Despite leaning towards the more verbose end of things, I have written comparatively little about bodies. Specifically my body. Food has always felt more comfortable to me, mainly because I am acutely aware of how much body privilege I have; it feels excessively frivolous to even mention any struggles I am having. But as I notice the edges of that privilege shift and soften, due to the softening of my body, it feels like there’s something there to say.
I first remember being aware of my size in primary school. Five, maybe six. In the playground, I preferred to cling to the perimeter, hoping to melt into the background, and to avoid anything that resembled running (a challenge with the under-ten set). On this particular day, I was surprised that some girls from my class, who wouldn’t ordinarily hang out with me, were willing to grace me with their attention. The three of us were lined up, hip-to-hip, on a stoop on the side of the school building. They were, of course, discussing another girl’s body (because these are the issues, even at this tender age). They had noticed - maybe at the swimming pool, or a sleepover - that when this girl sat down, she had *three* rolls of fat on her belly. ‘I only have two’, I remember stating proudly, demonstrating my complete ignorance of bodies, but feeling satisfied that I had convinced these girls that I wasn’t actually as fat as they or I thought, and therefore demonstrated my worthiness to hang out with again.
Was I actually fat at this time? I don’t think so. But I had a complicated relationship with my body for reasons too complicated to go into here. And whether perception or reality, I know for certain that I wanted to shrink away and hide.
When I was in secondary school, my body was much larger than other kids my age; I was wearing adult-sized clothes and not because I was tall. One year, I was fortunate (read: privileged) enough to go to summer camp in America for a few weeks, thanks to some family friends who hosted me out there. When you are a fat kid, something you do instinctively is seek out, and find safety in, other fat kids. It’s instinctive. In my cabin, of maybe a dozen young teens, there was one girl who was fatter than me. This was important because, I was fat, but I wasn’t *that fat* (14 yo me had a lot to unpack). She could either be an ally, or a point of delineation, depending on the sway of the group dynamics at any given moment. It turned out that being the one Scottish kid at an American summer camp was enough of a novelty that seemed to negate the size of my body. And for the summer, I felt an ease with my body that I wasn't afforded at home.