Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body

by Roxane Gay

I don’t hate myself in the way society would have me hate myself, but I do live in the world. I live in this body in this world, and I hate how the world all too often responds to this body. Intellectually, I recognize that I am not the problem. This world and its unwillingness to accept and accommodate me are the problem. But I suspect it is more likely that I can change before this culture and its attitudes toward fat people will change.

that part

My family’s constant pressure to lose weight made me stubborn, even though the only person I was really hurting was myself. The constant pressure made me refuse to lose weight to punish these people who claimed to love me but wouldn’t accept me as I was.

It’s scary, though, trying to be yourself and hoping yourself is enough. It’s scary believing that you, as you are, could ever be enough.

Intellectually, I do not equate thinness with happiness.