Op-Ed: A Story about the Fat Girl with a Ponytail

Anonymous Writer, ‘21

December 2019

There was a little girl back in middle school who walked in with her cute little dress, high ponytail, and pink glasses every day. She always walked in with a smile and found herself always laughing with her friends at lunch. But she was ‘different’ than the other girls, she was a little taller, a little wider, a little ‘fatter’. She didn’t really care because she was used to being told this in elementary school, but she was continuously told this by many people in her class. She began to gain weight between sixth through eighth grade. All the boys began to sit farther away from her and she began to become more aware of the whispers and the stares she got from other girls. She looked in the mirror and cringed. She went to a wedding and was disgusted by how she looked in all the photos. Her smile began to fade. She began to go home every night and cry herself to sleep thinking she was not good enough for this world. She dreaded going to school a lot of the time, but she knew she was about to graduate. However, she feared high school would be the same. She was scared about being bullied because in all the movies she saw there was a lot of bullying. However, when she came to high school and she wasn’t bullied. She didn’t really care about how she looked; even though, everywhere she went she witnessed beautiful girls walking past her with extra small waists, while she was far from that. She began to smile again, she was funny and was known for her extra high ponytail. She didn’t care about how she looked anymore, she felt kind of pretty. However, this soon came crashing down. She was joking with a boy and suddenly he called her ‘too fat’. Her whole world came crashing down. She was shocked. It has been almost six months since she had been in middle school, but all of her trauma with bullying flooded her memory again with this single comment. She went home and told herself in the mirror to become skinny. Her goal was to lose almost all the weight by the time she would go to her cousin’s wedding. That wedding was three months away and she wanted to lose around thirty pounds. She was told that was impossible but was determined to prove to her doctor that she was not ‘fat’. This girl went on for months going to sleep with physical pain in her stomach due to her hunger. She would skip every meal except a very small breakfast. She would always be tired. She would never eat and witnessed the amazing results. All her weight instantly disappeared. She lost thirty pounds in three months and went to the party and looked extremely skinnier compared to the past. Although she reached her ‘goal’ the pain continued. She wasn’t at her targeted one hundred twenty-five pounds, so she continued to starve herself. She would cry if she didn’t lose any weight that day. She would cry if she didn’t feel the unsettling stomach pain at night. She cried looking at the scale because she would no longer lose weight. Her body wouldn’t let her even though all she has been eating in a day for the last week was a single banana. She thought it was due to the one hundred calories in the banana, so she stopped eating. She felt accomplished when she realized she hasn’t eaten in twenty-four hours. She lost another pound but had to eat something or she would not be able to stay awake. She got on the train a week later to come home from school and didn’t feel right. She couldn’t see anything, everything was shapes and colors. Everything was too bright. She couldn’t breathe anymore. There were no seats, so she was standing holding onto the pole for dear life. Thankfully, a kind man got up for her and another woman offered her some water. She declined the offer because she had her own bottle. She proceeded to drink her own water and felt horrible. She wanted to throw up because her stomach was empty. She needed food but still couldn’t see. She eventually healed in the remaining train ride. She got home and realized she should stop doing this because she would eventually faint somewhere extremely dangerous. She stopped. She ate. She began to feel better about herself. She felt decent. Months later, she continued this mentality and felt pretty for the first time in her whole life. This was interesting to her because she has gained a couple of pounds. She had made so many new friends. However, she found out that a very close friend of hers, who she had spent so much time helping and caring for, had proven unloyal. She found out that this friend of hers was calling her ‘ugly’, ‘fat’, and a ‘pig’ at a time where she was the skinniest and with the worst me ya health. She began to crumble out of anger. She began to cry too much. She went to sleep and felt disgusting. She went to sleep thinking how ridiculous she looked feeling pretty. She began to go back to her horrible relationship with food. She began to eat one thing a day and nearly fainted in public again, but she did this in spite of a friend who caused her so much pain. She did it in spite of a person who also went through the pain of being fat and losing a significant amount of weight. This friend had made her feel horrible and her smile was not coming back. However, she plastered a smile on her face, so people think she’s ok. She focuses on school. She focuses on losing weight. She focuses on her empty stomach. She focuses on the pain. She’s fine. She will just always be the fat girl with the ponytail.