THIS IS MY REVISED VERSION OF the essay I sent into MTV about SIZE DISCRIMINATION --- there are some typo's I believe, but you'll get the gist of it while reading it.

-------

There is a bias in even the mention of "discrimination." When a person even utters this word a heavy sigh with an accompanied eye roll is usually the response. We always hear of race, religion and sexual preference discrimination yet lurking in the background, bounding the ranks is size discrimination.

Yet another eye roll and sigh, size discrimination is easily solved with the ignorant solution of, "Just lose weight." To some that's an easy way out of a complicated issue, "If they really wanted to be thin, they would," they think. Yet as millions of Americans spend billions of dollars on the weight loss industry we are seeing an epidemic of an overly weight conscious society.

People have the need to be thin, because in American thin is equated to beauty and health. It doesn't matter if a girl has a college degree, what does brains have to do with anything when our society is so based on superficiality?

My discrimination started when I was young. All my life I have been overweight, a chubby baby that was considered cute to now an overweight adult considered disgusting by most of Americans.

Discrimination started with my family, "You have a pretty face, why don't you lose weight so we can see it?" to "Just when are you going to lose weight so you can get married?" With this type of family affection, no wonder so many overweight people, such as myself, grow up with low self-esteem and self-hatred. Discrimination has greatly affected my life, from elementary school to high school, I was continually made fun of, gangs of boys walking me all the way home yelling crud comments about my weight to gym class girls poking fun at my larger sized clothing. I can't even being to explain how horrible and self-loathing I was in school. I prayed for the time I could graduate and get away from this discrimination.

My dream of adulthood without the name-calling and esteem breaking was shattered. I think maybe the comments from adults who "meant well," were just as vicious as the high school bullies. A co-worker said to me after knowing me for quite some time, "You know I thought all fat people smelled and were lazy, you're not either of those." How are you to reply to such a comment? Just as the high school bullies, the adults who speak out with torrid "advice" really do not think they are discriminated against me. They think they are "helping" me, but what is my crime? Does my weight really bother them that much? They hide behind the "It's unhealthy" plea, but I think it's simply the unattractive overweight girl they want me to lose, and become the fit and beautiful girl they can now relate to.

Size discrimination has impacted my life to the point that there will never be a day that I do not think of how to lose weight next, or how to look thinner or how I must look to others. The constant abuse throughout the years and the thought that something was wrong with me has bruised my self-esteem into that like an abused animal. I wait for the next blow and feel numbed by the fact that I know it will never stop. I have to put myself into the mindset that I am normal and not the creature they have made me out to be. I constantly want to be "normal," to be someone who can walk down the street and not hear someone sneer some fat laden comment to me. To be normal enough so that nobody notices me, that's my miserable goal.

I guess you can say the name callers have done their job with making me want to lose weight. I am constantly reading into the new diets and new exercises. I've lose 45 pounds in my struggle, yet the man going by in his car yelling, "fat ass" out his window doesn't know this, nor does the sales lady when I ask where the plus size fashions are and she looks me up and down doesn't even know that I work so hard to be normal.

Will I ever consider myself "normal?" I think so, I think that maybe once I will be able to walk into a room and not see someone arming themselves with a comment about my weight, will I be normal. I sometimes wish I be called anything but "fat," call me ugly, stupid, ignorant, because I'm tired of being "fat."

To end size discrimination, or any discrimination for that matter, is understanding. We never try to picture ourselves in others shoes. Try to figure out how'd you feel with an extra 100 pounds on your body, trying to hard to lose weight and others judging you as if you haven't done a thing.

Try to understand other's differences. We are so eager to point out other's differences, that we rarely see the beauty in how diverse we are from one another. It's easy to pick and poke at the weak ones, the strong ones will prosper, people always seem to think, but truly when you pick and prod and discriminate against, you are just fueling the fire.

All in all, we need to see an end to size discrimination in movies and on television. The Nutty Professor, Road Trip and other movies have cashed in on size and comedians have cashed as well. That undulates even more of a stereotype and creates again the green light for more discrimination.

We need to ask ourselves how many times we've told our friends, "I only hang out with her, because I look skinny next to her." Yes, those things hurt us. If you want to end size discrimination, put yourself next to someone who is thinner than you, and have him or her say that comment to you. How do you feel? Maybe this is the point we can empathize with one another instead of the usual apathy we see.

�

pet ramps