Being fat all my life I have been told since I was a young age I would be told that I would die before I was 12, 14, 16, 18 and 20.
The people who told me these things never understood what they were doing. They were trying to make me see that I should change my life and be healthier and lose weight to live. What they didn't know is that it did not do this, it did not suddenly jolt my whole existence into suddenly wanting to lose weight. It did the opposite effect! It made me comfort eat, panic and realise that I can't do that. These people including health professionals also never understood what else was going on in my life. The daily torment from other people, the constant battle with myself and how I hated every thing about me. I was taught from an early age from people that I was disgusting, I was ugly and shouldn't be the way I was.
I never had anyone sit down with me and ask me what I thought, how I felt, I was a child and as a child I didn't understand why I was these things, I felt normal, active and I did everything I wanted to do. Why was I all of these things? My peers were just as bad as adults maybe even worse. All I wanted to do was fit in, to eat what my peers ate to be a normal child. But I wasn't I was fat. I was apparently the worst thing anyone could be.
Even simple things like being put on a diet when I was 8 years old I was asked by "friends" why are you not eating what we are? I didn't know how to answer these questions.
Into my teenage years it just got worse, I got heavier through comfort eating and hiding myself away. The bigger in time I got the more hate I got from people everywhere. The more I hated myself, the more I comfort ate, the more I wanted to not be here, to make these noises in my head stop.
It wasn't until I was in my late 20's that I realised that these people had the problem not me. Yes I am fat, yes I have fat, but when all of this started when I was a child when I was innocent, I was shamed and put down and made to feel like I had no reason to live anymore.
Over the past 38 years I have tried every diet going, I have battled the voices in my head, I think I will always battle these voices in my head they will forever be there they are now apart of me. Those people from my past from my childhood will forever be in my head. But not just them, people still now who shame me in the street, online and on television. Every day I am fighting a battle to tell myself I am worth living worth giving to society. To not eat bad foods and give into these people who tell me I should just eat my self to death, to not comfort myself with the one thing that doesn't judge me.
Telling someone that they are fat and need to lose weight will not help that child or person, you are just telling them for yourself, for your own peace of mind that you did something to "help".
My advice for any parent who thinks their child is over weight is teach them, teach them that being active and keeping active may not help you lose weight but it is good for your body. That food is fuel, what are good and not so good foods, that you can eat what ever you want to eat but only some of them occasionally. That no matter if you are over weight or underweight you are still beautiful, you are still worth being on this planet. You have as much worth as anyone else. Tell them that no matter what people say to you, their opinion is not always correct. That others can be cruel. Talk to your child about their day, how and what people said to them and how this may affect them.
Tell them no matter your size, anyone's size or shape they are beautiful, as beauty really comes from within, from how we treat others!
