Yes, I did have weight problems when I was a kid.
I was fat. Not chubby, not plump, but fat. I remember the moment I realized it: my class was going for a walk and the kids were chatting about how much they weighed. 55 pounds, said one girl. 62, said another. 61, one of the boys chimed in. I was silent; I didn't want them to ask me. But they did.
I was 107 pounds then. I wouldn't mind being 107 pounds now. But at that time, I was only 8 years old.
This should have woken me up. This should have been enough to stop me from overeating. But it didn't - and things went from bad to worse. By the time I turned 14, I was almost 170 pounds.
If you think children are sweet, innocent creatures, let me enlighten you: they're not. They're brutally honest, cruel and unaware of the consequences of what they say or do. They mock you, they call you names, they have no mercy on you if you're different. I should know that; I experienced it first-hand.
Then, one summer, my brother fell ill. What seemed to be an infection turned out to be a brain tumour that required immediate surgery or my brother would have died. He was taken to a hospital 250 miles from where we lived and my mum and dad both went with him. My sister and I stayed home with nan. The whole situation was so nerve-wrecking that I was unable to eat and, surprisingly, nan didn't force me to eat either. I think she wass pretty stressed and scared herself.
I didn't realize that I'd been losing weight until one of my friends noticed it. It was pleasing to hear something good about how I looked for a change. Encouraged by the comment, I started restricting. Soon I was eating around 300 calories a day. Sure, my hair was falling out, my skin became dry and horrid to the touch and my period vanished, but I was slim for once. So slim that when I went to visit my brother in the hospital and my mum saw me, she was terrified.
Long story short, a few months later my family was reunited again and as soon as my brother's started to show signs of recovery, my mum turned her eyes on me and began to gradually convince me that food was good and eating was not a crime. It took a while for me to believe her, but eventually I did.
However, my relationship with food was never "normal" and "healthy" again. I had periods of severe restricting, followed by what I thought was "normal" eating (and what other people perceived as being fussy with food), followed by enjoying food too much. Needless to say, my weight fluctuated a lot, too.
At the moment, it's a shameful 136 pounds.
But I'm working on it. Silently, secretly.
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