This is very interesting. From an emotional angle I think as women we use fat to protect ourselves from unwanted attention from men. Funny, now I would love to be ogled by anyone, but no one really looks at a middle aged woman (did I just say 'middle aged woman?') that way. (Except for my husband, and thank god/dess he still feels this way.) I think it is only with self confidence and self awareness that we are possessed enough to be comfortable in social situations.

When I was a kid, in elementary school, I was called into the nurse's office and weighed and told I had to lose weight. Now mind you, I was just a kid and not obese, just a little chubby. I wonder if I had not been stigmatized from such an early age (being the only one called out of class into the nurse's office once a week to be weighed and assessed) if things might have been different. Maybe, maybe not.

My mother got involved once the school contacted her and god/dess knows in our house there were no treats to begin with. Now I had to 'watch' what I ate and I was embarrassed and ashamed. It led to candy store binges with other friends who were equally deprived of treats in their homes. Though having said that, most kids had such things, but for me it was the holy grail.

My mother was bulimic her entire adult life (due to my father's critical assessment of her at all times.) She was thin and beautiful but never thought so, and hence her eating disorder. (Never admitted by the way.) So food and eating was always an issue in our home. Everything in the fridge was 'dietetic' (remember that word?) except for mom's secret stashes. My mother watched my sister like a hawk for every morsel of food she put into her mouth. No wonder she is now morbidly obese. Like she was getting back at our mother, when in fact she was just punishing herself. I know in her case she wanted to see if she was worthy of love even if she was fat. "See if you can find the real me!," devoid of vanity issues. But vanity issues were all there was in our home so it was a lose-lose proposition.

I bounced from being thin and overweight throughout my life. I always thought I was fat but I wasn't. (Though I believe we become our own self-fulfilling prophesies.) There are old photos that show there were periods where I was a little chubby, then thinner, then a little chubby, etc. I wasn't obsessed with food (until the teenage years, with teenage fixations on food and body image), but that's really not my modus operandi.

I think I just like to eat. Not compulsively, just things I like. But having said that, the last 20 (!!!) years have been spent overweight and I think it was the scare of impending diabetes that got my attention.

The biggest lesson for me, the hardest one, is loving and accepting myself at whatever weight, and I can't do that when I'm too big. There was a point when I felt so large I was literally claustrophobic. I felt so trapped in my body that I just wanted to jump out of it.

So having said that, I am still overweight but much more comfortable in my skin. I don't feel self loathing or shame, just a healthy desire to look and feel better. At a certain point, whatever traumas I have lived through are the stuff that forged my character, of which I am proud. I don't blame anyone at this stage of the game. I'm responsible for what I do with my life.

Thank you for letting me share this.