I was a fat kid. I haven’t written about this before because being a fat kid hurt me then. And having been a fat kid hurts me now.

Things I remember about being fat： Not being able to wear jeans （there was no such thing as jeans for fat girls in 1983）. Not wanting to participate in any games at the school fair except the cakewalk. Faking sick on the day we were supposed to do height-weight testing， only to find out that it had been postponed a day. Pretending to twist my ankle at age 7 in the 50-yard dash to spare myself the embarrassment of being the fat kid who came in last； doing the same at age 8， and 11. Stealing bags of brown sugar from the pantry to eat in my bedroom， alone； denying to my mother that I’d done so， even when it was clear she knew I had.

There is a theme here： absence， and falsity. I couldn’t wear jeans； I didn’t want to play games that wouldn’t get me cake； I faked sick； I pretended to twist my ankle； and I denied secret eating. Being a fat child wasn’t so much about the fact of being fat as it was about couldn’t， wouldn’t， shouldn’t. There is a counter-theme too： Love—of food， exquisite food， food， food， phood， food， the panacea to whatever free-floating stresses there were in my life as an intellectually mature but emotionally not-so-mature 8-yearold girl. I didn’t have a difficult childhood by any means， but it was a childhood； it came with bumps and dents and scratches that I didn’t really know how to handle. Lucky for me， I didn’t have to learn， because I had food right there， every day， making it all okay. It worked—until it didn’t， but that’s not the story I’m trying to tell here. Food felt like it worked， and in a child’s mind， that’s enough.

When I look at my own experience as a fat kid， I don’t see a problem with society， or cruel children， or unlimited soda refills. I see a problem with—how do I put this without appearing to be swatting the wrist of my 8-year-old self？—I see a problem with me， and with the way I understood my size. There was very little fat-shaming in my life， but I still felt like being fat was wrong， bad， unfeminine， shameful—all those things fat activists say are erroneously attached to weight. They’re right to say that； those feelings should be separate from weight. Yet they weren’t separate， not for me. I filtered any feeling I had—about my fatness or anything else—through food， and my chronic overeating was what kept me fat. My feelings were my fatness； my fatness， feelings. I wouldn’t have been better off had I been basically bullied into losing weight， or into feeling worse about being fat. But I certainly would have been better off if I weren’t fat.

I’d also had been better off if the world around me didn’t disperse shame upon overweight people—had my grandmother not told me I was “too big，”had my classmate remained nonchalant whatever the number on my height-weight card， had my neighbor not insinuated I could single-handedly topple over a trailer designed for far greater stress than a fourth-grader’s frame. The world needs to change in its attitude toward fat people， and that is unquestionable. And yes， I wish the world around me had been different. But I wish I’d been different too.

Being a fat kid wasn’t easy. I wasn’t teased or bullied， and few people ever tried to make me feel like I was lesserthan because my body was more-than. The problem went much deeper than that. The problem—to a point—was me.

The emphasis on childhood obesity is a convenient scapegoat for the deeply conflicted relationship that pretty much our whole society has with food， comfort， bodies， and conformity. And we as a society have a responsibility to not only take a cold， hard look at that relationship for our own benefit， but， yes， “for the children.” We need to help children on a physical， mental， emotional， and sociological level be as healthy as possible. And sometimes being as healthy as possible includes losing weight. I’m not a public health expert， I’m not a psychologist. I don’t know how to help children reconcile the ostensibly dueling messages of“You are good just the way you are”and “You might be better off if you took certain steps that will make you healthier—and， as it happens slimmer”. I just know that we need to.

Nobody should be made to feel bad because of how they look， or because of the size their body takes up in the world. But not all fat-phobia comes from outer sources. Yes， I’m tired of the idea that weight loss is unequivocally a good thing； I loathe the bumper-sticker wisdom that inside every fat person there’s a thin person waiting to get out. Nobody wins when we assume fat people must be unhappy. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t fat people—including children—whose size makes them unhappy， and who don’t have a vocabulary for articulating that unhappiness without falling down the rabbit hole of self-loathing. Had I such language as a child， I might have found more satisfaction from what came out of my mouth than what went into it.

