My Life as a F.A.T. Girl

By Rose Buchberg

My name is Rose Buchberg, and I am a F.A.T. (fabulously active teenage) girl. I am an aspiring writer, working on some journalism pieces. I play the double bass and sing. I am in choir, and I volunteer at my temple. I am especially active in sports. I am on a competitive swim team, I go to an aerobics class, and I take part in yoga, sometimes with my sister (who I absolutely adore despite some of her teasing), sometimes with my mom, who is helping me in my struggle to lose weight. No matter how much exercise I get or dieting I do, my weight keeps coming back.

Many people view school as a cruel, dark place where the teachers are out to get you--its sole purpose is to make your life a living hell. In some ways, that's true. There are certainly too many cruel people and comments that follow me around. With all the teasing, I often turned to my favorite class, English, taught by the amazing Joel Ronkin. That was the one place at school where I could express myself, through writing.

I hear some of my acquaintances talking, and here's a question that comes up: Would you rather be skinny but not be able to eat, or be fat? Everyone said they'd rather be skinny, because if you're fat, you never go anywhere. If you're fat, you're ignorant, lazy and dumb as a doorknob. That, I can proudly say, is not true.

Being overweight is hard, especially at the great ole age of 13. If you are one of the "popular types," you have nothing to worry about: you're perfect and adored by everyone. But I'm basically at the middle-to-end section of the scale. There hasn't been a day since I entered middle school when I've not heard whispers behind my back. Or, in the case of one of my P.E. classes, "At least I'm not as fat as you!" said by a sore loser. But I have learned to deal. I know other people going through the same thing. Having friends makes it better.

With all the stress that school gives you, as well as the high expectations of your parents for you to be perfect in every way, I often turned to food for comfort. The sweet taste of candy always brought my spirits up, until I realized what I was doing. But then I would just eat more. Even though food is a major comfort for me, I'm learning to channel some of my anger and stress into sports. Whether I'm kicking my sorrows away in a magnificent breaststroke, slamming that anger with my tennis racket or whamming that big stress ball at batting practice, my teenage problems find an outlet.

But being a teenager is not all bad. I'm old enough to see a PG-13 movie without a parent, I am able to go places with my friends, I can constantly call my favorite radio station, K-Earth, and request that they play Kokomo, and I finally get to move on to high school.

The upcoming school years will be the best of my life because I have finally decided to deal seriously with my problem, so I don't have to face the sadness again.