One of the simplest pleasures in life is going out for a casual meal with a close friend. After all, what’s wrong with entertaining yourself over a frothy cappuccino with a favorite friend?
Unfortunately, it’s not always easy for someone like me: a woman who has been struggling with her weight since she arrived on the delivery table at 9 pounds, 5 ounces 59 years ago.
The fact that I’m a little bigger seems to trigger a strange reaction in my thinner friends.
Without asking if it’s a problem for me, they avoid ordering bowls of cheesy pasta or calorie-packed slices of chocolate cake, believing they are protecting my feelings.
Bernette Clarke, left, and her friend Angela Epstein, who wrote in the Mail last week about the need to tread on eggshells with her older peers.
Instead, they opt for the kind of salads that even a rabbit would wrinkle its nose at, and I know damn well what they’re doing.
So when I read my friend Angela Epstein’s account in the Mail last week about needing to tread lightly with her most important friends like me for fear of appearing insensitive, I rolled my eyes so hard I almost I choke on my Mars bar.
Angela wrote that not only does she avoid fattening foods when dining with overweight friends, but she also doesn’t show us the ‘tight dress’ she’s about to buy or share her own body hang-ups. All because she’s worried that as a size 10 it will draw attention to our size disparity, which will make us miserable.
What condescending crap! As if your food choices are going to affect my waistline, how I feel about myself, or what I eat.
I’m not a baby; I am a mother and grandmother and I don’t need anyone to take care of my food, thank you very much. When I walk into a restaurant and want to start with mozzarella sticks, then finish a plate of fish and chips and hopefully have room for ice cream (or not, as the case may be), then what Angela has on her plate It has absolutely no influence on my feelings or my willpower.
If anything, a lettuce leaf is more like a fig leaf, which barely covers the meager reasoning of thin people who think they are being thoughtful, but who are actually drawing unwanted attention to a topic that has no place. on the table, and therefore turn what could be a beautiful exit into something much more uncomfortable.
I must emphasize that Angela is a loyal and devoted friend who has always been there for me when others failed.
She is simply wrong about what the “nice” way to behave regarding weight is to those of us who are a size 16 or larger.
What she and other thinner friends like her (and believe me, there are many) don’t realize is that when you have compulsive eating behavior, other people’s decisions are not the catalyst. It comes from within. I was the typical bouncing baby and became the “big kid” at school.
My size meant I would never be able to do gymnastics and I had to wear big navy blue panties, which made me feel miserable, uncomfortable and embarrassed.
Then, when I was 19 and on vacation in Morocco with friends, my wonderful father, whom I adored so much, died suddenly of a heart attack. The shock was overwhelming. In the years of pain that followed, I sought solace in food. When I was 21, I was ranked 15th.
Over the years, I struggled with my weight until finally, at the age of 41, I decided to have a gastric band fitted privately.
I weighed 17, 12 pounds, wore a size 24, and was dangerously obese for my 5-foot-6-inch height. However, despite losing fifth place, I simply couldn’t fight my compulsive sweet tooth. Unfortunately, surgeons operate on the body but can’t do anything to recalibrate the way you think.
Gradually some weight came back on and last year I had my gastric band removed due to an infection.
Nowadays I’m a terrible grazer and if I open a box of chocolates, I can’t stop at one. I’m fighting to stay in 12½ place, which is a good 2nd more than I should weigh.
Over the years, I’ve learned to curate my wardrobe carefully, styling an outfit with scarves or statement jewelry to downplay my size. But when my thinner friends compliment me, it can’t help but seem disingenuous.
They will say I look good and ‘I have to take them shopping’ as I combine styles, colors and textures in a way that produces a really flattering result. She feels like they’re trying to say, ‘For a big woman, don’t you look good?’ Are you not making the most of it? (To anyone who says this is not the case, I quote a friend who recently showed me a dress and said: ‘This one looks good on you, they make it in all sizes’ before immediately correcting herself: ‘I meant that they make it.’ . in all colors’.)
To her skinny friends, Bernette says, “Don’t worry about what you should or shouldn’t eat.”
Again I know they mean well, but it’s condescending and I don’t need it.
Likewise, they shouldn’t be afraid to show me clothes they want to buy or invite me to go shopping just because of our size disparity. Allow me the dignity of being the judge of what I want to do with my time.
Please don’t assume I’ll burst into tears if we hang around near the swimsuit section or instead drag myself to the shoe or bag department for fear of upsetting my feelings.
I know they are trying to be nice, but I wish they were normal. So to my skinny friends I say this: Don’t worry about what you should or shouldn’t eat. You also don’t need to give me extravagant compliments about my clothes (which are “very flattering,” code for “make me look slimmer”) or tell me I have a pretty face (not to mention my body).
I’m a big girl, in more ways than one, and I’ve experienced many ups and downs in life. I know that I have the inner strength to face anything.
That’s why I just invited Angela to lunch. Rabbit food lovers do not need to apply.
