History part one - childhood.
May. 11th, 2009 07:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
discodorisI've been in and out of being overweight since puberty. It all started with glandular fever, or infectious mononucleosis as it now seems to be called, contracted when I was 11. Up until then, I'd been a highly active child, climbing trees, riding, working towards gymnastic awards, swimming and sailing regularly. I managed to contract it just before moving to secondary school too - this coloured a great deal of my life subsequently. The new school was a selective high school, my parents were overjoyed that I'd been offered a place and up until then, I'd breezed through school, motivated as a big fish in a little puddle - getting all As, as I was equally adept at music, art and sport as I was with english and maths and other academic subjects.
Aged about ten, hanging off a tree - a fairly normal ten year old in build.
The new school was a long way from home and I had to leave the house at around 7.30, to walk about three quarters of a mile to the bus-stop to catch a contracted coach, that took another hour to drive to the school, picking up other children en route. I started on a Thursday I think, and by the weekend was complaining of feeling horribly tired. My parents put this down to the new travelling and change, until I fainted on the Sunday, when out walking with my mother. I'd NEVER fainted before, so this worried them a little and I was duly taken to the doctor and after a week and some blood tests, the viral infection was confirmed. One of the side effects of the illness can be serious fatigue. And I got that in spades. I was back to school after three weeks at home, but I'd gone from being able to swim indefinitely to not being able to get down the length of the school pool. Every subject exercise book I had, had accusatory blank pages in the front, where I was supposed to copy up what I'd missed from other people. I was doing a much longer day, leaving home at 7.30 in the morning and frequently not getting home until well past 5 in the evening. For the first time in my life I was expected to do homework. It all added up to overwhelming me. I was withdrawn and miserable. The other girls at school had paired up or grouped up into friends, I still knew nobody and was rubbish at sports, following the illness. Every time I handed in homework, I got sarcastic comments back from the teachers about not having caught up with the work I'd missed. I stopped doing homework. I started puberty and all the hormonal misery of that.
So I retreated into a world where I'd go to my bedroom - ostensibly to do homework, but actually to read books and escape that way. And to comfort myself with food. I bought sweets daily and ate them incessantly. When I was home, I'd raid my mother's baking supplies. I'd eat sultanas, raisins, nuts and go down the cocoa jars, the syrup tin or the sugar cannister with a teaspoon. The peanut butter jar and the Nutella jar weren't safe either. I crashed on weight, around five stone that year - that's seventy pounds. I was still growing, but even so, the weight going on around my hips and onto my breasts was causing huge embarassing stretch marks. And the breasts! I remember being in the sports changing room and thinking how flat chested I was. By the end of that year, I had the biggest breasts in the year group. But of course, the not doing homework was starting to get me into trouble - I'd lie about having done it in my roughbook, or any other excuse I could dream up. It didn't help that other girls had help from parents who were teachers and then allowed others to copy their homework, altering the phrasing sufficiently for it not to be obvious (being selective, no-one was daft). I disdained such practices as "cheating" and felt above that, by just not doing it. But of course, this didn't endear me to teachers, although I passed any test or examination effortlessly still. Neither did it lead to home being particularly harmonious, as my parents attempted to get me to work and I did anything to not do it.
I always attended school though, I actually always enjoyed learning, just not homework. I didn't really see the point in homework, since I could manage the exams. I hated sports still and managed to do the absolute minimum. I went home and did little in the way of exerting myself, but continued with all those bad eating habits. I should point out, that these were on top of being fed an extremely good diet by my mother, so I at least had the basis of good health, growing up. She provided us with lots of veg and lots of fruit and pretty minimal stuff in the way of things like sausages or chips. I loved milk too, so my bones grew sturdily. By the time that I was 13, I was my full height and 11 stone in weight - 154 pounds. My body shape was that of a full grown woman, my vital statistics were 40", 26", 36". That, coupled with a fairly acute intelligence, meant that if I was dressed up properly, I was mistaken for an adult. Emotionally, I was a long way off being grown up, I was miserable, sulky and often anti-social. I'd finally shaken off the fatigue of the disease, but now I had the malaise and moodiness of being a teenager.
Aged around 13 - now fully grown and already pretty heavy, although still playing like a 13 yr old.
