by Carol Wise

Created on: May 03, 2009   Last Updated: May 07, 2009

I am sure there are those who could argue that self-perception and weight have little to do with each other but I am afraid I am not one of them. For me the two have always been intertwined and it began very early.

Our perception of self begins with input and information we get from those around us and begins instantly at birth.

At three years of age I was a pretty happy child, I had a mom and dad who loved me. I remember my mother praising me for eating a whole piece of toast.

Then my whole world was up ended. My mother died and I knew it was my fault. I also began to hear the words, chubby and fat, used in reference to me. They weren't good words and it wasn't something you wanted to be. Chubby or fat was bad.

I didn't understand exactly what those words meant or how to avoid them and then I heard the word diet. All I knew was I hurt inside. When my stepmother didn't let me eat or gave me very little to eat, I hurt even more. It was here that my self perception and weight became connected. I was chubby , which was bad. I hurt inside and I didn't like that so I searched for ways to ease the pain. Food helped ease that pain.

While I didn't understand it back then, as my pain increased so did my quest for food, causing weight gain, which was bad and made me bad.

Food could not erase the pain of losing my mother, it could not reduce the feelings of rejection I felt from my father, stepmother and stepsisters. It could not make me feel loved and wanted . Unfortunately I didn't understand at four, where all my pain was coming from. In my world, my tummy hurt, food eased that hurt so more food would take away even more pain. I couldn't find enough food to stop the ache completely but it became my mission to try. My success resulted in extra weight which angered and frustrated the adults around me. Fixing even more deeply the perception of myself as bad.

The adults in my life tried every diet imaginable to make me more acceptable, better, more worthy. When the diets failed it was only further proof of how bad I was. It wasn't that I didn't want to lose weight, I hated being fat, I hated myself.

All I longed for was to feel loved and wanted. Which made me vulnerable to child predators, unfortunately my Aunt was married to one. It took a while for me to understand that what he professed to give was not good or normal. I also knew he was liked and I wasn't. I knew that somehow the situation was my fault, that I had caused it. More pain, more guilt, more self

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