Stop Staring At Me!

Yes, I am fat. I am unhealthy. I have an unusually big body size. I know that.

But that does not give you the rights to stare at me!

Stop throwing dirty looks at me like I committed some unforgivable sins. I am a human too and I am sensitive. I can feel that you are disgusted with me. Those are your opinions. Does it meant that I do not have the rights to go out?  

Do you know how difficult it is for me to get decent plus size clothing in Singapore? Do you know how much internal struggle I had to fight and put up everyday before I can walk out of that door and face people? If I wore black, I am trying hard to stay low-key. I cannot help that you noticed me… I do not want that kind of attention too. But there you are sneering at me…Like I am some lowly creature and I deserve that?

What is that elbowing your husband or boyfriend to look at me about?How does it make you boost your self-esteem? He would agree with you that I am fat, but it does not make you much slimmer.

So what if you are slim? Given the way that you sneer at people, I wonder why your partner are willing to put up with you. There are people with better character out there, guys!

I am trying hard to do something too. I really am, but losing weight is not easy.

Just yesterday, I happened to chance upon a documentary on BBC lifestyle channel - “Too Fat Too Young”. In it, a little boy told the interview crew of how he was being bullied in school by other classmates with names calling.  The experts explained that he was depressed as a result and kept bingeing because he was stressed and that created a vicious cycle of weight gaining and eventually leading to health problems.

Poor boy. I could see the sadness in his eyes. He does not have much friends too. Another teenager went to a fat camp to try to lose weight and to gain some self-esteem. The camp did help him to be more cheerful and open up. He went back to “real world” and was thrown a dirty look by some girls on street. He felt so much about it and wrote a poem, cried halfway reading it.

I can so relate to them. Self-esteem is not something that we had and when we do have bits of it, someone somewhere just could not wait to crush that out of us. I could not remember how many times I was called names and being discriminated just because of my body size…

Why are you all so mean to fat people? You think we enjoy to be in this situation? Given a chance, we rather be normal, but we are not.

You can don’t understand our plight. Just leave us alone… That is all I am asking. Stop staring at me…