Growing up overweight changes the entire experience of growing up. Whether it's the way other people look at you, or the way you look at yourself, being an overweight child is vastly different from being an average weight child. Here are 5 things that people who struggled with their weight growing up know to be true.
1. The words people use to describe you are different.
Growing up fat means that adults will almost always describe you as chubby, or pudgy, or husky, or any combination of the three long before they ever mention you being tall, or short, or intelligent, or blonde, brunette, or redheaded. As a child, my weight was my most defining feature, not my curly hair, smart mouth or stellar grades. It's hard to not become self-conscious at a young age when all of the adults in your life are totally focused on the number of inches around your rapidly growing waistline.
2. Your relationship with food is different.
I remember being afraid to eat lunch with my classmates as early as Kindergarten. I knew that my size made me an easy target for bullying, and my classmates knew it too. I would eat a tiny amount at lunch and then binge on chips and cookies and other snack foods as soon as I got home. This unhealthy relationship with food carried on into adulthood, now that I'm in college I tend to eat alone in the dining hall so that I don't have to feel like my friends are judging every bite I put in my mouth, even though I know that they never would.
3. The way you interact with your peers is different.
Overweight kids know all too well what it feels like to be the pity friend. I knew that my elementary school best friends whispered about me behind my back. Except for a few kids who were just nice, people befriended me for one of two reasons: either to feel better about themselves by comparison or out of pity for the lonely fat kid.
4. Your personality is different.
Overweight kids get through school using either humor or intimidation. I used humor, I was the funny friend. Unfortunately, using humor to make friends makes it harder to find friends who will take you seriously when you're no longer joking, and if you use intimidation, you end up becoming a lonely bully whom no one wants to be around.
5. The development of your self-esteem is different.
This one is a no-brainer, children who are overweight are often targets for bullying, and this has a negative impact on their self-esteem. It's hard to feel good about yourself when the other kids are mooing at you as you walk through the halls or cracking jokes when you can't keep up with the rest of your classmates in gym class or on the playground. Being the biggest kid in class can make you the loneliest kid in class too.
