Unpacking my weight biases

Trigger Warning: disordered eating behavior, eating disorders, weight, calories, excessive exercise, weight obsession. If any of these things may cause you distress, or to fall back into harmful behaviors please skip this post. 

Last week I discussed ways that you can combat weight stigma in your day to day life and now I'm putting my money where my mouth is and I am going to unpack my own biases regarding weight stigma and fat-phobia.

As a child, growing up in the era of slim-fast, bow-flex, and at the very beginning of size-zero obsession, I was constantly surrounded by comments about weight, fat, and calories. Adults around me would make comments about their weight all the time, and the hurried whispers of "I'm being so bad" at birthday parties, and gatherings where the (mainly) female adults would gather in hushed groups to have small slices of cake.  Most female adults in my life were on a constant diet of one sort or the other (special K, and slim-fast being very in vogue at the time), and they would wail to each other about how fat they were, and disgusting. Occasionally I would hear aggressive comments about other little girls I knew, about how fat they were getting.

As far as I know, I don't remember this affecting my behavior when I was that young. It more than likely did affect me, but probably in more subtle ways that I am just unable to pinpoint at this distance. As a little kid, I remember eating Big Macs or foot long coneys, polishing them off with satisfaction. I remember the cashiers giving me strange looks as a little 5-year old confidently ordered a Big Mac, but I like to think that was more from just how young I was.

I don't remember the first time I weighed myself, and I don't remember worrying about my size or weight when I was in elementary school or middle school.  I do remember making mean comments, and jokes at fat children's expense. I knew on some level, that that was considered acceptable because...fat people could be made fun of. They knew better than to be fat. Being fat was a way of telling everyone else that it was ok for us to ridicule them, because then, how else would they learn?

But most of my memories from elementary school and middle school don't really ring any bells for me in this journey of unpacking my stigmas. I'm very sure there are things there, but time has at the moment tucked them away.

High school is where I really have strong memories of weight stigma, and fat phobia becoming more noticeable in my day to day life.

High school is when I started to workout outside of extracurricular activities.  I started running with my parents at the god awful hour of like 4 or 5 am. My parents normally ran early in the morning, and I asked if I could join. I remember how proud they were that I chose to do that with them myself. It was also around this time that I started to practice yoga very regularly in the mornings before school as well.

My boyfriend at the time lived in the same neighborhood as me, and I invited him to come running with my parents and me in the afternoons.  And I remember being so annoyed that he couldn't keep up with me. And he showed up to run in jeans. I remember thinking that running isn't hard, so I don't know why he was being so lazy. I saw exercise as a way to cleanse your soul, improve yourself, and a way to put yourself above the ranks of the fat (and lazy) people of the world.

With only working out 8 hours a day and watching what you eat for the rest of your life YOU can look like this too!

The craziest part was that I had really close friends who were fat. They were and still are great fantastic fucking people. But I do remember times that I would get on to one of my friends about what she ate, and how she should come work out with me. She did a few times, and I would get mad at her for not pushing harder than me, it was just in her head, it wasn't too hard, she just didn't want to do it. Because I really believed at the time that no body had to be fat. I believed that the body wasn't designed to be fat. I really thought that you could control your size if you just wanted it hard enough. Because why would you ever want to be that way? How could you possibly live a great, fun, awesome life if you were fat?

When boyfriends (or guys I was just talking to) would cheat on me with bigger girls, I just remember being fucking flabbergasted. I didn't understand how they could cheat on me with a fat girl. Because what else could a girl possibly offer other than her size, and conventional beauty ranking?

That was a  definite line of me basically associating my own worth (and others) with their body size, and how sexually attractive they were according to white, cis-male standards.

Junior/Senior year of high school is when I first remember trying to diet to lose weight. I tried the bullshit diets that one can find all over the internet, and some days I was trying to make it on 200 calories a day (the equivalent of a snickers bar).  Because I needed to be smaller. I needed to be pure, and get all the disgusting fat off of my body. I remember a few friends asking about why I wasn't eating lunch, and I don't really remember what my answers were. I'm sure some of my friends were concerned, but I also know that if anyone had tried to tell me that I had an eating disorder I would laugh and then tell them to fuck off.

I remember one time, this really cool girl I knew, I super looked up to. She was beautiful, pretty, in shape, and her shit together (as much as one can at that time) and I wanted to be like her as much as possible. One night we were hanging out and I made pizza rolls, and I remember her saying that those were disgusting, and did I know how many calories were in those? I paused but ate them anyway. But...after that...I really associated calories with being very negative and gross.

I also remember making scathing remarks about other girls I went to high school with about how fat they were, and they were justing being bitches to me because they were jealous because I was hot and skinny and they weren't.

Getting enough cringe yet?

College was the first time I tried to make myself throw up after eating. I was unsuccessful (thankfully), but at the time I was so...scared and mad at myself. What was I going to do now? How could I atone for my sin (eating disorders can get strangely religious for some people, me being one of them) of eating, if I couldn't throw up?

So I just decided that I would work out for at least two hours every day. An hour of cardio, and then an hour of weights. I started tracking every calorie I ate, and always aimed to have a 200-500 calorie deficit at the end of the day.

Because to me (going back to the religious aspect), this was the only way to keep myself worthy (of what? Who fucking knows), and clean, and on top. My grades, behavior, etc. did not matter or compute into who I was as a person. My weight, and everything I did around it did. Thus, other people who did not do this were not worthy. But that made me feel "happy" inside because I knew in my head that I was better than they were. It made me feel strong and powerful.

Once your worth is wrapped up into things that literally turn into poop after you eat them....it may be time to get help

It was all bullshit.

One of my other friends would later come out with having bulimia. And I partially hold myself responsible for that. Because in college I would constantly talk about how I was working out for at least two hours every day, and how I was losing weight and would pride myself on being "able" to eat sundaes, and pizza, and pop tarts and not have to "worry" about my figure. Instead of being supportive of how my friend was, I also fed her my beliefs of changing your body through any means necessary.

The first time I really considered quitting smoking, I didn't because I didn't want to gain weight. I really thought the chances of cancer were better than my body gaining weight.  Which you can definitely see any day of the week, because a lot of people have almost zero issue with a girl who is passing for "skinny" smoking, but if you are visibly fat and smoking all of sudden every passing stranger has something to say to you for the sake of your "health".

I wouldn't even consider having sex with dudes (or chicks) that were fat. All I could think of was how gross they were, not to mention all the jokes I made about people just picking a fat fold to have sex with, or being unable to find a mans penis because he was fat. Because fat people don't have sex, that's gross. It didn't matter how awesome they were, how intelligent, nothing. The deciding factor was if they were fat or not.

Newsflash, that is a really piss poor standard for determining if people should be in your life, or your bed.

But I was so wrapped up in the concept that fat equaled morality, and worth. Not only did I fall for the machine, I finally become a goddamn cog in the machine.

This is my way of breaking myself off from the machine. Because, once again, disordered thinking/behavior, etc. can only survive in the dark. Once you bring it to light and start to actually talk about it with others you can finally start to realize how asinine these thinking processes are.

If you have your own story to share, please let me know in the comments. I hope this helps you guys to start breaking out of your own machines, and eventually, we can start to dismantle the world machine.

If you or someone you know is suffering from an eating disorder please go here to find resources that can help.