Fat hopes.

I’ve been somewhat of an awkward kid when I was growing up. I was a fat kid who weighed 48kgs by the time I was 10, 60kgs when I was 12 and peaked at 75kgs when I was 16.  I only started losing some weight when I was 17 due to a random epiphany that struck me and made me start running at the stadium beside me. Of course it helped that one of my bestest friends, Pearl, was the National 400m record holder in Singapore at that time and she was sweet enough to care and encourage someone, who was almost like an anti-thesis (because I never liked to exercise) to her existence as a national athlete, to exercise and be healthy. Being a fat kid was tough. I had many dreams and hopes but all of them were smashed to smithereens because of my larger-than-life physique. I would like to share a couple of incidences that I could still remember from my past…

Incident 1:

I loved to dance. I joined a chinese dance class at a community centre when I was in Primary 3 with my best friend. It was like freedom of expression and it felt great that I could execute several complicated moves with ease despite my weight. It was only natural that I went to sign up for the chinese dance class in primary school when they opened up for the primary 4 students and boy was I really excited during my first lesson….. The teacher lined us all up in a line, walked down the row smiling at the students and when she reached my side, her smile faded and she said,

“The class is full, you’re more suited for Indian dance, would you like to try Indian dance instead?”

Later on, I heard her whisper to somebody else,

“She’s too fat to be in chinese dance”.

That really hurt. The pain still lightly hinges on me as I started to recollect this memory. I was pushed into the Indian dance class where I was the only chinese in it. I tried to be brave and attended a couple of lessons telling myself that it was ok. I should be honored that I am a Chinese learning the Indian dance. But that does not take away the fact that I was deprived of that chance to be in something that I loved just because I cannot fit into the costumes that they have. I can still remember when I watched the girls go up the stage in their beautiful costumes, I dare not admire them too much in fear that someone might think that I don’t know my place. Eventually I quit the Indian dance but continued with my private chinese dance lessons and had a solo duet public performance with my best friend on stage.

That was the last performance I ever had as a Chinese dancer. I guess a part of me never really felt I was good enough to be one.

Incident 2:

Chinese dance class in Primary 6. I was trying to do a stunt, bend backwards and try to stand up straight from the bridge position. I kind of knew I couldn’t do it but I really wanted to, just so I can prove that I could. Unfortunately, I slipped because my lower back could not take my weight and I remember feeling something shift in my spine before falling to the floor. I had a slipped disc and I thought I was going to die because I could not really move. I cried my heart out not because of the pain, but because I kind of knew that I can never be a dancer again.

Incident 3:

I was in Brownies and at that point in time in Primary 5, my Sixer (leader of the pack) had just graduated from primary school and there were empty shoes to fill. I was really excited, completing my exercises and getting my chops to become a Sixer. Just as I was a few steps away, the school told me that TAF (Trim and Fit club – the evil club for all over weight kids – ironically spelled as FAT backwards) club exercises clashes with brownies class and I needed to quit my Brownies to join the FAT TAF club. That was yet another devastating blow to me. Never have I loved something so much only to have it taken away from me just because I was overweight. And well you guessed it, I never really dared to like any activity a lot for a long time to come. These 3 incidences were just some of the many that happened to me in my growing up years. I wouldn’t say that those years were bad, but I definitely had my fair share of knocks that made me into somebody very terribly shy and self conscious. I managed to overcome that step by step and lost some of the weight but that is another story by itself.

I just hope that this little bare-it-all could shed some light about how it really feels to be in the shoes of somebody who is fatter than the normal average person and hope that we can be a little bit more compassionate to the bigger people around as they do get the brunt end of things more often than their slimmer counterparts.

Feel free to leave a comment or drop me an email if you have a fat story that you would like to share too…