All my life I have been small, petite, skinny, lean, thin- however you want to word it. My least favorite description, is the word skinny. The word skinny is defined by one individual on Urban Dictionary as “Something a lot of girls want to be, also known as perfection…when thinness comes naturally, the girls who possess it get cocky and let their egos grow bigger than necessary.” Granted this is only one individuals subjective opinion, but I have to completely disagree with this subjection. Being skinny is not perfection, rather it’s a curse. I only wish I could have an ego about my thinness to replace my insecurity about how thin I am.
Growing up, I was called a myriad of foul things by other kids, such as, “Skinny Bones Jones”, “Freak of Nature”, “Skinny Bitch”, “Stick Figure”, “Gollum”, “Anorexic”, and “Skeletor” to name a few. I’ve also received dumb comments and questions like, “Do you eat?”, “You are skin and bones my dear, we need to get some meat on you”, “Go eat a sandwich”, and my personal favorite with a voice of shock and awe “You are so Skinny!”. If I could only get a royalty every time someone commented on my weight throughout life, I would be filthy rich by now. Girls were always the meanest too, either because they hated me for being skinny, or they wished they were as skinny as me, either way a pretty stupid reason to pass judgment against me before knowing me and assuming I’m anorexic. In grade school, I was picked on, ostracized, ridiculed, and bullied because of my weight. In high school I joined the water polo team and got a position as the team sprinter, these years I actually bulked up on muscle, so I didn’t look so skin and bones, but I was still told to go eat a sandwich by basically everyone in the aquatic program almost every day, because even with muscle, I still appeared to be freakishly skinny.
After 30 years being on this ball of rock and water we call Earth, I have never been able to even reach 110 pounds, not once. I’ve gotten close to it, but had much difficulty maintaining that weight. Furthermore, I only reached about 108 pounds max. weight because I spent half my life on hormonal birth controls, which was originally established to control teenage acne on my face and back. I was then blessed with all around growth, because the hormones trick your body into thinking it’s about three months pregnant at all times; which really helped me getting through puberty, because all the other girls were leaving me in the dust. I recently decided hormonal birth control was no longer a method of birth control for me, but oh have I suffered for this decision. I stand five feet and four inches, have yet to have children and I am now 93 pounds soaking wet. It’s almost unfair to myself to stay off of hormonal birth control, because nothing fits me anymore, even the clothes that used to be too small for me, now fit again. And all the clothes that fit me well when I weighed 108 pounds, are now too big.
I only wish I could be 115 pounds, for my height, I would look fantastic and I would actually have some curvy assets to show off, and feel good about myself. Even at 108 pounds, I have far more confidence than I do now at 93 pounds. I wish so much to be 108 again, men even find me more attractive at that weight, because I actually have something to grab on to.
I recently passed up on a Bachelorette party that involved being at a spa and pool retreat, which meant I had to spend the day in a bathing suit. There were other reasons I opted not to attend, but one reason, was I did not feel comfortable getting into a bathing suit to be around a bunch of women I did not know. I wanted to avoid the crude questions and comments, that for some reason when people open their mouths, never think about how crude what they are saying to me really is, because they are ignorant to my situation in life. About a month after turning down that pool gathering I accepted another invitation to a pool party at a house, where I didn’t know anyone but the girl who invited me and her fiancé. A rather good looking man asked me, “How much do you weigh?”, in front of several girls, and I was quick to answer with “Don’t you know you should never ask a woman how old she is or how much she weighs?”
I figured answering a question with a question was better than announcing my weight in front of a bunch of strange girls that already made me uncomfortable the moment of my arrival- I saw the way they looked at me, I heard the snickering as I walked by, I’m not dense, I know when people in a room are talking about me or my weight. Of course all these women had nice proportioned figures, not one them was disproportionately over weight or out of shape, they all looked great in their own individual ways. So why do they have to hate on me? Part of the reason why they hate on me, is because while they were too busy making rude comments amongst each other and judging me for my bodily appearance, all of their boyfriends took the time to introduce themselves to me to squash any curiosities they had about me, “The Stranger Skinny Chick”. We now live in a world that if you see your man talking to another human being that lacks an appendage in between their legs, it’s an instant threat to your relationship. Grow up! Please, this isn’t sophomore year and I am trying to steal your man for the winter formal, and your boyfriends weren’t that cool, either!
If you saw an overweight person that you didn’t know, you would never ask them to stop eating, would you? You would never tell an overweight person you didn’t know, that they should spend more time at the gym. You would never tell a tall person to get shorter, or a short person they should grow. And if you did say these things to a perfect stranger you are an insensitive jerk, and that’s all there is to it. So why do people never hesitate to comment on how skinny I am? Because I’m skinny it’s not an insult? Well actually it is, because I am perfectly aware of how small I am, but people treat me like I am not aware. I am perfectly aware of the weight I am currently at; I could not bear children. I am perfectly aware that I have recently lost weight that I never could afford to lose in the first place. I am perfectly aware that I need to gain weight- I’m not blind, and I do not have an eating disorder. I eat a lot actually, sometimes, I can even consume more food in a meal than a man can; then nothing happens. My metabolism is on steroids and there’s nothing I can do to slow it down.
We live in a society that prides it’s self on the way we look. The idea of what a perfect woman should look like is all in the eye of the beholder. I may be skinny and out of shape, and lack the body curves that Victoria’s Secret Angel Alessandra Ambrosio has, but I am still a person with feelings. Next time you want to comment on how skinny I am, try and say something positive and uplifting like, “You look pretty today”, or “Nice dress, where did you get it?”, or “Your hair looks amazing, who does it?”. You don’t need to make me feel insecure about my flaws that I have no control over in order to offset your own projections of your own insecurities about yourself and your flaws.
Sincerely,
The Skinny Girl
