In this day and age, it's so easy to get on the "fat shaming" train. I get it, I get it. An overweight parent is putting him or herself up to an early death, leaving their child(ren) all alone, without a mom or dad. The child eats to feel better and bam! They've become a part of the diabetic epidemic. But here's the thing, that person, whoever he or she is, is a human and deserves to be treated as so. This is how I handle it, ready? I ignore the picture and when I see the person, tell them that they're beautiful. Crazy, I know, but I am not a doctor, I haven't studied this person's files, and I have no reason to knock this person down.
I would like to share my personal story with you. When I was about ten, I went to visit my grandmother in Maine, and after hugging me, she told me I should consider losing a few pounds because I would look better. As a young, prepubescent child, I didn't really know how to respond. I loved my grandma but I did not love what she was saying to me. What did I do? I ran outside to play with my cousins and spend an hour jumping on the trampoline.
Did my grandmother come straight out and say, "You look fat, lose a couple pounds and you'll be pretty"? No, absolutely not. She also did not say, "You are beautiful, just the way you are. Don't change a thing about yourself." Some people may say I need to have thicker skin and to stop being so sensitive. I agree, I definitely had to learn that not everybody will always like me or how I look, but it's a hard lesson to learn at the age of ten.
About a year later, I began to go through full on puberty. I will spare you details because every teenage girl knows the pain of getting her first period (bonus points if it's at school) (extra-double-bonus points if you were wearing a white pair of pants!). Everyone knows puberty sucks. But you know what sucks more? When your friends' parents talk about you because you got boobs before their children.
Yes, some doctors agree that beginning puberty early is a sign of obesity. I'm not trying to diminish that at all. But do you know what else can start puberty early? Genetics. Both my grandmothers and mother all began puberty before the rest of their friends. That's why my pediatrician was not at all surprised or worried when I got my period at the ripe age of 11 and started growing breasts shortly after that.
Note, the picture below is from the end of middle school, but notice the similarities between myself and my grandmother.
Fast forward a few years to high school. Every movie about high school hits upon how difficult it is to fit in. I'm trying so hard not to be cliche here, but I definitely had trouble fitting in and trying to find out who the real Erin was. I was a cheerleader (eventually a co-captain), a member of National Honor Society (and treasurer for a while), an English enthusiast, a math nerd, one of only two girls in my trade (carpentry), and dated the same boy all throughout high school. There's nothing wrong with who I was, but I always felt like I was missing something.
When I first joined the cheer team, I wanted to get in shape. The team was cliquey; I'm not really sure what I expected, but I did make a best friend. We cheered all four seasons, always rooting for each other. When I was a junior, a mother of one of the football players came to a game and started yelling at us about how bad we were, how we would never be as pretty or as good as the neighboring towns' cheerleaders and so on. Did this shake my confidence? Yes, most definitely.
What I'm trying to say is that there will always be someone prettier, or healthier, or younger, or for some reason just better than you. Always. You have to know that you're beautiful, no matter what. Know that if you're happy with how you look, and your doctor says you're healthy, that's all that matters. But you also must know that there is always going to be someone to bring you down. It might be a friend, classmate, mentor, or family member. In the words of my mother and Taylor Swift, haters gonna hate. It's how you deal with the hate that determines how others see you.