My weight stayed roughly the same, because although I regularly continued to overeat, I gradually resumed physical exercise, mainly through Girl Guides, where I canoed, went camping, did night hikes and what we called wide games and generally ran round with lots of people. Most of my friends were through either Guides or Scouts in the small village where I grew up. My weight stayed roughly the same until I left home aged 19.
Aged about ten, hanging off a tree - a fairly normal ten year old in build.
The new school was a long way from home and I had to leave the house at around 7.30, to walk about three quarters of a mile to the bus-stop to catch a contracted coach, that took another hour to drive to the school, picking up other children en route. I started on a Thursday I think, and by the weekend was complaining of feeling horribly tired. My parents put this down to the new travelling and change, until I fainted on the Sunday, when out walking with my mother. I'd NEVER fainted before, so this worried them a little and I was duly taken to the doctor and after a week and some blood tests, the viral infection was confirmed. One of the side effects of the illness can be serious fatigue. And I got that in spades. I was back to school after three weeks at home, but I'd gone from being able to swim indefinitely to not being able to get down the length of the school pool. Every subject exercise book I had, had accusatory blank pages in the front, where I was supposed to copy up what I'd missed from other people. I was doing a much longer day, leaving home at 7.30 in the morning and frequently not getting home until well past 5 in the evening. For the first time in my life I was expected to do homework. It all added up to overwhelming me. I was withdrawn and miserable. The other girls at school had paired up or grouped up into friends, I still knew nobody and was rubbish at sports, following the illness. Every time I handed in homework, I got sarcastic comments back from the teachers about not having caught up with the work I'd missed. I stopped doing homework. I started puberty and all the hormonal misery of that.
So I retreated into a world where I'd go to my bedroom - ostensibly to do homework, but actually to read books and escape that way. And to comfort myself with food. I bought sweets daily and ate them incessantly. When I was home, I'd raid my mother's baking supplies. I'd eat sultanas, raisins, nuts and go down the cocoa jars, the syrup tin or the sugar cannister with a teaspoon. The peanut butter jar and the Nutella jar weren't safe either. I crashed on weight, around five stone that year - that's seventy pounds. I was still growing, but even so, the weight going on around my hips and onto my breasts was causing huge embarassing stretch marks. And the breasts! I remember being in the sports changing room and thinking how flat chested I was. By the end of that year, I had the biggest breasts in the year group. But of course, the not doing homework was starting to get me into trouble - I'd lie about having done it in my roughbook, or any other excuse I could dream up. It didn't help that other girls had help from parents who were teachers and then allowed others to copy their homework, altering the phrasing sufficiently for it not to be obvious (being selective, no-one was daft). I disdained such practices as "cheating" and felt above that, by just not doing it. But of course, this didn't endear me to teachers, although I passed any test or examination effortlessly still. Neither did it lead to home being particularly harmonious, as my parents attempted to get me to work and I did anything to not do it.
I always attended school though, I actually always enjoyed learning, just not homework. I didn't really see the point in homework, since I could manage the exams. I hated sports still and managed to do the absolute minimum. I went home and did little in the way of exerting myself, but continued with all those bad eating habits. I should point out, that these were on top of being fed an extremely good diet by my mother, so I at least had the basis of good health, growing up. She provided us with lots of veg and lots of fruit and pretty minimal stuff in the way of things like sausages or chips. I loved milk too, so my bones grew sturdily. By the time that I was 13, I was my full height and 11 stone in weight - 154 pounds. My body shape was that of a full grown woman, my vital statistics were 40", 26", 36". That, coupled with a fairly acute intelligence, meant that if I was dressed up properly, I was mistaken for an adult. Emotionally, I was a long way off being grown up, I was miserable, sulky and often anti-social. I'd finally shaken off the fatigue of the disease, but now I had the malaise and moodiness of being a teenager.
Aged around 13 - now fully grown and already pretty heavy, although still playing like a 13 yr old.
My weight stayed roughly the same, because although I regularly continued to overeat, I gradually resumed physical exercise, mainly through Girl Guides, where I canoed, went camping, did night hikes and what we called wide games and generally ran round with lots of people. Most of my friends were through either Guides or Scouts in the small village where I grew up. My weight stayed roughly the same until I left home aged 19.