It was an unfortunate archetype for our generation that when a bunch of kids were put together, everyone was quick to notice who the "fat kid" was.

And the funny thing was that they all seemed to think that you weren't aware of it. Everyone thought that they were the first to think of it and how their sense of humor was so freaking innovative. Please.

For me, I was assigned the label of the "fat kid" and heard all the jokes and comments. At the age of six, I started being consumed by body image issues to the point of not being able to focus in class or enjoy cake during someone's birthday. Every time I felt hungry, I felt guilty. Every time I ate, I felt guilty; because I couldn't think of food as fuel, but instead thought of it as the thing that would make me fatter and the other kids meaner.

And the funny thing is that weight loss doesn't fix everything. Because no matter how much you work out, you cannot shed the memories. You cannot shed the label that was thrown onto you so long ago. You thought that you'd be satisfied if you were skinnier. But in your head, you never lost the weight. And you didn't in other people's heads either.

You get asked if you "want the book on not eating" by the football player when the teacher runs out to photocopy something. You're stunned that after all these years and after all you've done to try and break away from this label you're back where you've started. What he doesn't know is all those times you were pulled out of soccer games because the coach thought that you weren't trying, when really you were starving and had used up all your energy. He doesn't know that you had a fear of mirrors in seventh and eight grade. None of them know.

Eating is a basic physiological need. So why do so many people feel guilty for something that is necessary for maintaining homeostasis and, well, staying alive? Why do we shame hunger when it's really our bodies telling us they need fuel? We don't shame our cars for being low on gas.

Or, at times when I wasn't being ashamed of feeling hungry, I had a weird way of romanticizing it. Just like people say pain is weakness leaving the body, I thought of every moment of hunger as my getting prettier, until I couldn't take it any longer and ate and then felt terrible.

Maya Angelou once said that "people will never forget how you made them feel." Words stay with us. Jokes stay with us. We may laugh with everyone else to divert attention away from us, but we've become the masters of pretending to be laughing while really cracking inside.

But that kid was so much more than the "fat kid." Sure, she was a little chubby, but she also had a moral dilemma with hand washing in kindergarten when she learned that it killed germs. And whenever possible, she'd dig a tiny grave and do a funeral for any dead animal she came across. And that one time she saw a fly struggling in a spider web when the spider wasn't there, set it free, and put a piece of dog kibble or something in the web instead.

It's time we stopped using weight as the be all and end all of who a person is. People have many dimensions, and all need to be recognized. It's time we stopped making eating a stressful experience for others and it's time to stop giving people a fear of mirrors. People, and life, are so much more than that.