Big Summer

by Jennifer Weiner

Research shows that shaming fat folks into thinness doesn’t work. And come on—if it did, most of the fat women in the world would have probably disappeared by now,

That would have been a normal night for most nineteen-year-olds in New York City, home on spring break of their sophomore year of college, with free time and a decent fake ID, but for me, each of those things—bar, friends, dancing—was an achievement, a little victory over the voice that had lived in my head since I was six years old, telling me I was fat, disgusting, unworthy of love, unworthy of friendship, unworthy of existing in public, even of walking outside; that a girl who looked like me did not deserve to have fun.

I’d gotten used to the rolled eyes and indignant sighs that I saw and heard—or thought that I could see and hear—when I sat beside someone on a bus or, worse, walked down the aisle of a plane. I’d learned every trick for taking up as little space as possible and not asking for much.

I stopped and asked myself, What did I do wrong? Who am I hurting? Is this what I deserve just for having the nerve to leave my home, to dance and try to have fun? I’m fat. That’s true. But I’m a good person. I’m kind and funny; I’m generous; I try to treat people the way I’d want them to treat me. I’m a hard worker. A good daughter. A good friend.

I’m fat. That’s true. But I’m a good person. I’m kind and funny; I’m generous; I try to treat people the way I’d want them to treat me. I’m a hard worker. A good daughter. A good friend.

“I am fat. But that doesn’t mean you get to treat me like garbage.”

I was going to eat to nourish myself, I was going to exercise to feel strong and healthy, I was going to let go of the idea

of ever being thin, once and for all, and live my life in the body that I had.

As the twig is bent, so is the tree inclined. Drue and her brother saw the way their parents treated the help, and they treated us the same.”

“When you have excluded the impossible, what remains, however improbable, must be the truth,”