Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body

by Roxane Gay

Even at that young age, I understood that to be fat was to be undesirable to men, to be beneath their contempt,

This is what most girls are taught—that we should be slender and small. We should not take up space. We should be seen and not heard, and if we are seen, we should be pleasing to men, acceptable to society. And most women know this, that we are supposed to disappear, but it’s something that needs to be said, loudly, over and over again, so that we can resist surrendering to what is expected of us.

I (want to) believe my worth as a human being does not reside in my size or appearance.

My body is a cage. My body is a cage of my own making. I am still trying to figure my way out of it. I have been trying to figure a way out of it for more than twenty years.

I don’t want to think of my body as a crime scene. I don’t want to think of my body as something gone horribly wrong, something that should be cordoned off and investigated.

I buried the girl I had been because she ran into all kinds of trouble. I tried to erase every memory of her, but she is still there, somewhere. She is still small and scared and ashamed, and perhaps I am writing my way back to her, trying to tell her everything she needs to hear.

The past sometimes feels like it might kill me. It is a very heavy burden.

Hating myself became as natural as breathing. Those boys treated me like nothing so I became nothing.

When I read, I could forget.

The men I talked to online allowed me to enjoy the idea of romance and love and lust and sex while keeping my body safe.

I knew that when a woman said no, men were supposed to listen and stop what they were doing. I knew that it wasn’t my fault

There was a quiet thrill to having this new vocabulary, but in many ways, I did not feel like that vocabulary could apply to me.

My friendships, and I use that term loosely, were fleeting and fragile and often painful, with people who generally wanted something from me and were gone as soon as they got that something.

The faint resemblance of human connection was enough. It had to be enough even though it wasn’t.

It’s a hell of a thing, this idea that the way to truly settle old scores is to get thinner and fitter.

can have it all when they eat the right foods and follow the right diets and pay the right price. What does it say about our culture that the desire for weight loss is considered a default feature of womanhood?

In yet another commercial, Oprah somberly says, “Inside every overweight woman is a woman she knows she can be.” This is a popular notion, the idea that the fat among us are carrying a thin woman inside.

The less space they take up, the more they matter.

When I go to the gym on my own, I always feel like all eyes are on me. I try to pick times when there won’t be many people around, partly to protect myself, partly out of self-loathing.

The story of my life is wanting, hungering, for what I cannot have or, perhaps, wanting what I dare not allow myself to have.

it is so difficult to enjoy food. It is so difficult to believe I am allowed to enjoy food. Mostly, food is a constant reminder of my body, my lack of willpower, my biggest flaws.

Even when I am in a good relationship it is hard to stand up for myself. It is hard to express dissatisfaction or have the arguments I want to have because I feel like I’m already on thin ice by virtue of being fat. It is hard to ask for what I want and need and deserve and so I don’t. I act like everything is always fine, and it’s not fair to me or anyone else.

I would be told these things and then have to try and remember all the things I shouldn’t do so I wouldn’t be so upsetting by just existing.

I would spend all my time just reminding myself, Don’t swing your arms. And then I might get distracted and forget and accidentally let my arm move an inch or two and I would hear this exasperated sigh, so I would redouble my efforts to make myself less upsetting to this person I loved.

I stood there on the front porch, wanting my body to collapse in on itself. I had been so excited, so happy I had made myself pretty, and it wasn’t good enough. I certainly didn’t try that again.

I was never going to be good enough, but I tried so hard. I tried to make myself better. I tried to make myself acceptable to someone who would never find me acceptable but kept me around for reasons I cannot begin to make sense of.

Part of the reason relationships and friendships can be so difficult for me is because there is a part of me that thinks I have to get things just right. I have to say the right things and do the right things or I won’t be liked or loved anymore.

I find myself apologizing for who I am.

It’s scary believing that you, as you are, could ever be enough.

What if who I am will never be enough? What if I will never be right enough for someone?

I am not a hugger. I never have been and I never will be. I hug my friends, and do so happily, but I am sparing with such affections. A hug means something to me; it is an act of profound intimacy, so I try not to get too promiscuous with it.

When I tell strangers I am not a hugger, some take this as a challenge, like they can hug me into submission,

they say, “I know you don’t like hugs, but I’m going to hug you anyway,” and I have to dodge their incoming bodies as politely as I can.

Why do we view the boundaries people create for themselves as challenges? Why do we see someone setting a limit and then try to push?

Doctors are supposed to first do no harm, but when it comes to fat bodies, most doctors seem fundamentally incapable of heeding their oath.

If I died, I would leave people behind who would struggle with my loss. I finally recognized that I matter to the people in my life and that I have a responsibility to matter to myself and take care of myself so they don’t have to lose me before my time, so I can have more time.