NEECEY
I am an 38 year old African American Female. I have been "stout" and "chubby" since I was 7 or 8 years old.
My mom loves fat little babies. It is the mind set that she grew up with in Mississipi in the 40's. Back when she was a child, if your children were fat, that meant your husband was a good provider and you were not poor. People would put bacon grease around their babies mouths to make their friends and family believe that their baby was already eating meat. (hilarious) I understand the mentality of my grandparents in the way that they raised their children during depressed times in the south.
I was blessed to have a loving and close knit family. My weight was never a big deal to me or my family. To them, I was happy and healthy. I brought home straight A's, had lots of friends, and had confidence in my self. (This was due to overwhelming family support and love. My mom was truly a mother hen, and still is. )
As I became a teenager, I began to experience discrimination against me by certain teachers. This was unfamiliar to me because my teachers all loved me in grade school. These teachers, not all of them, would seem to ignore or dismiss me when a skinnier kid would interupt my time with them. My case in point, I had a gym teacher in the 7th grade that wanted 8 kids to square dance in competition against other schools. So, she would have "fair" eliminations to pick the best dancers. I was a great square dancer. I loved it and had been square dancing since 4th grade at least. I out-danced and out-lasted almost everyone in gym class. She sped up the music, thinking that I would tire and make a mistake, but I held in there. The eliminations were down to the final eight kids, and yeah, I was one of them, fair and square right? Wrong! She pulled me out and replaced me with a skinny girl who had been eliminated already for making too many mistakes!! I protested, the rest of the group protested, which made me feel good because they liked me. It didn't matter. The gym teacher didn't want me on the team because I was fat.
She didn't say it in so many words, she said that she already had the costumes made up and I would not be able to fit the skirt. My mother, grandmother and aunts sewed, so that would not be a problem, I told her. Then she just said, "well, you don't have the look I was going for." I was so hurt and devisted. Me, denied! I became outraged and tried to make her understand that she was not being fair and that I had earned my place in the competition, so she booted me out of gym class that day. I quit taking gym and joined the marching band, if you were in the marching band you didn't have to take gym class. I remained in marching band until my 11th grade year.
Fast fowarding to the present... I am now 38 and have 46DD breast. My back is killing me. I have had irregular periods in the last 4 years and discovered that I have fibroid tumors. I would bleed for 5 or 6 months at a time. Yes, every day of the week! Then I would skip a period for 3, 4, 5 months. It wasn't heavy at first, more like spotting, but later it became so heavy that I lost so much blood that now I am anemic. Very, very depressing to bleed so heavily. It turns out that fat produces estrogen, I produce more estrogen than progestrone. Birth control pills would not stop it unless I took 5 pills a day. (Too dangerous) I had to have several D&Cs and take Prometrium, progrestone, to get some balance. Everyone on my mom's side of the family has diabetes, except for me suprisingly. My parents are not overweight, but me and one brother are morbidly obese, and one of my half sisters is morbidly obsese as well. All of my siblings have diabetes, even the skinny ones. Why it skipped me so far, I don't know. I don't know how long my luck will last. All of my first cousins are diabetic, one went blind, a couple had foot amputations, a couple are on dialysis machines, a few have gone into diabetic comas and died.
Sometimes, parents can love their kids so much that they are blinded to what they are creating. If you were eating, that meant you were healthy, it was a good sign. Looking back, I wish I was limited on how much I ate ,when I ate it, and what I ate. I never ate because I was emotionally depressed, or lonely, or even slightly stessed. I ate because the food was plentiful and tasted great! Seconds and thirds were ok. Cakes and pies, home-made ice cream, oh my.. (ha ha ha) As a single adult with no kids, I was always available for dinner dates, and family BBQ's with boyfriends. It's got to stop somewhere! Can you say... "out of control".
About Me
East St Louis, IL
Location
56.6
BMI
Surgery
07/06/2005
Surgery Date
Jun 19, 2005
Member Since
