Physical health, along with mental health, is still a growing problem in America. People who come from lower income houses are more likely to have weight problems because of how cheap fast-food is. (Like the 1 dollar menu at McDonalds or the fact that if you live in any town in America you’ll come across a fast-food restaurant every five minutes). This was a problem for me growing up as I know it is a problem for many young children growing up “in the ghetto.”
Growing up in Jamaica Queens, almost every night I would have fast-food or takeout. Even my dance studio was right next to a Chinese place. People immediately started to notice how much I was eating. They would laugh it off as “oh she’s just gaining a little baby weight” or they would try to wave vegetables or fruit in my face, but it wouldn’t work. I would still eat junk food whenever I craved it, which turned into craving it everyday. When I turned about six or seven I moved into a better neighborhood, into a bigger house with more opportunities around me. But that didn’t help settle my fast-food/Junk food dilemma. I would still eat Hot Pockets daily or beg my mom to pick up fries, a burger, and a milkshake on her way back from work. I never noticed that I was getting “fatter” weight was never a thing I thought about when I was younger. I just saw the food I wanted to eat, and I ate it. I didn’t really think about any of it until I started middle school and all the insults started.
Kids used to follow me around the hallways and call me “fatass”, make me drop the books I was holding, throw pretzels at the back of my head, and one kid even went up to me and called me “an ugly piece of shit” to my face. It was horrible. Then I started to see the fat on my body that everyone else saw. I saw on TV how girls with perfect bodies would walk around with bikinis and disney princesses would have the waist size of a newborn baby. All of that was initially programmed into my brain until I was a possessed blob of anxiety and self-hatred. By the time I had made it to high school, I didn’t know it yet, but I had clinical depression and anxiety. Is it because I used to be fat? Or is it because of what people said about me when I didn’t meet up to their standard of beauty? Probably the latter.
My weight started stressing me out. It prevented me from having any friends my whole freshman year of high school. So, like many before me have tried, I started a dieting and exercising. I downloaded this app on the iPhone I had just gotten for christmas that year that counted calories. It drove me absolutely insane, trying to keep track of every single thing that was put in my mouth. It agitated me to the point of me constantly starving myself, driving myself deeper into depression and anxiety. For months I had an eating disorder that I classified as being a “diet”. I barely ate, and when I ate something that made me feel fat I stuck my fingers down my throat and threw it up. Although I did end up loosing weight, I did it the wrong way. I did it based on self hatred, when losing weight is supposed to be fueled by self love.
By the time I had finished 10th grade I had weighed 147 pounds, but still this wasn’t enough for me. Ever since then, I have been “yo-yoing” or constantly gaining and losing weight. People go through this all of the time and their self-hatred is stemmed from the beauty standards of others. I could of easily lost the weight over a healthier period of time, rather than how fast I did loose it, if it hadn’t been for the media, and society’s role in how my body should look.
I’m still going through really bad depression, anxiety, and self image, so I guess this isn’t quite a success story yet, but one that helps other people know that they’re not alone.
