drifted in and out of fashion ever since. As a baby, my majestic “chonk lord” status was cause for celebration and an indication of prosperity. But from a young age I noticed that my presence seemed to offend other people. When I was seven, I remember asking to have a go at skipping, after having turned the rope for everyone else. One child enlightened me on why I couldn’t: I was too fat to skip.Children learn hierarchy from adults and then their peers. Who belongs, who doesn’t and why. My classmates learned from adults to see me as something to mock and despise. Even my own well-meaning father once sat me down and told me that nobody would love, trust or employ me due to my body shape. This didn’t shock me; I’d already picked up what everyone was putting down.Overriding genetics and environment is a tall order, but I learned quickly that if I leaned into my brainy side, and could make people laugh, this might compensate for the space I took up. This was the era of Weight Watchers, Aerobics Oz Style and heroin chic, and the ideal body was unattainable and contradictory. You could only be muscular if you were male. Women needed to be thin, but not so thin they looked unfeminine (whatever that meant). There was nothing worse than “thunder thighs”. Breakfast cereals were seemingly the answer to everyone’s problems. BMI had not yet been exposed as a flawed and racist scam, and failing to look Just Right (cereal reference!) was a moral failure. I kept my head down as much as I could until my mid-20s.
My body is fat, not wrong: how body neutrality – not positivity – helped me shed a lifetime of shame | Jasper Peach
If I’d been taught this way of thinking as a child, I can’t begin to imagine how much easier things could have been
979 words~4 min read
