The bathroom scale in my childhood home had two settings: brutal honesty and public humiliation. Every morning from the time I was twelve years old, my mother would call out the numbers to my father, who would respond with either a grunt of disapproval or suggestions about smaller breakfast portions. By the time I was sixteen, I had learned to read the disappointment in their faces before they even opened their mouths.
My name is Carly Michelle Santos, and I’ve spent thirty-two years navigating a world that has very strong opinions about bodies like mine. Not the kind of “curvy” that gets celebrated in body-positive Instagram posts or the kind of “plus-size” that gets featured in fashion magazines. I’m the kind of fat that makes people feel entitled to comment on my grocery cart contents, the kind that provokes whispered conversations about diabetes and heart disease from strangers who know nothing about my health.
I’m the kind of fat that learned early to apologize for existing.
Growing up, I perfected the art of making myself smaller in every way possible. I sat in the back row of every classroom, chose oversized clothes that would hide my shape, and developed an encyclopedic knowledge of which restaurant booths I could fit into and which ones would require me to pretend I preferred standing. I learned to laugh along when people made jokes about my size, to agree enthusiastically when someone suggested we take the stairs instead of the elevator, and to always, always offer to take the middle seat in the back of the car where my size wouldn’t inconvenience anyone else.
What happened next changed everything… FULL STORY on the next page.
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