Diet is a four letter word

When people say they have been on a diet all their life, just how honest are they being? How many can honestly say they have been dieting since they were just a child?

I was always the active one … and the “cuddly” one, the one with extra lagging which is meant to keep me warm apparently. Clearly I have inferior lagging because mine doesn’t give me any extra insulation. My big (older & much skinnier) sister was always the slim one, but I was picked on for my size.

Aged 10/11 I was marched to the doctors one day with a face swollen like a football and a very severe chest infection. My then doctor to one look at me, had me marching up and down on a step, announced me to be overweight (ooh there was a surprise, the little t****r!) He then prescribed something to help take the swelling down on my face, which clearly looking back was an allergic reaction to something, although he had little or no interest in finding our what (I didn’t bother going back to see him when it happened the next time), and … get this … remembering my age … he gave me appetite suppressants. Also known as SPEED! Oh yes, not yet a teenager and I was being prescribed drugs by my own GP.

The humiliation didn’t end there either, oh no. Because my parents paid for me to have school meals, the canteen were instructed to only let me have salad and an apple, and not to be able to choose from all the other lovely stuff that I saw the other kids being able to tuck into. At home, my mother would buy me Weight Watchers type meals (we are talking very early 1970s here) and they were terrible. I remember being told to eat everything on my plate or go hungry; well if they want to eat the disgusting paella that was put before me; I hope they choke on it instead of me.

The years went by and although I occasionally made the mad foray into the world of “dieting” and slimming clubs, and listened to countless patronising comments from family and so called friends (friends who thought it ok to bulk buy packets of biscuits with which to feed their own fat husband!) I never became much smaller and became resigned to being fat.

So how has this part of my past affected me today? I still have insecurities about myself from time to time, but on the whole I am way on top of them and the nasty small minded little people who see fit to criticise me for looking as I do. How do I look? Pretty damn good for a size 22! I like me. I may not be the media’s ideal shape but tough! The media is headed up by men who like to look at skinny models, but when it comes to going home and getting cuddled up like something to grab hold of … I wonder, do they keep the lights on or off? (I did say these are my insightful musings did I not?)

I may not look like Kate Moss or Linda Evangelista, but I’ll bet I enjoy my food a hell of a lot more than they do, and man, can I cook! A plate of lettuce leaves wont see anyone through a cold winters night, but my home made meatballs will ;~)