I am 15 years old. For as long as I can remember, I have been living with obesity. For as long as I can remember, I have been trying to lose weight. For as long as I can remember, I have been trying to fit in with everyone else. For as long as I can remember, I was asked questions about how old I was and people staring at me in disbelief for “my appearance did not match my age”. It went to such an extent that when I was eight, I started saying I was twelve. This habit continued until I was 14. That is when I realised that why should my appearance match my age.

A year ago, if you had asked me what my goal was, I would have said lose weight. Unfortunately, it took me a whole year to realise that my real goal was to be healthy. It was not to fit in with society. It was definitely not to be accepted by other people who judged me for my appearance.

When I was seven, I could not shop in the kid section because the clothes won’t fit me. So, I had to go buy clothes in the adult section. This is not even the worst part. The worst was school which is supposed to be like a second home. Names such as “fatty”, “potato”, “fat pumpkin”, and I keep on listing. No-one stopped to think that I was just a girl who was bigger than the “normal size” of girls my age and that this did not give them any right to call me such names.

Unlucky as I was in the friend department when I was a child, God had blessed me with a good family. I say that they are good because they at least helped me not to gain more weight. They helped me to eat healthy and control my portions and I will ever be grateful to them. They helped me to learn to accept and love myself. However, this did not help those lonely evenings where I longed for a friend to play badminton with. If I could time travel, I would give anything to go back and change my mindset. For feeling lonely is obviously not the best feeling in the world.

I believe that if people could just realise how sensitive we feel about our body and how much stigmas we have to face on an everyday basis, it would help all of us to become a better person. For we are not perfect, but the fact that we try to the best of our abilities to be perfect is what matters. Together, we can strive to be a better version of ourselves.

/ "Anne"