HERES A STORY FROM ONE BRAVE PERSON

THE O-TIMES

We all have stories of our lives that we hold deep inside, especially those of us who were fat children. On these pages, you will bear witness to the pain that fat children  receive because of their large-sized exterior. Certainly fat children are not the onlychildren to have some traumatic memories. All children go through the pain of learning who, how and what to be, but the difference with fat children is that their pain is nearly universally inflicted because of the societal pressures for thinness. There is a special shame that only fat children know. Taught at an early age that they were unacceptable by societal standards, it wasn't a hard lesson to learn. No, the lessons were all around  from the moment they became larger than *average*.  There was no place to escape it...family, school and friends all provided pressure about the "problem." Some of the people who will write here are now thin, some are now fat, and some are just *average* as adults, but as adults they all can relate to their childhood existence when they were FAT kids. The term "Fat" is only used as a descriptor, so the fat kids who share their stories may have been called, at the time, pretty-plus, husky, big, butter balls, etc, etc. Bottom line, the kids were fat. There is nothing wrong with the term "fat", yet there is still resistance in society, even in the fat-acceptance societies to the term being used. So be it. For this site, we'll use "fat" as to not have no doubts about what is being discussed. The goal of this site is simple...to share and to learn. Everyone has had a different set of life experiences...some great and some horrific.  If you have no memories of being a fat child that were bad, then, by all means, share a happy story from your childhood. With any luck this site won't turn into a gripe session, but rather an open, sharing diary about life as a fat child in our society.