Book Review: Amanda's Big Dream

I was a fat kid. I had a mom with an eating disorder, who restricted my food intake before I was even born. She liked to brag that she only gained 22 pounds when she was pregnant. In school I was teased for being fat. By the time I was in kindergarten, I assumed that if someone was mean to me, it had to be due to my body.

At age nine, I was a member of weight watchers, weighing and measuring my food, but also weighing and measuring my worth. At fourteen, I was eating between 600 and 900 calories a day. By eighteen, I was binging and vomiting. No matter how thin I became, I could not outrun (or out-diet) my anxiety. I wasn't a naturally thin person, so an anvil hung over my head, waiting to drop. If I regained the weight I'd lost, which surely I would because I was sooooo hungry, who could possibly love me?

It would be another fourteen years before I discovered the size acceptance movement and began to practice loving myself unconditionally in the body I have. It's been a long and arduous process, full of fits and starts, to really embrace myself lovingly. Along the way, I learned from experience that how I feel about myself and how I treat myself sets the tone for how others treat me. When I felt ashamed of my body, people were openly critical and judgmental, even though I was a size four. Now that I am comfortable in my skin, people just enjoy who I am at a size 16.

I would never want a child to experience the shame, blame and rejection I felt. I would never want another human being to feel less than because she or he weighed more than fashion or weight charts dictate. Yet we still live in a world where fat is held in fear and contempt, fat people are seen as inferior and morally weak, and thinness is equated with desirability and good health (despite growing evidence that fitness, not fatness, is the best indicator of health).

So I am thrilled to share a book on size acceptance written for kids (and their parents). Amanda's Big Dream is about a little girl who loves figure skating.

When her coach suggests that losing weight could help improve her performance, she begins to doubt her ability. Her parents and her doctor (who thankfully practices a Health at Every Size approach), are supportive and encouraging. Amanda's best friend teaches her that it's not size, but lots of practice, that makes a skater great.

We need more books that help parents, teachers, doctors, coaches (and first-ladies) recognize and stop playing into fat-shaming kids. A couple TV shows and video games would be good too. Until that happens, we are the front line. We need to become role models of self love and self acceptance for our kids. And we need tools to talk to them about the fat discrimination they will likely face or witness in this culture. Amanda's Big Dream might help start those important conversations.