Growing up I have always been on the heavy side, even when I was born I was 9 pounds and 1 ounce, and I was even born early. I’ve never been super confident in my body because I never looked the same as everyone else. I wasn’t the skinny, popular, athletic girl that everyone wanted to look like. I was the girl who would stare at her in jealousy and go home and cry every night because I wasn’t like her.

I wasn’t the most athletic kid, in fact I hated gym class. I would always get hit in the face by the ball when we played games. I recently wore a shirt that I quite liked and a random person told me it made me look fat. Now, I normally don’t mind making jokes about my weight because I do like a good self-deprecation joke every now and again with my friends, but getting called fat by a random person is hurtful. I know people may think that it’s just a random person and you shouldn’t be offended, but well I am. No one wants anyone to point out something that they are insecure about and have probably struggled with all their life to be said out loud for everyone to hear and laugh at. I get that being fat is not healthy for you, but people don’t normally choose to be fat.

I’ve always been overweight, but when I turned 8 that is when it became a huge problem for me. I was diagnosed with a mood disorder, and the psychiatrist put me on medication that made me gain 50 pounds within the first year of taking it. One of the side effects was having a bigger appetite, and it affected me very much. I took that medicine for 10 years and have finally gotten to switch medications. Do I blame the medication entirely for my weight loss? No, I own up to the fact that I should have had more control, but the medication also had a huge role in my life.

As girls, we get shamed for not having the perfect body type, which causes lots of problems for many girls. That’s why we have girls with eating disorders or girls who just eat their problems away. I certainly have shoved my face full of food because I felt pressured to look a certain way, which made me depressed. As girls, we shouldn’t shame each other for what we look like because we have all had insecurities about our bodies, and you never know what kind of careless comment can cause us to feel that way.

I would rather be fat and happy any day than conform to society’s beliefs about female bodies. Ladies, eat that last piece of cake and don’t feel ashamed of what you look like, because I don’t anymore and neither should you. Kate Rehwinkel is a junior management major. She can be reached at 581-2812 or at kerehwinkel@eiu.edu.