(CW: body image, dysphoria, dieting for medical issues, disordered thinking)
What does it mean to be fat?
Recently, I watched The Devil Wears Prada for the first time ever. I know, I’m uncultured. It really was a perfect movie. Almost perfect. Something that struck me during the viewing and stayed with me long after was that a character referred to Anne Hathaway as fat. Anne Hathaway! Ridiculous, isn’t it? Recognizing that this is a film about the fashion industry, I am aware Meryl Streep’s character making such a comment about fucking Anne Hathaway herself is a way to communicate to the viewer how ridiculous this business is. Even so, I couldn’t even wrap my head around the idea of a size six being fat (for those who have not seen the movie, the protagonist being a size six is a brief conversational point). It made no sense to me. If she was fat, what does that make me?
Bodies are a funny thing. We’re born in them, we’ll die in them, and yet, we don’t get to choose them. Of course, we can change our bodies later on in life, but the bodies we are born into are randomized. We are shoved into this world without a choice, in a shell that we didn’t have a say in. I have a lot to say for myself about wanting to change my body.
I have always been chubby. It was a fact of life. Partly from genetics, partly from a tendency for emotional eating. I was a fat kid, and I hated it. A vivid memory of mine recalls being told by a friend that I had “fat arms” when I tried to show off my muscles. I went home that night with their words rattling inside my head. I gazed in the mirror as my parents looked on and asked them if my arms were fat. Here began a journey of self-hatred and internal disgust with my body. My form didn’t take up my whole life; I still had energy and happiness. However, I carry with me visions of turning to the side in front of the bathroom mirror to make sure my stomach wasn’t sticking out, though it always was. Whenever I heard a comment about my body, my emotions would take over and I would settle them the only way I knew how: to eat until I felt sick.
To get rid of my fat was my dream. I grew up hearing from adults that it was all baby fat, and it would go away. Hearing from my peers that it was ugly, and it would never go away. I was being torn into two halves; one that was told that things would get better, and one that was told they never would––but both with the same intention––for me to be skinny.
Both parties got their wish when a ten-year-old me was told something life-changing by a doctor. I had sensitivities to certain foods; I would have to stop eating. For a stress-eater, this was the worst news possible to hear. No more gluten, no more dairy, no more soy… the list went on. After having settled into a reliance on food for comfort, these new restrictions were earth-shattering. In addition to such change was medication I had begun to take, side effects which included loss of appetite. I was confident when I began taking them that my appetite and my body would be alright. Thinking about that now, I almost want to laugh.
A few weeks after that appointment, I woke up skinny.
That is a very generalized statement, but to my young mind, that was what it felt like. I was no longer bloated. I was beginning a healthy diet. To say that I was proud of myself was an understatement; I was ecstatic. Finally, I could be normal. I could eat without worrying about what others would think. To make it even better, I didn’t even feel like I had to eat at all! I wasn’t eating from stress anymore! I wasn’t even eating anything! It was a victory over everyone who had ever called me fat. It was a victory over my fat self, who would never come back. I would make sure of it.
Thus began my victory tour. At any social function, adults I knew would come up to me and compliment me on my brand-new body. “You lost so much weight!” they would cry happily. “You look so good!” “I told you it would happen!”
It was indescribable. I had never been complimented on how my body looked before. But as my surface-level self-esteem began to build up, my body began to chip away.
Compliments turned to concerns. “You look like a ghost,” I would hear from my mother. “Your arms are like twigs.” “You’re a shadow.” Yet after hearing so much praise, I was able to contort the words into positivity. When you’re far up enough on a self-made pedestal, you can pretend you don’t hear even a shadow of doubt.
I recall proudly showing my mom that I could clearly see my ribs through my chest. My blissful ignorance beginning to crumble when I saw the look on her face.
I recall the next time I was complimented on my weight loss. I didn’t feel proud. I didn’t feel victorious. I felt tired. So, so tired.
I missed the little girl inside me, the one who hadn’t yet been ruined by other people’s words.
The one who loved herself fiercely.
I began to realize the truth of all of this. I was masquerading in a thin body, killing myself slowly for just one more sign of approval from a world that would not truly love me until I was gone. A husk. Dust in the wind.
The world of fashion, or at least the one presented in The Devil Wears Prada, is a fickle one. Constantly changing trends and beauty standards control the bodies of those who work in the industry, treating their forms as tools to present their visions.
In a way, I relate to this; my body has also long been a tool. Something used for a physical purpose. First, a prison of self-hatred; something keeping me from gaining the approval of the world. Next, as a weapon of hurt and worry; one that made even my doctor concerned. I never had a true return to normal after my sickly experience. When I began to look more healthy, thoughts began to creep into my brain. Thoughts about identity and gender, thoughts that I had been able to cover up by creating brand-new problems for myself. Thoughts that led me back to a place of self-hatred, a place of secrecy and shame––but eventually, a place of acceptance.
I gained weight. I got taller. I began to see people who helped me mentally and physically more often.
Nevertheless, this doesn’t mean that the story has a happy ending. In many ways, the wounded little girl I used to be still hides deep down in my soul; retreating into herself in lieu of a place that accepts her. However, I am working, and I am trying. Even if I have changed in unimaginable ways, I am still that girl. I am forever her. And I will spend the rest of my life remembering who she was, and who she is now. Maybe that makes this hopeful. Maybe I do hope that one day, she will be able to return to the world through me.