My dad pointed out that my jeans were getting tight in college.

Subsequently, throughout my life, he has occasionally mentioned my pudge. Nothing as overt as calling me "fat." More comments like "That sure is a big salad you're eating" or "You're looking rounder."

He's really a weight ****, though. Always has been. Now that he's 71, he's starting to develop a spread of his own, though.

I was very young, I don't remember how old I was, but I remember the event strongly.

I was standing in my grandmother's kitchen and I was about eye level with the ice dispense on the fridge. I was reaching for a canister of gumdrops that my grandfather had bought for me and my uncle was there. He asked what I was doing and I told him. He poked me in the belly and said "You shouldn't eat that. You need to remember this - no one likes a fat girl and people only like you now because you are fat and a kid. When you grow up, you won't have any friends and you will never have a boyfriend." .... I didn't even know what it meant. All I knew then was something was wrong with my belly, I was fat and that I wasn't liked.

.... It all went downhill from there.

4th grade, just changed schools. Some older boys teased me, calling me fat. I was completely normal...very althletic legs. Their hurtful words killed my confidence at a new school and I felt fat from that day forward. I recently saw a picture of myself in 10th grade (when I thought I was a cow) and can't believe I thought that of myself.

Probably at age 7 and then everyday until I was 13 and dropped 75lbs eating xxx calories a day. Then no one called me fat anymore but in my head I'm always the fat girl. Now I feel just as fat at a size 4 as I do at an 18.

Originally Posted by GonnaTurnHeads:
I was very young, I don't remember how old I was, but I remember the event strongly.

I was standing in my grandmother's kitchen and I was about eye level with the ice dispense on the fridge. I was reaching for a canister of gumdrops that my grandfather had bought for me and my uncle was there. He asked what I was doing and I told him. He poked me in the belly and said "You shouldn't eat that. You need to remember this - no one likes a fat girl and people only like you now because you are fat and a kid. When you grow up, you won't have any friends and you will never have a boyfriend." .... I didn't even know what it meant. All I knew then was something was wrong with my belly, I was fat and that I wasn't liked.

.... It all went downhill from there.

You are beautiful! I hope you know that..

Elementary school. Like, first or second grade elementary school. That's when my family moved overseas to Serbia, and that's when I began seeing a change in my size through pictures (looking back). So... probably stress eating... I liked to be by myself. Most of my "friends" either just wanted me to give them stuff (bc I was the american), or would call me being part of the Mafia, or the one who bombed their nation in '99. Which is impossible considering I was only 8 and 9... but yeah.

Can't exactly "blame" them much for saying "yeah, you're fat", it's very much in the serbian culture to be blunt. However, there were a couple girls who would whisper in my ear "debela" (which means fat), or have that kind of be my "name". That was being mean... the other... just pointing out a fact.

I was first called fat by my best friend in grade 8. He met my cousin who is pretty much the complete opposite of me, skinny, blond. He said "your cousin is sooo hot and your the funny one, and fat, your kidna fat". It hurt alot, and to this day i think it has alot to do with my problems.

1st grade. My mom told me I was getting fat. I was actually still underweight for my height. Then again when I gained in 6th grade.

Like others have mentioned, I was very small when I was born but it wasn't due to being premature but severely past-due. I was due in July then they adjusted it to Aug 6 and I was born September 6. That was the 60's and they wouldn't dream of that now but at the time I was 5lbs 13oz and 23 inches long with superlong fingernails and a little body that was starting to break down.

In a quest to get me "healthy" my mom decided to mix my formula double and I put on weight quickly. I remember pictures at age 2 where I was already obviously overweight and it continued on. I don't recall the first time I was called fat. Instead, I remember events in my life. In kindergarten our teacher had us all line up and she weighed and measured us. I remember the kids were around 50lbs give or take some but not me. I was the tallest kid and I weighed in at a whopping 125lbs. I dare say I was close to my teacher's size.

In 3rd grade my life had become such a living torment that I one night picked up a knife and tried to cut my wrists but couldn't get past the pain of it to do more than surface marks, thank God.

Next I recall at age 11 weighing in at 211lbs. By this time I had family members, kids at school and strangers making fun of me and some adults started asking me "when was I due."

