Christina
My story and why the topic of obesity is important to me:
The topic of obesity for me is one that hits close to home because for me weight issues have always been a battle of winning and losing. When I was a child I stayed my appropriate weight and people would stop to talk to my mom about my cute dimples and curly black hair, but this would change. Around the age of eight I started to put on weight and by the time I was in middle school I was about fifty pounds overweight. My grandmother who was very tall and thin thought that it was necessary to always bring up to my mother that I was overweight. Going from praise to ridicule concerning my looks begin to wrap my self-esteem in whether I was fat or not. Through middle school it led me to be very depressed and my self worth was at an all time low. Right before my ninth grade year my mom took me to health clinic and they taught me how to eat right and I was very active that summer in marching band at school. In about four months, I dropped forty pounds. Once again, I had the attention and praises of people and mostly the boys which was what I wanted, but by this time no matter how much I lost, I still viewed myself as fat. I can look at those same pictures now when I thought I was fat and think, "what was I thinking! I wasn't fat!" The problem was that food for me was comfort and anytime I felt overly emotional I would want to eat. I did keep the weight off for a while, but I went through a series of hardships in my family and pregnancy and the weight came again. I spent the next ten years with several ups and downs due to pregnancy losing sixty pounds after my second pregnancy, only to gain it back with the next three. Recently, I have been working on losing that weight again and I have lost twenty pounds. The difference now is that I have learned to be proud of reaching my goals and that loving myself comes from the inside. I realize how much of my life was driven by the psychological, biological, and social effects of obesity. Obesity has been my enemy that I plan to conquer once and for all in my mind and body! Learning more about obesity and it's effects on older adults and the challenges I could face without addressing this issue has given me more fuel for my fire!