I have been body shamed since I was 8. My family thought it was so funny to make comments about how I must be anorexic, or throwing up after meals.
I WAS EIGHT.
I spent all of my teen years struggling to gain weight. I even sat down with my Nutrition teacher in Freshman year to ask her, how do I gain weight?? She recommended Ensure Plus, which, while not adding many pounds, made it so that I didn't lose any more. It was insanely hard, because I also walked a mile to and from school every day, and had a fast as heck metabolism.
When I got pregnant with my first child, I was 104 pounds. At the end I was 118, and looked like a tick. I ate everything I could, and still my baby took the weight from my arms and legs. My doctors pushed me to eat more, anything I wanted, just gain the weight!! Two days after giving birth, I weighed myself... 98 pounds. My pre-pregnancy clothes were hanging off of me. It took a while to get back to 104.
Twenty years after I first heard the word "anorexic", I heard the reverse. I had been working out throughout my 20's, and was in great shape, and weighed 125. I was happy. Then, I got pregnant with my second child, and it all changed. I gained around 40 pounds with her, and heard about it daily. I also had gestational diabetes, was put on a restrictive diet, and was sick constantly. Somehow, when she came out, I barely lost anything. Rude child to the core: take it back kid!
I was a stay at home mom for 2 years, in which time I changed into stick figure with boobs. To this day, I still think I am struggling to lose weight because all of it is in my chest. When I went back to work, I packed on the pounds, and I am now sitting in the 160 range. No matter what I do, I cannot get past that weight. I eat better, exercise, stand/walk more. Nothing works. For 4 years I have tried.
Meanwhile I hear that I'm fat... boyfriends, doctors, workers. And some days, I really see it, and hate myself. I know I did nothing wrong. Bodies change. But in my mind I need to be thinner. Not too thin, because then I'll hear the other side of it again.
BUT.
I have kids now. Kids who look to me, who take in all that I say and do. And it molds them.
I cried when my (then) 7 year old daughter, the spitting image of me, came home and started only eating salads, and weighing herself 4 times a day. Because she was told that was healthy, and that being thinner was good. She has been body shamed and told to be modest (ie cover every inch of skin) from that moment. I try so hard to teach her that there is nothing wrong with her, but it still lives with her, in the form of anorexia. I fight to get her to eat even 3 bites of food at meals sometimes. And every time it seems like we make progress, someone says something and away we go again.
I pray my youngest never has to deal with this. She is so self assured, but that can change in an instant. I have always tried to be body-positive in front of my children, even when I am struggling. I do not hide my body from them, and in turn they each have some semblance of that as well. I try to teach the benefits of food and water and taking care of your body, but sometimes that falls on deaf ears.
The other day, I showed my boyfriend this super-cute crop top, and told him I could NEVER wear that. He asked why not, and my first response was, because I'm too fat, and my boobs are too big, and no one wants to see that. But, he does. My kids do. And, deep inside I do too.
I'm going to wear the fun stuff. I'm going to enjoy myself. In spite of everyone who tells me I can't.
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