COLUMN: High school skinny not a myth
By Jessica Fecteau on March 18, 2013 7:00 am / 1 comment
Ever have those days where it’s a struggle to get your jeans on?
I’m talking when you jump up and down, throw in some squats and sometimes ask your roommate to get the zipper while you hold the button into place.
Well, when this happens to me, one thing comes to mind: Being high school skinny.
I grew up hearing my mom and aunts say it all the time: “Oh God, I wish I was high school skinny.”
And I always thought to myself, “High school skinny? I will never get bigger after high school.”
OK, back to the squeezing into jeans part.
High school skinny is a thing. It is one of the worst things ever, and I blame it on college.
All of the peanut butter sandwiches, pints of beer and nights with no sleep are catching up with me, and, apparently, my butt.
All along, I thought it was a myth. It is just something old people say to make themselves feel better about wearing a larger jean size than when they were 16.
But it’s true! You will never be high school skinny again, unless you maintain your diet perfectly or have crazy, awesome genetics. In which case, God bless you.
I think the only thing left from high school that fits are my shoes. OK, and hopefully some sweatpants and faded T-shirts. Everything else can be put into a box labeled “Those were the days” or “Damn, I want that bod back.”
From running at softball practice five days a week to doing pirouette after pirouette in dance class, I was always on the move in high school.
Now, walking across campus to class is a struggle. Especially, if it’s snowing.
With only six weeks left until summer (holy crap, bikini season), my goal is to get back to my high school shape.
It’s time to think more about what I am eating and how I am moving, rather than ordering another pint at the bar and having Jimmy John’s delivered to my door at 2 a.m.
Because the last thing I want to be saying 10 years from now is “Damn, I wish I was college skinny.”
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1 Comment
“High school skinny” isn’t something everyone should desire. I’m talking about those with eating disorders. When I was in high school, anorexia was me. I ran a lot and I ate very little. That was my day, every day, every night, every moment. It was my definition, my goal, my sole purpose. It was not pretty nor glamorous and it was not a pursuit of beauty. It played out largely in secret, behind closed doors, where I could slowly pursue my own demise without anyone trying to save me.
I did get caught. It landed me in a psych ward for weeks where my activity was limited, monitored 24/7, and subjected to what they call “refeeding.”
I don’t want these words to be summed up as a typical “love who you are, all bodies are beautiful” statement. I want them to be a statement that jolts and alarms and brings the general public to a new consciousness. Diseases like eating disorders have been entirely constructed by our culture, an individualist culture where the individual is ironically disempowered. We force a damaging image on males and females alike, teaching them from young ages to despise the physical self in which they live.
This culture is using these same techniques to disempower and marginalize entire communities in the wake of its consumerist prerogative. We’re so focused on ourselves and our immediate surroundings that we don’t notice the destruction that this culture is causing. We’re all just too distracted, if not with the pursuit of getting back to “high school skinny,” with the thousands of TV shows, name brands, and iPhone apps that keep us functioning like puppets.
I’m still sick. I’m sick and tired. Of hearing statistics about eating disorders thrown around as if they’re distant impossibilities. Of reading columns devoted to the desire of being skinny. Of body hatred and thin-centric dialogue. Of jokes about anorexia and bulimia. Of eating disorders playing out in silence. I’m sick and tired of this culture that is killing its people, this planet, and will eventually kill itself.