我曾經(jīng)是個胖娃。以前我從未寫過這番經(jīng)歷，因為那時“是個胖娃”讓我很受傷。而曾經(jīng)是個胖娃，如今亦讓我心傷。

我記得肥胖時的那么一些事情：不能穿牛仔褲（在1983年，根本沒有給胖妞穿的牛仔褲）。不想?yún)⒓訉W(xué)校游園會里的任何游戲，除非是步態(tài)競賽。在要測量身高體重的日子假裝生病，卻不料測量日子推遲了一天。七歲時在50碼短跑中假裝扭傷腳踝，以免落得成為“跑最后的胖子”的尷尬；然后在八歲和十一歲時故伎重演。從食雜柜里偷出袋裝紅糖，藏在臥室里獨吃。在媽媽面前極力否認(rèn)自己的行徑，即便我明知她是知道實情的。

這其中有一個主題：缺席和謊言。我不能穿牛仔褲；我不玩沒有蛋糕作為獎勵的游戲；我佯裝生??；我假裝扭傷腳踝；我還否認(rèn)偷吃。作為一個胖娃，其實跟“胖”沒多大關(guān)系，而是關(guān)乎不能、不愿意和不應(yīng)該。這其中也有一個與前者相對立的主題：熱愛——熱愛食物、精致的食物、食物、食物、食物、食物，那是靈丹妙藥——為我這個智力成熟但情緒不太成熟的八歲女孩排除人生中一切飄忽壓力的靈藥。我的童年怎么說也不算艱難，但那確實是童年時光，也會有一些我真的無法處理的磕磕碰碰、坑坑洼洼和小擦小傷。我很幸運，我不必去費心領(lǐng)悟教訓(xùn)，因為我每一天都擁有食物，一切都不是問題。食物很有效——直到其最終失效，不過這不是我要說的故事。在一個小孩子看來，食物讓人覺得有效，這就足夠了。

當(dāng)我回首以前那些“肥胖的日子”時，我不覺得這社會有什么毛病、也不覺得搗蛋欺人的孩子或者無限次汽水續(xù)杯是多嚴(yán)重的問題。我只看到一個問題——我該怎么說才不會看起來像給八歲的自己手腕上一記重?fù)?？——我看到了自己的問題，關(guān)于我怎么看待我的身形的問題。我的一生中幾乎沒有因為長得胖而覺得羞恥，可是我至今仍然覺得長得胖不對，很糟糕，缺乏女人味，也可恥——肥胖激進(jìn)分子認(rèn)為是錯加于體重問題的那些東西。他們這么說是對的；那些情感應(yīng)該與體重分開。但是這兩者并非互不相干，至少在我身上不是那樣。我會通過食物對我所有的情感——關(guān)于我的肥胖或者其他方面——進(jìn)行過濾，而我長期過量進(jìn)食是導(dǎo)致我肥胖的原因。我的情感就是我的肥胖；而我的肥胖就是我的情感。說實在的，如果我被強制減肥，或者被迫認(rèn)為當(dāng)一名胖妞很糟糕，我不會幸福。不過，如果我不曾是一個胖娃，我肯定會過得更好。

如果我周圍的世界不給超重人群渲染上羞恥的色彩，我也會過得更好——如果我的祖母沒有說我“塊頭太大”，如果我的同班同學(xué)對我身高體重卡上的數(shù)字漠不關(guān)心，如果我的鄰居不再含沙射影地說我一手便可以推翻那種承重能力遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)超出一個四年級學(xué)生體格的貨柜拖車。這個世界需要改變其對肥胖人群的態(tài)度，這是毋庸置疑的。是的，我希望以前我周圍的世界能有所不同。不過我也希望過去的我非彼時的模樣。

當(dāng)一個胖小孩不容易。我沒有受到嘲笑或欺凌，幾乎沒有人會因為我的身體“卓卓有余”而做些什么讓我覺得自己“不足”。問題的層次要深得多。問題——從某種程度上來說——在于我自己。

我們整個社會在美食、慰藉、體型和從眾心理這些問題上，立場態(tài)度總是矛盾重重，兒童癡肥現(xiàn)象輕易便成為眾矢之的。而我們作為一個社會群體，有責(zé)任冷靜、認(rèn)真地看待這種關(guān)系，既是出于我們自己的利益，也是，“為了孩子們著想”。我們需要幫助孩子們在身體上、精神上、情緒上和心理上獲得盡可能健康的成長。有時，盡可能的健康成長也包括了減肥。我不是一個公共衛(wèi)生專家，我也不是一個心理學(xué)家。我不懂得如何幫助孩子們權(quán)衡這兩個表面上對立的信息：“做回自己就很好”和“如果你能采取某些行動讓自己更健康，也許你會過得更好，而且隨之而來的是更為苗條的身材”。我只知道，我們需要這么做。

沒有人應(yīng)該為自己的外表或體型感到難過。然而，不是所有的肥胖恐懼都來自于外因。是的，我已經(jīng)厭倦了“減肥是明擺著有益的事”這一說法；我討厭那些車尾貼警句——“每一個胖子的體內(nèi)都藏著一個呼之欲出的瘦子”。以為肥胖人群一定過得不開心的這種心態(tài)，對誰都沒好處。但那不意味著沒有不因自己體型而苦悶難過的胖人（包括兒童），也不意味著沒有因胖愁難言而掉入自憎自棄深淵里的胖人。如果我小時候就擁有那樣的語言能力，也許我從說出的話中獲得的滿足會比吃進(jìn)去的更多。