Fat Shaming Didn’t Help Me Lose Weight, It Just Hurt My Self-Esteem

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always been the bigger girl. I remember weighing in at 110 pounds while the other kids only weighed 70. I remember having boobs as early as 10 years old, and I remember shopping in the women’s section for my size 16 jeans at 13 years old.

People severely bullied me at school, at my home, and especially during family gatherings. The kids would create different names to call me, not realizing how much it would affect my mental health in the process. Adults bombarded me with crash diet suggestions. They tried scaring me into actually doing it, not noticing that all I wanted was to play outside and not be judged for my body.

I have known fat shaming my whole life, and it has done nothing but give me negative feelings toward my body.

It has never been a source of motivation or inspiration to derive from but a bad memory I will always want to forget. It’s never been the reason why I’ve now lost the weight, but why I gained it in the first place. Some believe fat shaming is what drives people to live better and healthier lifestyles. That may be true for 3% of civilization, but the honest truth is that it brings most of us down.

Fat shaming dampens how we feel about ourselves and our relationships with our own bodies. It is full of critical suggestions to “help” us, but they actually hurt us instead. Receiving criticism as an innocent child can conjure up destructive psychological consequences throughout adult life. When you are constantly bullied and harassed for the way you look, it causes self-esteem issues that take a long time to overcome. When you believe there’s something wrong with you, you stop fully living.

If you are currently a victim of fat shaming, I want you to read this carefully.

You’re not alone, and you are not the horrible words that come out of their mouths.

You are still someone who cares, who lives, and who loves. In this physicality-obsessed world, please obsess about yourself on the inside. Your personality, what makes you come alive, and what sets your heart on fire.

I, too, am slowly recovering from the toxic environment I once lived in. It’s been a tiresome but rewarding journey piecing back my mental health to where it should be. The one thing I’ve learned is that you are not your body, but your mind. You are not the clothes that fit you, but the ones you carry gracefully. Lastly, you are not other people’s thoughts, you are your own.