"My mother fat shames me every day and I am sick of it"
Fat shaming is not a new phenomenon, we see it daily, especially on social media and with celebrities. However, many people experience fat-shaming in their very own homes.
A KZN listener has written into Stacey and JSbu to share her story of fat shaming that she says has been going on since she was old enough to string a sentence together.
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*Samantha shares that she can vividly remember her first fat shaming incident with her mother.
I was on my way to a school camp that was all about health and sports for the holidays, another attempt by my mom to get her bookworm daughter to morph into the "right" kind of athlete. I wore a little pleated skirt and sneakers and grabbed a banana on my way out. As my mom sat talking to a friend in our kitchen, she glanced back at me and said. “Do you need to eat that whole thing?” she asked. “Why don’t you just eat half?”
This was only the start of her mother monitoring and commenting on everything that she eats, according to Samantha. Her mother also did not care if there were guests around when the fat-shaming would happen. Samantha says it affected her entire upbringing and self esteem, which is still in tatters due to this.
It did not help that Samantha grew up in a family that compulsively made an effort to workout and watch what they eat. Samantha, who has one sibling, always felt like an outsider. Her older brother is a professional athlete, which meant that he was away on camps and tournaments a lot when they were growing up and that for him it was a necessity to keep fit and watch what he ate. She on the other hand had and still has no self-control.
Samantha elaborates:
I didn't worry about my weight the way my family does. I just had a round butt and big boobs and a belly that popped out no matter how many crunches I forced myself to do. My mother then took it upon herself to make it her mission to 'help me' unsolicited may I add.
To appease her mother, Samantha began eating chicken and salad at home. But she would sneak out after school to her favourite bakery and load up on shortbread, muffins, and cakes to gorge herself until she felt ill.
For Stacey, hearing a parent, the person tasked with building you up to know and appreciate your best and truest self, bash your appearance is one repeated kick in the gut. It’s destructive and forever twists what you see in the mirror. And, it doesn’t work.
Samantha, who now lives alone in a flat, avoids heading back home to the family home because of her mom's constant bashing of her weight. This has caused a strain on their relationship and that with her dad and brother. She has tried on numerous occasions to bring up how the things she says hurts her feelings, but she always feels like her mother just brushes her off.
When confronted, Samantha says her mom says the following:
I was just trying to help you, I wanted you to live a full life and be able to find someone who will love you and start a family with
Samantha shares that she resents how her mother's voice is still stuck in her head when she gets dressed in the morning or has a shower in the evening, and it is just her body and the mirror.
She wants to improve her relationship with her mother but does not know how to without the elephant in the room. Listen to Samantha's story in her own words below: