Raising the Question

 A friend posted something like this on her Facebook last night, and it really made me think. "Is it so bad to be "fat"? Aren't there worst things as a human being to be such as dishonest, jealous, mean, rebellious, ignorant?"

My whole life when people have asked me to define myself, I always think to myself "fat", and then I write down the traits I believe make me, me. I think things I can put on this list include; caring, hard working, intelligent, educated, open-minded, classy, and probably some others but I won't be self centered. All of these things are great personality traits to have, yet I continue to define myself and my life as "fat".  Why do we do this?

I think my whole life I always saw people around me who were smaller then me, I also had a sister who was constantly making fun of my size and referring to me as "Hef" of "Heffer" and also having all of her friends refer to me as that.  Even after I lost some weight around my senior year, I still looked at myself as fat. It was something that had been engraved in my head for so many years that it is all that I know.  It also didn't help to be 11 years old and have my Dr tell me "you sure do have small bones for how big you are" when my whole life my mom had been telling me "Amanda you aren't fat, you are just big boned" HA! Second time I realized that my Mom lies (first was when I found out about Santa).

I would say about a year ago I stopped caring if I was fat. I know I am always going to be bigger then my sister, and even if we weighed the same, I would still be bigger then her.  I will never be a size 2, probably not even a size 6. Im ok with that. I know that I am taking the steps I need to take in my life to become a healthier person, and that is what matters most to me.  If being "fat" is the worse trait that defines me, I'm just fine with that. I'd say that makes me a pretty darn good person.

I am old enough now to realize that if people are making fun of you, or making comments about you, its because they are insecure within themselves.  It's funny that my whole life my sister has called me Hef, and then about a year ago someone stated that I should be an exhibit at the Cattle Congress.  Yeah, those things hurt, but they don't hurt as much anymore.  I am scared for the kids growing up bigger right now. Skinny is skinnier then it was when I was growing up, and more and more pressure is being put on being skinny and being healthy.  When I was growing up, bullying consisted of people calling you names to your face, you could go home and cry and wait until the next day to have it start all over again. These days, you can go home, try and hide from it all, yet turn on your computer and be bullied some more. Or have people send you mean text messages.

So I raise the question to everyone as individuals, parents, teachers, whatever you may be, Is being fat worse then being a mean, heartless, insecure person that needs to make fun of other people to feel better about themselves?