Why I'm Chubby at Heart

I’ve said this before, but I was the fat kid. Well I wasn’t actually fat, but I was definitely chubby.

And that chubbiness has followed me mentally for years.

I went on my first diet when I was 8. I was obsessed with counting fat grams (a sure sign that I was raised in the early 90s).

In the third grade a girl said I would make a good turtle for the dance recital because I was slow and fat.

Keep in mind, I was really active. Between the soccer, horseback riding, tons of dance lessons, gymnastics and every other sport I tried, I was almost never home.

Then in seventh grade, something clicked. I ate for an entire year and lost 45 pounds. To this day, I can’t eat a grilled chicken sandwich from there without gagging.

I’d like to say that I outgrew that chubby kid, but I didn’t. I still feel chubby. I still feel fat almost every day.

That’s why I was so shocked yesterday when people got outraged over those Strong4Life childhood obesity ads.

Being the chubby kid sucks.

It sucks.

, so be it. And the bullies aren’t what make it so bad. Other than snide comments, I really wasn’t bullied. I just knew I was chubby and it drastically affected my self esteem.

If you’re the parent of a chubby kid, help them.

If you are a chubby kid, fix it.

Fix it when you’re young and you’ll have habits later on that won’t let you get chubby again.

My rational mind knows this isn’t really true—I do wear a size 2. It’s just, you don’t ever outgrow being the fat kid.

My friends don't understand this. It reaches the point where you hide it because there are so many girls who say they're fat when they're fishing for compliments and that's simply not the case. You're not fishing for compliments, you're just talking.

No pun intended, I can’t imagine carrying around the weight of being obese as an adult after how hard it was when I was 12.