
mini me
No, I don’t have a cute little miniature me; I have belly fat. That’s what I call my Mini Me. It has a life of its own. It turns on the self-cleaning oven, keeps me from picking things up off the floor, gets caught in zippers and shoots buttons, like they’re bullets.
I know it sounds like I’m proud of my Mini Me and maybe in some way I am proud of her, since she’s taught me so many things. What? You didn’t know that Fat could teach you things. Oh yes, how about humility, respect, humor and despair.
Let me start at the beginning. I didn’t always have a Mini Me; I started off with a typical thin teenage body, became shapely and worried that I was fat. Of course I wasn’t fat but Society had planted the seeds of doubt early. Remember Twiggy…..probably not, but she was so thin and everyone wanted to look like her. Thin was in and Fat was disgusting. I agreed, Fat was disgusting. I had all the prejudices that most people are carrying around. Oh, if you’re Fat, you’re lazy, dumb, smelly, and unattractive.
Being Fat is not something that you can just quit. You wake up fat, it’s the first thing that you see in the morning, it’s the last thing you see at night right before you go to sleep. It’s like wearing a coat of shame that you can’t remove. Everyone watches what you eat, what you wear, and how much you jiggle.
I work in an environment where exhibiting the illusion of control is the ultimate goal. Thin women get promoted, fat women don’t. Look around you. How many fat people do you see in charge. Yes, there are some, but the majority of the time, it’s the thin that get promoted. The only thing that these power mongers can really control is their weight. So, they have IV’s of Coffee, take mind enhancing drugs, which keep them from being hungry, and eat as little as possible. You’d almost say that they have contests to see who can eat the least. They pop chocolates, eat rice cakes, have high-colonics and as soon as I have a chocolate, they stop in their tracks and go tisk-tisk!
Here’s the thing, what’s Fat to one person is not Fat to another. I thought I was fat at 119 pounds. What an idiot! Well anyway, after having a body that was perfectly proportioned and admired and courted and cajoled, I developed a thyroid disorder and started gaining weight. No matter what I did, I couldn’t get the weight off and I’m still fighting the fight.
I noticed that people didn’t treat me the same as when I was thin. Someone that would have listened to me before I was fat, in the hopes that I would grace them with a date, would not give me the time of day. They would look right through me and past me to the thin person behind me. I wasn’t cute or sexy any more.
One day someone that was angry and wanted to hit below the belt, ha, ha,; called me Fat and like a bolt of lighting; I realized what it was like to be the Fat Girl. What a revelation!
I was humbled; I was humiliated, I was angry! How dare people assume my worth by the amount of fat on my body. People do this all the time, your color, your accent, your clothes. I guess its human nature to see what’s different and avoid it: its how we’ve managed to survive as long as we have as a species.
I’ve learned how to use a smile and humor to persuade, I learned to use my intelligence instead of my cute factor, to outwit the unkind and have developed a true compassion for the rest of the Fat Girls and Boys out here that represent 60% of our population in America.. I try a lot harder to look at every person as an individual and look deeply to really see who they are under that exterior which can be so deceptive.
My Mini Me has taught me a lot of lessons but boy; wait till I tell you what my Boobs have taught me!
Snatch you later,
Debo Ing