What was your fat-based nickname as a child, and how did it make you feel?

[LindafromFlorida 1,542]

We have risen above these stupid nicknames lol!

[Forsythia 882]

This thread makes me sad. People who loved you really called you guys such mean names? .

For the record, my nickname was Annie. My real name is Andrea. I had this giant home made orphan Annie doll my mom made for me and I would carry it around everywhere. Used to wear the felt mary jane shoes until my feet got too big for them. Occasionally my brother and my cousins will still call me Annie.

[moonlitestarbrite 902]

mine was skinny minnie.. cause up until i was 10, i was really scrawny and boney. my aunt started calling me that, cause she had 3 zaftig girls... my dad called me pussycat (1960s) and my mom called me matilda or sarah burnheart when i was being a drama queen. i try really hard not to call my kids nicknames that have anything to do with their physical appearance. it bothered me a lot that my aunt was always calling attention to my body. both my kids have been called captain chaos and dr dangerous as toddlers and preschoolers, but i try to keep it to a minimum.

[playlikeworldchamps 595]

My brother called me good year as in good year blimp. I was a chubby kid and it made me chubbier. He would be horrified to know now how it really made me feel like it was enormous and ugly when I was young and that carried hated my youth. Even when a teenager and thin I thought of myself as a blimp.

[truck8595 64]

I went by "Truck" (and continue to)... ever since 10th grade. More people I know call me that than by my real name. I never really minded it too much, learned to embrace it really. Nowadays, though, I often get people that get crative with me and call me "El Camino", "SUV", or even "Minivan"...

[MeAndTinyTina 241]

Hi. My screen name is MeAndTinyTina, but my real name is Ellen (Tiny Tina is my new stomach - a story for another time). My grade school taunt/nickname was Ellen, Ellen Watermelon (chanted over and over again). I was a plump child and then an overweight teen and so on all my life. The taunting had lots of negative impacts, but also one very important, positive one. I believe it made me a much more empathetic person, a good listener, and a champion of important causes. My whole life I have tried to stand up for those who can't and speak up for those who are too timid to do so themselves. The core of my belief system for almost all of my life has been to try to change the things I don't like if I can, but to remember that I can ALWAYS change my reaction to what is happening. I have been fairly successful in keeping to that philosophy. But with my weight, not so successful in changing the situation, although I am mostly happy about how I have dealt with being a larger than life person in a normal-sized world. Now, in the second half of my life, I am tackling the change in the situation itself. But I am very interested in weight-related discrimination and just logged onto the Obesity Action Coalition website, which I learned about yesterday from Bariatricpal.

Sorry for the loooong post. I hope your nick names from the past can now give you strength, as we move beyond them.

[finediva 979]

I went by "Truck" (and continue to)... ever since 10th grade. More people I know call me that than by my real name. I never really minded it too much, learned to embrace it really. Nowadays, though, I often get people that get crative with me and call me "El Camino", "SUV", or even "Minivan"...

Who in their sane mind calls someone SUV or Minivan? You don't seem to be offended by this by the tone of your post, so I'll stop being angry at these people.

[finediva 979]

When I was in grade school I walked by a house everyday where two older boys waited for me to pass by. They called me fatso and fattie. I dreaded going to school. Whem my sister pased away 9 yrs ago my 21 yr old nephew, who was like a son to me, became enraged when he found out I owned half of her home. My sister and I bought the house together when he was 4yrs old so he had no knowledge of the situation. I gave her money and signed for the mortgage. He became very abusive when I refused to give him my share of the house. It's the way my sister wante

d it. She wanted me to keep my share. He called me shamu

several times. Very hurtful

[KayleeC14 159]

I have to say growing up the nickname in grade school and middle school was "fatty" then in changed in High School to "Sexy Lexy" to this day I am perplexed why they gave me that name. In elementary and middle school the name calling got to me then I grew a pair magically and in high school I took no sh*t from nobody. The "sexy lexy" nickname was only in band, and was given to me from band camp. Like I said it puzzles me.

[LindafromFlorida 1,542]

Well I hope sharing these good and bad stories, might help us with our children, grandchildren, great grandchildren and friends, to teach children never to call names. The hurt lasts a lifetime. But this is a celebration to laugh at the stupidity of people labeling us as children, I hope. Maybe this name calling will cease with our younger generation, as they see how it affected us all our lives.

[CowgirlJane 14,259]

Linda, I think you were in the thread where I shared my childhood fat name. My eldest brother tormented me with the name "House" because I was as big as a house. I often felt it referred to my broad shoulders etc too.... what i intepeted at the time as a very masculine build.

What is interesting to me is that now that I am thin and i meet people who didn't know me as obese - they label me as an athletic build. Nobody seems to think that my defined muscles or "T" shaped body (broader shoulders and narrower hips/waist) is ugly - people think it is a great shape.

