Over the decades, my weight has fluctuated widely as I have pinged between poles of excess and restriction, appetite and control, abstinence and snacking. The story of a life is much longer than the story of a diet. Or did I actually overcome? What diet stories tend to leave out is that, in the wake of restriction, people almost always gain the weight back. But that achievement became a pillar of my teenage identity, a story I loved to tell about myself: I had been a fat kid, a kid living under a genetic curse - but then, through the miracle of willpower and self-discipline, I overcame. In retrospect, I think what really slimmed me down were hormones and growth spurts. By the end of middle school, I was fairly slim. And so, at 12, I summoned my willpower and started jogging. I remember standing in the shower, in sixth grade, feeling disgusted by my body - grabbing a handful of my floppy belly and saying to myself, “This is not who I really am.” I was reciting, unconsciously, the cultural script.
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