I was put on my first diet at the age of six and I have been at war with my body for almost thirty years. There have been times we have come to a peace agreement, one of us waving our white flag and giving in to the other for awhile but never fully- we always return to the battlefield.
I was never one of those girls who could get myself to purge, no matter how far down my throat I shoved my tooth brush and aside from making me hangry anorexia did straight up nothing for me. In a weird twist of body hatred familiar to most women, I would find myself upset about my sustaining health, pinching my fat and wondering why starving myself didn’t work for me like it did for my peers. The thing is my body is meant to be large. I was 5’7″ by age 10 with size 11 shoes and this was before DSW when you had to order shoes from magazines and wear clothes from the women’s department because they didn’t have your size in juniors. Screw ordering from Delia’s, you’d have to make do with accessories to feel like an adolescent. It was before the body positivity movement, or the Dove campaign (which I later went to a casting call for). This was the era of Kate Moss and Claire Danes and “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.” The thinner the better and by the time I accepted I would never be thin, it was probably thanks to the Kim K’s butt opening doors for the curvier women of the world.
Most American women will have loathed their body at some point, picked it apart bit by bit in a way most of us would cringe at if they had to hear their list of criticisms read out loud. I would never wish weight problems on anyone, it takes up way too much energy that could be put toward something productive. I once had a friend say, “if you spent a fraction of as much time on your artwork as you do on losing weight and the gym, it would be insane to think of what you would be able to accomplish.” This was not meant as a barb, but it really made me step back and think- woah, this has taken up literal YEARS of my life.
I take back that I wouldn’t wish weight problems on anyone. I would wish it on those who judge others, like the mother and daughter that snickered at my mom and I for shopping in the size 14 dress section. The mother held out a dress we had just looked at, “Oh my god, I would kill myself if I got to this size.” They laughed before making eye contact with us and then they snorted and laughed harder as they walked away. We were too flustered by their cruelty to say anything in our defense- my mother didn’t want to look at any more clothes and we went home.
Like most who have struggled with their weight the way I feel about overweight people is much more a reflection of how I feel about myself and conditioning than how I actually feel about an individual. Normally I feel terrible for them, but why? They don’t want my pity, they don’t want me to clap as they run on the treadmill or tell them that they are inspiring for just showing up to the gym just as much as I don’t want any of that. Maybe they like their body. Maybe they even love it.
Lately, my weight has been fluctuating and my body changing. The fat has shifted around and is in different areas or maybe I am just noticing where it is now. I’d gotten to a manageable, healthy weight in the past few years but since commencing the search for the right anti-depressant cocktail in August I have put on upwards of 20lbs. The thing is, even when I was this smaller weight I wasn’t happier, so maybe it is better to be fat and happy than thin and depressed. I’m constantly re-learning that happiness might not look the way I think it should and that’s ok. I am thinking that maybe it is best to join forces with my body at this point, but of course it has known this the whole time, I just had to catch up.
too fat to be italian 