Growing up we had a family doctor who was obsessed with overweight even though he smoked like a chimney - something equally unhealthy. My mom was chunky (but nothing like me) so every time we had to go there he would always lecture me about my weight, things like asking me if I realized that it took twice the amount of soap to bathe me as someone "normal" and other horrible things. Once I got into my mid to late teens he started writing out scripts of diet pills and just handing them to me (mind you that wasn't why I was there and I hadn't asked for them - sometimes he "forgot" I was actually sick and I had to sit there and remind him.)

When I had my stomach stapled in 1997 I lost 88lbs in 6 months and my boss at work was the one who had to really help me realize it. I would be walking down the hallway and if someone started coming towards me I would stop and start to inch through sideways. At size 12! She would stop and point it out to me that I didn't have to do that, that I was normal sized and could walk normally. I wore my first short skirt. I started turning heads. It was so foreign to me.

Like others have noted though, the damage had been done and I was (am) very off in my perception of how I look and other's perceptions. I have a hard time keeping my eyes up when I walk and feel like I am very conspicuous in anything I do so I have a need to be unnoticed and under the radar and I fear confrontation and anger worse than the plague. Can anyone else relate to this?

Anyway, this is a great subject with a lot of different stories. I find them sad, people can be so cruel.

Take care,
Kellye

The first time I heard someone criticise my weight was when I was about 10. I was staying with my Grandma for the school holidays, and she was on the phone to my Mum discussing my Mum's upcoming wedding... "Oh you can't put Cheece in pink, she'll look like a fat little pink sausage". I didn't wear pink again until I was at least 20!! I also remember my cousin and I running around the block that school holidays to help me lose weight, and I fell over and skinned my knee badly...that was probably when I started saying "I don't run" too.

i was so young i can't even remember. isn't that sad? i've just always been fat, always identified as fat, and could never conceive of myself any differently.

I don't honestly remember ever being called "fat" directly while I was growing up, but It must have happened because I always knew that I was a fat kid.

Most of the time it was teachers at school, which were the worst offenders. They would be teaching health classes or Physical Education classes ans they would make comments like "no one wants to be unhealthy and fat" and then look directly at me. Or I would be made to run extra laps of the school oval without any reason, i was basically just expected to do what I was told.

Like someone said earlier. A child doesn't have the ability to make a change in lifestyle, that responsibility falls completely on the parent up until the mid teenage years.

On a lighter note: the only time I was directly attacked about my weight in high school was in the middle of a Personal Development class (like a health class) by a horrible teacher, I had a lot of good friends in the class who came to my defence, essentially evicted the teacher from the classroom and then spent the next half hour talking about how much of a b*tch the woman was. Definitely made the remainder of my high school years much better. :)

1st time I was in about 4th or 5th grade I answered the front door at home and it was one of my brothers friends and he said "dang you need to go on a diet".

Then in 8th grade there was a boy who everytime he saw me he would say "you won! you won! the fat and ugly contest".

In my junior year of high school every day when I got off at my stop there was a boy in the back of the bus that would make a mooing sound. The funny thing is I weighed about 160-170 then and this boy was at least 300 pounds?

Oh geesh, forever. I can't remember how old I was but my mother put me on diets since the age of 6, forced me to drink gallons of water before I could eat anything, I would be sitting with the family and everyone got food and I always got something different. My nickname was FATS. Lets just say I grew up with an eating disorder, by the age of 8 I was sneaking out of bed before anyone was up going to the basement and I would exercise to lose weight. I starting purging in my pre teens. Sighhhhh I hate going back to those feelings. I realize more about myself now and how distructive your first impressions of weight effect you for the rest of your life. I've always heard my entire life "Rena you have such a pretty face if you just lost weight" now it's about taking control of my health and doing this to finally match my soul, cause I have been doing inner work for so long, I finally want me on the inside to be reflected on the outside. The destructrive thought patterns are very hard to break when they have been instilled in my brain for so long, but it's growth and I'm learning as I go.

Two things really stick out in my mind. I was probably in 3rd grade, at the public pool and walking over to the concession stand. An older boy said to me "Where are you going? Cattle crossing is over there!" Another....On family trips my brother and sister would make fun of me. If we saw a semi with a "wide load" banner on it, they'd tell me I needed to wear one. This was the joke thoughout all of my grade-school years I think.