Body food weight memories
Hmm, so I can't turn my mind off to sleep, and seeing as I havent in forever, I figured I'd ramble a bit.
I just want to write down some of my memories of things to do with my body and food and weight issues in my early childhood.
Not sure where to start really, so I'll start at a stereotypical place.
I remember ballet lessons aged 4. Being told I'd probably never be a ballet dancer, because I didn't have the right body for it. I was tall for my age, and told I'd probably be too tall to be a dancer. I wouldnt be graceful enough.
I was always fussy about food. I didnt like most foods. But then in my house, that wasnt that unusual. All my brothers were fussy eaters too, and I wasn't the worst. Before my mum went to college (when I was 6) she was a stay at home mum. She used to cook all the time. Making tiny individual pizzas for us all, accepting what we would and wouldn't eat. My pizza wouldnt have much cheese on because I didn't like it back then. So it was mostly tomato puree (never actual tomatoes, I still hate those) with sunflower seeds and fake veggie bacon bits. My mum always made us awesome birthday cakes. All my friends would talk about my cake from my birthday party. That stopped when I was 6.
Mum used to shop at healthfood shops alot. My middle brother couldn't eat lots of e numbers and preservatives, so she shopped there when we used to have money. I grew up with seeds and grains in things. Carob instead of chocolate. Squash drinks were for birthdays and christmas, and 7 up was the only soft drink allowed, and only at my grandparents house. Sandwiches were made with pear and apple spread. Mum was always putting my dad on a diet. Dieting was a very common place theme in our house. The whole family would eat the diet foods until mum and dad got fed up, and suddenly treats would turn up.
Aged 5, I decided I no longer wanted to eat meat. I knew that meat came from animals. Somewhere I had heard that people called vegetarians could live without eating animals. So it occured to me, in the way ideas at that age seem so simple, that it was pretty stupid to kill the animals and eat them if you didn't have to. So I told my mum I didn't want to eat them anymore. She didn't think it would last long, but went along wth it anyway. When my mum was 9, she wanted to be vegetarian, and her parents wouldn't let her and forced her to eat meat. She didn't want to do the same to her daughter. To this day, I've not eaten meat since.
So, being 5, coming from a household with strange health things, food set me apart from my peers. I was the different one at lunchtimes at school. The awkward one to invite round for tea, or to have at a birthday party, because the parents didn't know how to feed a vegetarian. Back then (it would have been 1989/1990) there were hardly any vegetarian foods in mainstream supermarkets. There was nothing to feed me at the mcdonalds parties.
This differentness only got worse when my parents money troubles started. The food in my lunchbox started to come in blank value wrappers. I had phases of being given free school lunches depending on how broke we were. All my friends had packed lunches.
I got glasses aged 7. Ugly ones free on the nhs. Hardly anyone in my class had glasses (only the special needs girl comes to mind). I looked different too then. Then I got chicken pox, leaving me with 2 very prominent pock dents in the middle of my forehead. You can hardly see them now, but they were really obvious when I was younger. I got told I could never ever be a model, because now I was scarred, and you had to be perfect to be a model. I was not perfect. I was scarred, and scars were ugly. I was ugly.
I remember talking to my friends when we were 7, and about to go from the infant school to the big junior school down the road. We'd all figured out that thinner was better, and lighter was better. So we shared how much we weighed. It got whispered round between all the girls, finding out everyones weights. It turned out I was the lightest girl in my class. And I was one of the tallest! I was so proud that day. Age 7. All the other girls that werent my friends glared at me.
I got called names for being skinny. I was kinda skinny, a side effect of the diets at home, the lack of money and food, my generally fussy eating habits and being tall. I was also very pale. So people called me the living skeleton, or just skeleton or bones. You might know that story about the skeletons (In a dark dark town, down a dark dark street, in a dark dark house etc... two skeletons lived) it was joked I should live there too.
Very strangely, Tansy and I once figured out we were in the same ballet schools as little girls. We didnt have the same classes, so didnt know each other, so only saw each other rarely at big events or exams. She remembers me being pale and skinny, and asking her mum what was wrong with me because I looked ill.
Whilst I had a sense of pride in being lighter than the others, I hated the name calling. I hated being different. Being singled out for my food, or my looks. People pointing out things that were wrong with my body. I would never be a ballerina, never be a model. Being different got me attention. Attention had its consequences. Being skinny was apparently both very good, and very bad.