Why is it when I was a kid that nobody could build me up, but had no problem tearing me down?

So, what you should know is that my eldest brother is now about as wide as he is tall. I hope for his sake that he is able to lose some weight as I really worry about his health, and you would be proud to know I refrain from commenting on his size, shape or weight or make any mention of who looks like a "House" now.

[LindafromFlorida 1,542]

Linda, I think you were in the thread where I shared my childhood fat name. My eldest brother tormented me with the name "House" because I was as big as a house. I often felt it referred to my broad shoulders etc too.... what i intepeted at the time as a very masculine build.

What is interesting to me is that now that I am thin and i meet people who didn't know me as obese - they label me as an athletic build. Nobody seems to think that my defined muscles or "T" shaped body (broader shoulders and narrower hips/waist) is ugly - people think it is a great shape.

Why is it when I was a kid that nobody could build me up, but had no problem tearing me down?

So, what you should know is that my eldest brother is now about as wide as he is tall. I hope for his sake that he is able to lose some weight as I really worry about his health, and you would be proud to know I refrain from commenting on his size, shape or weight or make any mention of who looks like a "House" now.

Yes Jane, that is what prompted me to start this thread. "House" is unthinkable. I bet you are gorgeous. We couldn't change our childhood, but we sure changed our destiny didn't we? Love, Fat Gal -- LOL

Edited September 4, 2014 by LindafromFlorida

[CowgirlJane 14,259]

Well, I think an underlying message here is how lack of "acceptance" enabled some of us to eventually become huge.

I was a plump kid and did balloon up pretty obese. I slimmed down in high school - not to a normal high school girl skinny - but to around 160. I wasn't huge, but I felt it. When I started college, I hit nearly 200# and decided I would kill myself if I ever saw 200# on the scale so I dieted down. I never accepted that I was "okay" just how I was. In college I got down to about 140 and was trim and compact since I worked out obsessively. However, I never felt comfortable in my own skin.

when I think back over the many stages of life... if I had been more "okay" with my body even if a bit overweight I would have saved myself alot of grief and physical damage.I truly believe that self loathing contributed to becoming morbidly obese.

The crazy thing for me was I had high confidence in other areas of life. I realize that at my core, I just didn't feel accepted as an attractive, worthy woman. When I was looking good (college) it freaked me out actually. I would say that period of being hot and young was the unhappiest time of my whole life in terms of daily living. I felt so weird and uncomfortable the whole time.

Thank goodness none of that bothers me now. I am oblivious to what strangers think of me. My friends marvel at my confidence and self acceptance. I have skinny minnie girlfriends who wont wear shorts because of their awful cellulite (invisible to all but them naturally). Of course, they have never had the experience of having a BMI over 50 - and I guess looking like a "House" to realize how great it is just to be freaking normal. I will wear shorts, skirts etc. I try to dress flattering, but I dress for ME not for anyone else these days!

[playlikeworldchamps 595]

CGJ - that is my story. How did you know it? Right down to the "thinning" out in HS and the whoa! 200lbs get the behind me. Unfortunately all that yoyoing and 4 children too I guess got me to over 300 because I never felt good enough in my body even though successful everywhere else. My brother who called me a blimp is actually the nicest guy in the world. I was age 7-10 and he was 12-15 so it was a stage for him but unfortunately stayed with me.

[CowgirlJane 14,259]

I suspect there is a predictable pattern for some of us. It starts out sorta emotional abuse frankly.... like I never weighed 110# in high school like you were "supposed to" so therefore I was a fat unattrative person (which I wasn't, but it is what I believed). Truth is, there are genetic and other reasons I was always gonna be thicker than some girls! Then, over time, the disease progresses and becomes more physical than emotional.

I conducted an experiment on my genetic related son... he was prone to "chubby" through out his youth. I never let him diet. If a doctor suggested he needed to lose weight, I coached him to simply try to cut back a little bit and wait for his height to catch up. He is 22 and is a big guy in the sense of being over 6' tall and could stand to lose 25# to be a lean machine BUT he never ever became obese. He had the genetics to become obese, he has the same bottomless pit hunger that i have had most of my life but his weight doesn't yoyo around, he is active, he eats pretty healthy most of the time and I think is set up to keep from weighing 400# someday. It is more that moderation approach. My goal is to keep him from ever having the obesity disease which truly changes your body.... and makes it darn near impossible to maintain a reasonable weight without surgery.

and when his brother (who was lucky enough to have genetically thin parents) every teased him about his weight - I made it very very clear that it was an off limit topic. Very few topics are like that, but body shaming is simply not allowed under my roof and he got the message.

Anyway, I hope that people in general are less ignorant these days - body shaming of any type is horrible to a person at any age, but to a child or teen it is absolutely devastating.