I had been pudgy (not obese, but not thin) in high school, and terribly awkward. I ended up dropping weight in college for a variety of reasons. Primarily, I think, because I was away from the Evil Home Life. Also, for the first time, I was surrounded by girls who ate girl-size portions and also, no family-tyle eating. You ate what you were given. We had grown up with 4 brothers (big eaters) and with 6 kids in the house, there was much vying for food… if you didn’t eat quick, there was no way you would get seconds. Sort of created a hoarding mentality. I also found much more social acceptance in college. The social structure wasnt’ so black and white. In high school, I was so awkward, but in college it was easier to find your group.

Exactly. It’s that fear that college will just be more of the same that they were subjected in in high school that probably keeps fat girls from going to college. It’s probably also why the attendance rates are higher if they have other fat girls in high school — they can see that maybe those other girls are accepted by other students, and maybe they won’t stand out so much.

Then I went to work, and sat at a desk. And working out twice a day whilst still getting good grades in senior “basket-weaving” classes, wasn’t happening. So, I gained the 10 pounds a year that they say you do when you don’t focus on being healthy. And I lost some for my wedding. And gained it back. And then got preggo. And then lost some and gained it, etc. etc. ad nauseum.

I smiled at the “breastfeed or your baby will be fat” thing. I do breastfeed. But so did my mother, and look at me. And the really ironic thing is that my munchkin lost so much weight right after he was born that the doctors, in the parlyzing fear that our litigious society places them, freaked out and demanded that I force feed my kid for a while. Imagine. Me, who has struggled with body image and weight my whole life, in a post-delivery hormonal haze, waking my baby up to force him to eat every two hours. And by waking him up, I mean stripping him down to his diaper and wiping him with a wet cloth because all he wanted to do was sleep!!!! Oh the angonizing irony. Of course, he dropped excess weight when he was born, down to the 50% where he has stayed for the past year, and is a very healthy healthy baby.

Ok, thanks for letting me vent. I do think that weight issues are sooooo complex, although the “solution” is always packaged so simply.

Right on. Appreciated your post.

Not trying to discount the effects of our culture here, but I suspect that your experience was probably not all that strange and that UConn was not unusually fat-accepting, which makes the above that much more poignant: it’s likely that the above scenarios won’t happen to most of the fat girls who do attend college. College isn’t high school, but it’s hard to get high school students to understand that beyond, “You mean no one cares if I go to class or not?”