Little Fat Girl
Within all women lies a little girl. That little girl may be a tomboy, a princess, or bookworm. It’s this little girl from our past who creeps out from time to time and gives us a glimpse into the person who we once were long, long ago. She’s our primal coping mechanism that we subconsciously revert back to. For me, it’s my Little Fat Girl.
When I was a kid, food was the center of all family gatherings. I would listen to my mom spend hours on the phone planning menus with my aunt for upcoming get togethers. “Ok, so let’s do a bbq. I’ll bring the hamburgers, potato salad, chips and dip,” she would say. “And you can do the buns, baked beans, and homemade ice cream with brownies.” I assumed that all families planned their gatherings around the food. How else did one show those closest to them that they loved and cared for them? How else could families get through challenging times? Out of these experiences, Little Fat Girl emerged.
Now as an adult, Little Fat Girl comes out in times of joy and times of grief. She wants to celebrate any small victory with a cupcake. She wants to drown her sorrows in rocky road ice cream. She feels anxiety and runs for the Doritos. Little Fat Girl makes me drool whenever I read a new recipe or hear others talk about what they are having for lunch that day. I try to keep her inside, but somehow Little Fat Girl always sneaks into my brain, causing me to obsess over cherry frosted donuts. I both love and detest Little Fat Girl.
I’ve recently learned that I’m not the only one with a Little Fat Girl living inside of her. I have a couple of friends who also battle their Little Fat Girls and joke about bringing over their Easy Bake Ovens and Snoopy Snow Cone machines so our little Fat Girls can play together. This always makes me laugh. They offer to bring me cherry chip cookies at our next lunch date and give me tips on where to find tasty treats that we enjoyed as kids growing up here in the desert. Somehow I feel a little better knowing that there are others who struggle with their Little Fat Girl, too. It all makes sense–why else would our society spend millions of dollars each year on weight loss programs, gym memberships, detox systems and personal trainers if we didn’t all have a Little Fat Girl lurking somewhere below the surface?