By Sara Kay
While home for the past week on Thanksgiving break, I had a lot of time to relax and clear my mind from the stress of life and school. The only things on my brain were turkey, stuffing and the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving special on television. That was, until my sister came home.
I love my sister, don’t get me wrong, but she can be somewhat of a “queen bee.” She tends to say things that make your jaw drop all the way to the floor. And while sitting around our kitchen table as a family, she said something that really got me out of my clear mind, and into thinking mode all over again.
“I’m only going to my five-year high school reunion this Friday to see who got fat.”
I was astounded, but not surprised. After spending four years in high school with the same people and then separating from most of them to go to college out of state, and then all coming together again for a five-year hurrah, all she could think about was how chubby they all got.
Oh, and how when she would walk in wearing something really slimming, they would all go “Oh my God look how skinny she got.” What can I say? She’s got a bit of an “I’m-better-than-you-and-hot-damn-I-know-it” complex.
After scratching my head for a few minutes and evaluating how we could possibly share the same DNA, I started to think about the issue of weight in college. In a society that is constantly trying to promote diversity and make everyone feel special no matter what we do and how we look, how can we be the type of people to judge somebody based on his or her size? There have been some great people in history who were “large and in charge,” and they were hardly embarrassed about their cushion.
First example: the Buddha. He was a man of great principle, and a man of great belly-weight. And I can almost guarantee that while he was being a spiritual leader, he was not secretly chugging Slim Fast, and popping diet pills.
Being at a university like Hofstra, it’s hard not to see weight as an issue on everybody’s minds. I walk around this campus and see girls who, I swear on all that is holy, look like they haven’t eaten in two years. Not to say that it’s a bad thing, but it doesn’t exactly give the rest of us a confidence boost about our appearance when I hear someone say “I went to Abercrombie to try on a size 1 jeans and they didn’t fit.” “Oh, were they too small?” “No, they were too big!”
So why do we criticize people solely on the fact that at dinner, they might like three servings of mashed potatoes instead of one? But in the same respect, why do we turn around and use the same criticism toward someone who takes zero servings instead of three?
Maybe we’re jealous. Maybe we wish we could indulge ourselves with that extra piece of super-duper-fudge cake instead of opting for a low-calorie granola bar. And on the other hand, maybe we wish we were just never hungry. Ever.
As a person who couldn’t fit my pinky into Mary-Kate Olsen’s jeans, yet I could fit four of me into Rosie O’Donnell’s pants, I mostly see myself as an innocent bystander to the matter of weight around this campus. Yet I can’t help but feel personally offended by those girls, and even boys, who are petty enough to stoop so low as to say that they wouldn’t be friends with somebody, wouldn’t even talk to somebody, because of their weight, or lack of weight. Who are we to judge? Houston, Texas, the fattest city in the country, is a part of our country. If anyone should be laughing at the fatties in this world, it should be everyone except Americans. Our national emblem may as well be the McDonald’s arch, for crying out loud.
So the next time you’re at the gym and you happen to be working out next to someone who looks like her diet is cocaine and cigarettes, or perhaps she is more of a pork and beans kind of gal, don’t be so quick to judge. Large people can take you down really easily, and it’s always the little ones who are the scrappiest.
Sara Kay is a junior print journalism student. You may e-mail her at [email protected].