Thin body, fat soul

I picked up a friend from the airport this weekend -- a beautiful friend who is kind and whom I admire tremendously. One of the first things she said to me was, "You look so good, so tan, so healthy, so thin."

I immediately felt the need to apologize for my weight.

"I'm definitely tan, I live in Florida," I said. "But not so healthy."

I told her that people often assume I'm healthy because I'm thin, but inside, my arteries are probably as clogged as a person who weighs much more.

Some people have survivor's guilt, I have thin girl's guilt. I know I was spared some tremendous pain when I was born with fast metabolism. And yet, my weight has defined me as definitely as it has defined others.

I grew up a thin person in a fat family. An anomaly. An outsider. The object of my sister's hostility.

My sister, mother and father constantly struggled to lose those extra pounds. And not just a few. Over the years they gained and lost hundreds, possibly thousands, of pounds.

But not me. I've always been thin, just as I've always had brown eyes, brown hair and been shorter than I wanted. I cannot take credit for my size or explain it. I can't even enjoy it.

And I'm not alone. I don't know a girl, a teenager, or a woman who is happy with her weight. The only time I've heard someone say her weight is perfect is after a round of dieting. Perfect weight is a destination, a stop on the train, a place where all is peaceful and right with the world.

It's a great place to visit, but no one seems to live there.

Chronic dieters deny themselves food for the dream of "if only."

If only I lost those last five pounds, I'd feel so much better.

If only I could fit into my wedding dress again, we'd rekindle our romance.

If only I were thin. My life would be perfect.

The secret I've dared tell very few is this: Those of us who are thin still lead imperfect lives. We just have different "if only"s to feed us, different excuses for our emptiness, different holy grails to keep us going.

The best book I have read on this subject is called "When Food Is Love," by Geneen Roth. Here's how she explains our early eating choices:

Food was our love; eating was our way of being loved. Food was available when our parents weren't. Food didn't get up and walk away when our fathers did. Food didn't hurt us. Food didn't say no. Food didn't hit. Food didn't get drunk. Food was always there. Food tasted good. Food was warm when we were cold and cold when we were hot. Food became the closest thing we knew of love.

But it is only a substitute for love. Food is not, nor was it ever, love.

Food is a substitute, she says, for intimacy. We use it when we are starved for attention, starved for affection. But because it can't satisfy that hunger, we keep eating. Until food insulates us. It protects us from feeling that hunger, any hunger, until we no longer know what we hunger for. Food becomes a barrier between us and a full life.

This is especially true for people with eating disorders.

I wrote my senior thesis on anorexia and stress. While I was working on it, I knew people always wanted to ask me whether I was anorexic or binged and purged, but they never did. I'll tell you. I'm not. There is nothing clinically disordered about my eating (although my husband considers my pickiness pathological). I'm just thin.

I've never denied myself food, never regretted eating too much, never forced myself to eat a salad when I really wanted lasagna.

But as others worried, I worried. I even went to the school physician and asked her how to gain weight. She laughed at first, urged me to accept my body's "natural weight," then wrote me a prescription for milkshakes and fatty foods.

Still, I felt like my mom's nickname for me: a "peanut," tiny and invisible in my shell.

At the age of 30, I became pregnant with my son. I gained about 25 pounds and for the first time I felt comfortable taking up space.

After my son was born, I stayed at about 115: my target weight, according to charts I'd been shown all my life. (I'm 5'4".)

The perfect weight equals the perfect life, right? Not for the mother of a newborn, who also gave birth to her child's twin: exhaustion.

Money is my food. I binge by shopping. I spend, I feel remorse and shame, I vow to change. If only I had more willpower. If only I were stronger, smarter, better able to control myself. If only I were rich.

Whoever said you can never be too rich or too thin couldn't imagine life in the 21st century.

How do you feel about your weight?

This LifeFiles column originally appeared on about 70 TV station websites managed by Internet Broadcasting Systems.

Comments

[A.]

A fat person hearing thin people complain about thinness is like an infertile person hearing mothers complain about their children. It hurts so, so much.

[Valarie Marie]

After I had my daughter (she's 11 now) I went to Jenny Craig and lost the baby weight plus some. But I didn't learn how to eat back then. A couple of years later I gained the weight back plus some. When Amanda was 5 years old we went to Disney World and when we got back we got the film developed and I was shocked at how heavy I was. I went on a diet (when back to Jenny Craig but this time learned how to change my diet for keeps) and with exercise lost the weight. I know now that it's a lifetime job, that it will always be a struggle for me to keep the weight off. I'm happy to say that all-in-all I have kept the weight off. And it's been almost six years now.

