Not Another Tragic Fattie
Your new sixth-grade class already had its own rhythms, inside jokes, and hierarchy. Like, it was already over halfway through the school year.
And there was this fat girl—like really fat. Like, nearly 200lbs-fat.
She was such a nerd. Like, during oral book reports in front of the class, hers had weird titles like Marcus and Narcissa Whitman, Openers of Old Oregon Volume No. 1.
She was super into Jesus. Like, she quoted Bible verses and invited people to her church for some sort of club on Wednesday nights with a weird name: AWANA. Kinda like marijuana except it had nothing to do with weed because that would have been cool.
She seemed sorta poor. Like, she didn’t wear Esprit sweatshirts and Guess jeans like the other girls. Her shirts had uneven stitches on material that was too thick or the wrong color. And she had pants that looked like they were trying to be jeans except there were no belt loops or fly but buttoned up on the side.
The fat kid is always picked on, right? Like, in every movie or TV show or after school special where there’s a fat kid. I mean, have you ever heard of a fat kid who wasn’t bullied?
Except nobody said anything when you said whatever it was you said to make fun of me—maybe that I had a fat butt? Like, they didn’t say much of anything at all to you after that. I felt a certain schadenfreude seeing you sitting alone on a swing at recess, even as I understood you had said what you said in an effort to belong. I did not know then how to reconcile my feelings of vindication and relief with Christian charity (which I work hard to practice though I’m not as Evangelical these days).
Even though I went to a different elementary school every year (because yeah, I was sorta poor), I had little experience with other kids teasing me about my weight. Like, I have only one other memory before you: in second grade two boys shouted something at recess about me being fat—though I cannot remember what. My girlfriends yelled something back at them, and we went back to playing whatever it was we were playing.
Rates of bullying against fat kids vary wildly. Like, anywhere between 19% to 60% depending on how it is measured (I’m totally still a nerd). Those numbers mean that there are a whole lot of fat kids who don’t get bullied.
The fat kid is not a guaranteed victim. Like, being fat (current weight: 268lbs) need not be a tragic trope.
Michelle Strausbaugh
Michelle Strausbaugh is a chronic illness management specialist working from a bed in Portland, Oregon. Her work has appeared in Hippocampus Magazine (and she’s still buzzed that it was nominated for a Pushcart).
