It’s fine if you’re fat. I know that now. But for the longest time, I grew up feeling as if my body had to look a certain way. Otherwise, my value — as if I were a product on a shelf — decreased.
It’s true. I would often go to a relative’s home, and, as they observed me playing in the yard or lounging about, they would say, “Looks like someone is getting a stomach”, or “Getting a little pudgy, aren’t you?” And it made me self-conscious. When I struck puberty, it was as if the world conspired against me. Once with flawless skin and a flat stomach, I realized as a 5th grader that I had gained weight, but I wasn’t sure how.
And then, to make matters worse, I had to shop in the “Husky” section of the clothing store, because none of the shorts in the youth line fit me anymore. I was mortified. I remember having a conversation with my mom as we shopped for shorts for the upcoming spring season:
“Oh my gosh, Mom,” I exclaimed, in the middle of JC Penney’s.
“What?” she asked.
“These say ‘Husky’. That means fat.”
“No it doesn’t. It just means you’re going through a growth period.”
“Are you sure?” I asked, eager to believe she wasn’t just glossing over the fact I had gained weight.
“Yes, Clay. You’re just going through puberty. That doesn’t mean you’re fat.”
I appreciated her efforts, but the “Husky” label still felt like a scarlet letter (even though it wasn’t visible to the public). I wondered if those who saw me would guess my new secret, as if “Husky” shorts had a particular look to them, the way they fell. I imagined their seeing me in my new shorts, thinking, “Wow, Clay has gained a lot of weight. I remember when he was skinny. I wonder what happened.” I completely overthought the whole ordeal, but as an impressionable 5th grader, I thought my world was crumbling. I wasn’t beautiful anymore, because my waist band was a bit longer.
My mom was right, of course. It had just been a phase, and I shed the weight easily over the span of the next few years (I also cut out caffeine. I told myself I would be skinny, even if it meant cutting out the Coca-Cola I had become so fond of).
Once I entered junior high, I decided to raise the stakes. I would start exercising to ensure that I stayed skinny. There would be no chance of my gaining any more weight, unless I wanted to. So I started running seriously, utilizing the treadmill at home to run as many as 5 miles a day. I also started doing crutches on my parents’ bed while I watched television, ensuring that my stomach would stay flat.
I built a lot of healthy habits so early on in my life, but at the crux of these habits was a toxic philosophy: I couldn’t allow myself to become fat. Not because I wanted to be healthy, but because I was worth less if I was fat.
It really is fucked up, but this philosophy has stayed with me into adulthood. I continue to run nonstop every week, at the gym and in my own neighborhood. I tell myself, “You have to exercise at least three times a week. Otherwise, it’s a lost week.” Even if I take a break, I feel like I’m becoming lazy (thanks to therapy, I now know that’s because of my rampant perfectionism).
Snowball this philosophy with the expectation in the gay community that I must be either skinny and beautiful or a muscle god to pass as attractive. It’s fucked up, but it’s nonetheless the way it is.
I have never struggled with eating disorders (thank God). But if I didn’t have a healthy metabolism or prescribed to life-giving medicine that made me fat, would I resort to anorexia and/or bulimia? I’d like to think I wouldn’t, but with the standards imposed on attractive gay Southern men, I think I’d at least be saddened to know that my body was anything less than “standard”.
What do I think the solution is? I think we have to shift our thinking on eating, period. Eating has been so stigmatized to the point that people literally eat food they don’t even want for years on end, just so they can look a certain way. Why the hell is this still a thing? Are we trying to distract people from thinking about real issues by making them worry instead about the way their own body looks, even if it’s outside of their control?
I don’t know. I’m going to talk about this in therapy during my next session because this is something I still need to work on, for myself. But for all reading, my advice is to change your thinking on this, or at least reflect on why it is you feel this way about food and body image in general. You might surprise yourself. I know I did.
Until next time. Kisses.
