For Good This Time

Have I mentioned that I’m a teen librarian? For those of you who have never heard the term, that’s a librarian who provides materials, services, and programming primarily and specifically for teens. It’s one of the most fun jobs in the world - I get paid (pretty well) to throw pizza and halloween parties, play DDR and Guitar Hero and other video games, watch movies, and do a bunch of other fun stuff, including READ.

The book I just finished (like, 20 minutes ago) is called Big Fat Manifesto. This girl, Jamie, is a senior in high school, and is very overweight (they don’t give her exact weight or height, but say that she is over 300 pounds, and her BMI is over 50). She writes for her school newspaper, and writes a “Fat Girl” column. Initially she is trying to write to win a National Feature Award, that will give her a free ride to Northwestern.

Over the course of the series, though (which gains a LOT of attention), she begins to look at what it means to be Fat Girl, especially as she helps her boyfriend, “Fat Boy” endure gastric bypass surgery, plays “Evillene”, the fat wicked witch in The Wiz, and starts to fall for the editor-in-chief of the school newspaper.

In a lot of ways, this is the typical high school coming-of-age story. In a lot of ways it isn’t.

It does, however, make you think. I wasn’t overweight in high school - I was a gymnast, and then a karate student, and graduated a size 7. College (and working in a pizza shop, where I gained a LOT of bad eating habits and a massive soda addiction) did me in, esp. when I wasn’t able to take fitness classes for credit anymore (I couldn’t afford to just take them. Now I wish that I would have).

Even at a size 7 though, with size 0 friends, trust me, you feel like a cow. I think back now to how fat I thought I was, and just shake my head. It’s so sad that when I was young, and active, and bursting with health and energy, I couldn’t appreciate it. I had far bigger body and self-worth issues then than I do now. When I was in school, I would not have had the personal strength to endure the constant ridicule overweight class members did.

For example, when I was in second grade, there was a boy named Bobby. He was probably a really nice kid - I don’t remember. The only thing that I remember about him is that, on physical day, when the nurse weighed him he was 102 pounds. At age 7. I think that it is SO sad that is the only thing that I remember about a boy I saw every day for a year. As if it matters.

So anyway, the book was really good. I enjoyed it. And if you’re wondering, she’s still fat on the last page. She doesn’t miraculously lose weight and enjoy a happy life. Because you don’t NEED to be thin to be happy.

Sometimes, it doesn’t even help.

Filed under: Hmmm... on April 27th, 2008