I just want to write down some of my memories of things to do with my body and food and weight issues in my early childhood.
Not sure where to start really, so I'll start at a stereotypical place.
I remember ballet lessons aged 4. Being told I'd probably never be a ballet dancer, because I didn't have the right body for it. I was tall for my age, and told I'd probably be too tall to be a dancer. I wouldnt be graceful enough.
I was always fussy about food. I didnt like most foods. But then in my house, that wasnt that unusual. All my brothers were fussy eaters too, and I wasn't the worst. Before my mum went to college (when I was 6) she was a stay at home mum. She used to cook all the time. Making tiny individual pizzas for us all, accepting what we would and wouldn't eat. My pizza wouldnt have much cheese on because I didn't like it back then. So it was mostly tomato puree (never actual tomatoes, I still hate those) with sunflower seeds and fake veggie bacon bits. My mum always made us awesome birthday cakes. All my friends would talk about my cake from my birthday party. That stopped when I was 6.
Mum used to shop at healthfood shops alot. My middle brother couldn't eat lots of e numbers and preservatives, so she shopped there when we used to have money. I grew up with seeds and grains in things. Carob instead of chocolate. Squash drinks were for birthdays and christmas, and 7 up was the only soft drink allowed, and only at my grandparents house. Sandwiches were made with pear and apple spread. Mum was always putting my dad on a diet. Dieting was a very common place theme in our house. The whole family would eat the diet foods until mum and dad got fed up, and suddenly treats would turn up.
Aged 5, I decided I no longer wanted to eat meat. I knew that meat came from animals. Somewhere I had heard that people called vegetarians could live without eating animals. So it occured to me, in the way ideas at that age seem so simple, that it was pretty stupid to kill the animals and eat them if you didn't have to. So I told my mum I didn't want to eat them anymore. She didn't think it would last long, but went along wth it anyway. When my mum was 9, she wanted to be vegetarian, and her parents wouldn't let her and forced her to eat meat. She didn't want to do the same to her daughter. To this day, I've not eaten meat since.
So, being 5, coming from a household with strange health things, food set me apart from my peers. I was the different one at lunchtimes at school. The awkward one to invite round for tea, or to have at a birthday party, because the parents didn't know how to feed a vegetarian. Back then (it would have been 1989/1990) there were hardly any vegetarian foods in mainstream supermarkets. There was nothing to feed me at the mcdonalds parties.
This differentness only got worse when my parents money troubles started. The food in my lunchbox started to come in blank value wrappers. I had phases of being given free school lunches depending on how broke we were. All my friends had packed lunches.
I got glasses aged 7. Ugly ones free on the nhs. Hardly anyone in my class had glasses (only the special needs girl comes to mind). I looked different too then. Then I got chicken pox, leaving me with 2 very prominent pock dents in the middle of my forehead. You can hardly see them now, but they were really obvious when I was younger. I got told I could never ever be a model, because now I was scarred, and you had to be perfect to be a model. I was not perfect. I was scarred, and scars were ugly. I was ugly.
I remember talking to my friends when we were 7, and about to go from the infant school to the big junior school down the road. We'd all figured out that thinner was better, and lighter was better. So we shared how much we weighed. It got whispered round between all the girls, finding out everyones weights. It turned out I was the lightest girl in my class. And I was one of the tallest! I was so proud that day. Age 7. All the other girls that werent my friends glared at me.
I got called names for being skinny. I was kinda skinny, a side effect of the diets at home, the lack of money and food, my generally fussy eating habits and being tall. I was also very pale. So people called me the living skeleton, or just skeleton or bones. You might know that story about the skeletons (In a dark dark town, down a dark dark street, in a dark dark house etc... two skeletons lived) it was joked I should live there too.
Very strangely, Tansy and I once figured out we were in the same ballet schools as little girls. We didnt have the same classes, so didnt know each other, so only saw each other rarely at big events or exams. She remembers me being pale and skinny, and asking her mum what was wrong with me because I looked ill.
Whilst I had a sense of pride in being lighter than the others, I hated the name calling. I hated being different. Being singled out for my food, or my looks. People pointing out things that were wrong with my body. I would never be a ballerina, never be a model. Being different got me attention. Attention had its consequences. Being skinny was apparently both very good, and very bad.