I was always a fat kid. Gary made sure I knew that. And so, in my seventh-grade year, I decided I was going to lose weight. The bullying from other girls in my grade had gotten so bad that I came home and sobbed just about every day. I typically only wore clothes from the boys’ section at Aeropostale; I figured if I couldn’t fit comfortably in the girls’ clothes from that store, I would wear the boys’ clothes because if you weren’t wearing Aeropostale, it gave the bullies one more reason to target you. Most of all, I wanted to be skinny so that my dad would accept me. I was trying so hard at this time in my life to build a relationship with him that I was willing to do absolutely anything for his love. I was starving for his love, and so I decided to starve myself even further to get it.
As a seventh grader, I didn’t know anything about nutrition, macro balance, or what the word “calorie” even meant. I knew fast food was bad. I knew fruits, grains, veggies, and meat were good. I remember some details about what my diet consisted of: for breakfast, I had a plain bowl of oatmeal; for lunch, a Nutrigrain bar and a mini zero calorie Gatorade; I had an apple or a granola bar for snack; dinner consisted of whatever my mom or grandma made that night. In reality, I was probably only eating 800 calories or less each day. I ended up losing around 30 pounds over the course of a few months. During each day of this diet, I felt sick, weak, endlessly hungry, and also guilty because it was difficult to ignore the voice in my head that was telling me I wasn’t eating nearly enough to be healthy. Despite these things, I was determined to get to the point where I wouldn’t be bullied. Nothing else mattered. The numbers on the scale couldn’t go down fast enough. I was going to reach my goal no matter what, no matter how the diet made me feel—I was going to be skinny.
When I had reached a point in the weight loss where I felt a little more comfortable living in my own skin, I finally shopped the girls’ section at Aeropostale. It was liberating. I felt extremely accomplished for being able to lose 30 pounds at the young age of 12. But looking back at this experience today, I am absolutely heartsick for my younger self. My father and the girls who bullied me at school taught me that I only had value if I was skinny. Even when I had reached my goal weight, I insisted on wearing the most uncomfortable, constricting, and nauseating corset under my clothes. I wore that corset for about two years. I felt that if I wasn’t uncomfortable in some way—whether it be from hunger pains or corset pains—for the sake of beauty that I was failing. I was plagued by nightmares that I had shown up to school and realized I had forgot to put my corset on. I had been living in chains for years, and I was only 12.
Emily Smith 
Leave a comment