[Mir]

Heh, I'm not as skinny as I used to be, but still skinny enough that people think I'm on some secret diet. Meanwhile I've absorbed just enough of society's demand for wisp-thin women that having a little padding on my butt makes me fear I'm fat. Body image; it's not for the faint of heart. ;)

[Lei]

This is an interesting perspective given all the media attention to obesity. I'm of about average size in the U.S., but bigger than average in Asia. Weird feeling going between cultures.

My husband is very thin and at a health check-up, the doctor suspected him of being a drug addict even though he exhibited no other sign except for being thin! How insulting. :P

[Lori]

I weigh just as much as you do, Julie, only I'm about five inches taller. So boy, do I catch hell for being thin.

I also tried to gain weight in high school. My doctor told me I burned as many calories sitting on the couch as most people do running a mile. I can't gain weight to save my life.

I didn't wear shorts in high school, because I was embarrassed of my skinny legs. People called me "Ethopian," and didn't get it when I protested my belly wasn't distended. And I still get jokes about my size, now. A coworker constantly comments that if I turn to the side, I won't get rained on. Or that I'll fall between the cracks in the tile. Blah, blah. People ask how much I weigh, if I eat enough, what size I wear. Things I know they wouldn't ask if I were on the other end of the spectrum.

And I get tired of being called lucky. I have my own set of problems, including finding clothes that fit. It ain't as easy as it looks. Or as fun.

For the first time in my life, though, I'm pretty happy with my body. Capris and three-quarter length sleeves, though it took a while for me to find the confidence to wear them, mean it's OK if my clothing doesn't reach my ankles or wrists. And I am happy to not have to think about what I eat or how much (ha!) I work out. This is my body --- chicken legs, bony elbows, teeny boobs and all.

[Sarah]

Funny you should bring this up--my husband and I are gearing up to start the South Beach diet tomorrow. My parents always told me I was overweight, and I believed them, although now when I look back at pictures, I really don't know what they were thinking. I started gaining weight in college and I tried not to think about it. A couple of years ago we switched to a whole foods diet and our weight evened out. I'm hoping that this diet will help us loose some pounds and then we can go back to our regular eating patterns.

I used to work retail and one thing I found is that almost everyone has something about their body that they would change, even if it would be invisible to anyone else. You know--small bust, big bust, long arms, wide hips, small butt, big butt, fatty back, lumpy stomach, bony shoulders, etc. In the end, I decided that if you brush your teeth and do your hair and are kind to people, you've done the biggest part of being attractive.

[Lee Ann]

I hate this subject. I wish I could get over it. I think I am getting close. It has become apparent recently that my perception of my body is just that, a perception. I try to work out 3 times a week and feel great when I do. We try to take family walks whenever we can - I feel great when we do. Feeling healthy has so little to do with being on a diet. I recently did Atkins with my husband and my little girl picked up on how miserable I was. She tried to get me to eat a bagel with her. That was the second I stopped "dieting." I am in a constant state of trying to improve my health. This means - to me - building good habits. I am 50 pounds overweight, but I have lost 20 pounds and a couple of inches over the last year. I am stronger than I was and can weed my garden for 40 minutes at a time rather than 4. These small steps are the things I live for. Merely reducing my portion sizes and drinking more water makes me feel healthier. I wish we didn't stress so much about our weight. My biggest goal right now is raising my kids with healthy food attitudes. Sorry I've rambled on, but I have thought about this subject extensively for the past 33 years or so. I almost wish I hadn't spent so much time on it. Here it is: find what makes you feel healthy and do that.

[Robin]

When I was in High School I was a size 9/10. Very average although there were girls in school who were so much thinner. In an attempt to make sure I didn't get fat, my mom often had me on a diet of some kind. I feel like that ruined my metabolism. After living in Israel for 2 years when I was 22-24 I gained about 25 pounds. When I came home, mom put me on a diet because I was "a mess". I lost the weight. I gained the weight and on and on for years. I did Diet Workshop, Jenny Craig (there I lost 35 pounds and $1,000).I eat to cope. It sucks. I did Atkins a few years ago and lost 35 pounds initially but without all my carbs I was depressed and went off it.
Now I am on a low carb diet again but I do get carbs for one meal a day and it's slow going but so far I have lost 12 pounds and I enjoy it.
My doctor said I have to find a diet for life otherwise I will be on diabetic meds within 3 years!!
I need to lose over 100 pounds to feel comfortable with myself. My sister will probably get married Sept 2005 and we are planning our trip to Disney for Nov 2005 so I want to be pretty darn close to my goal by then.
It's such a struggle. I wish I didn't have to worry about my weight all the time!

[AGK]

I feel the same in many ways. I'm slim and trim after three kids, and I sometimes feel bad, but I just finished a piece about not apologizing for it anymore. But still, I have health issues now that keep me thinner than I would like to be, so sometimes I wish for the trade-off -- I'll take a larger outside for a healthier inside...