Iâve had health problems my entire life. Been fat shamed by my teachers at school (âyou donât do p.e at school, but what are you doing beyond sitting on the couch at home? Itâs not like youâre doing sport at homeâ as if this btich knew what my home life was like) and by my family and âfriendsâ (luckily enough friends whose names I donât remember now :))
I found out that I have policystic ovarian syndrome, a condition that causes multiple cysts in the ovaries to appear. This can be triggered by being overweight, but itâs also genetic. My sister has it, too. Having PCOS meant that itâs extremely difficult, if not impossible, to lose weight. I also have an extremely slow metabolism (so slow that i take two prescribed meds for it and will be doing that for probably my entire lofe) and because of THAT I also canât lose weight. Add on to this the fact that my muscles arenât working in sync with each other (yes apparently my body doesnât know how to move properly? So thatâs why moving hurts me a lot) and that my family simply canât afford amazing healthy food all the time and even when I DO eat I get sick (see: extremely slow metabolism that makes food pile in my stomach like that corner of dirty laundry in your room that you donât wanna touch) and that literally obesity is also a genetic factor too in my case: Iâm like, way overweight. I go to hospitals and they call me obese but I donât like that word because it makes me feel like Iâm less important than thin people, like Iâm more of a burden.
My entire life Iâve felt fat. I was in first grade not wanting to wear the school dress because I âlooked fatâ in it. My mum and grandma would make comments about their own weight in front of me and told me not to be like them, donât be fat, itâs ugly, itâs bad, nobody will want you if youâre fat.
I was a little girl in grade one - maybe thirty kilos? Probably less. And I thought I was fat.
In grade four I got fat shamed by my crush. He told me his weight and made an offhand comment about how I was massive. I wasnât massive. He was just a scrawny boy, and I wasnât short or thin like the other girls my age; he was healthy for his own body proportions, I was healthy for mine. That was the year I decided to start wearing a hijab, and a friend of mine said to my face âI only recognised you because youâre fatâ
When I say Iâm fat, my friends say âdonât say that:( â
they think âfat=badâ and I think âfat=badâ and the whole world thinks âfat=badâ
It doesnât equal less worthy or unloveable or burden
In a lot of cases it doesnât even equal unhealthy. There are lots of âfatâ people that are still healthy.
People think I got fat by eating burgers and cake and ice cream.
Thatâs not how it happened. I got depressed, I got abused, Iâve got a lot of physical and genetic problems that have lead to this.
Fatphobia made my life 100 times harder than it should have been. When I hear someone talk about their weight in front of me I hurt and curl up into a ball inside because I just want to ignore the word and the concept of being fat forever. Itâs probably my biggest shame, being fat, and the sad part is I know itâs not even a fault that I am overweight. Itâs not like I have control of what food I can buy, weâre not rich enough to buy amazing vegetables and quality meat, itâs not like we even have the time to cook that much in my house.
I eat a lot less than a lot of people I know. I donât move around much because itâs painful. I love to play sport, I have dreams that I was back in primary school playing soccer with the boys (I NEVER played sport at school. Ever.) and feeling sun on my face and just moving. People think Iâm lazy, and theyâre surprised when I say Iâm into sport because people who play sport are all skinny apparently (not true) but like
Iâm not lazy. Iâm not someone who doesnât like moving. Iâm just in pain. I donât eat shit all day. Iâm just sick.
And when I go to doctors to ask for help about my pcos or digestion of my foods or my acne or my depression, they say one thing: âyou need to lose weight.â
Yeah, I need to lose weight. But itâs a whole lot more complex than that, and nobody seems to realise.
tldr: fuck fatphobia and I want to play soccer can someone PLEASE tell my muscles to cooperate
