My Belly, Part One

The first time I became aware that I was "fat" was on the playground in first grade. Some kid came up to me and said something like, "I know why you and Kenny play together all the time: 'cause you're both fat!" Kenny was a kid who lived in my neighborhood. We rode bikes together and killed snails and ate snacks at his house after school. His mother would make us cinnamon toast and Tang (the beverage of the astronauts!) The revelation that I was fat had never consciously occurred to me before, but it doesn't strike me as surprising that my fatness was first named by another person. It does seem from that moment onward, my body image was sculpted by many an "other," whether it was a kid on the playground, a TV show, a movie, various doctors, fatphobia in the cultural ether, or, not insignificantly, my mom. I'll share more about my mom and fatness in another post.

For now, let's turn our attention to my belly. The belly that, in first grade, wasn't all that big, but over the years, and particularly by my senior year of high school, began to protrude and spill over my middle section thanks to weight gain and gravity. I'd had chicken pox over the summer of 1989, and a scar remained on my stomach to the left of my belly button. Later that year, the scar began to blur and dimple: the origin point of my first stretch mark, and with it, a deeper hatred of my body(self.)

It is a curious thing, growing up fat. No one notices you and yet everyone notices you. Particularly in the heteronormative realm of the sexual or romantic: the boys I'd had crushes on in junior high and high school were nice boys; they just thought of me as "one of the guys." It may have had something to do with my gender presentation, having been a tomboy, but I think the real reason was 'cause of the belly: this large, lumbering body that seemed, for all its obviousness, to be invisible.