Article October 5, 1998 Issue

Stop being a bulletin board for negative notes

Weight control—without dieting

By Nancy Louise Ranks

When I was in public school, I was overweight. The kids called me some awfully mean names. When I'd tell my mother how bad the name-calling made me feel, she'd remind me that names could never hurt me. She'd also tell me that these children were simply jealous of me because I was pretty. Well, I thought, maybe I was pretty, but maybe I wasn't—after all, moms are prejudiced!

The name-calling had terrible emotional and physical effects on me. Sometimes it got so bad I felt as though I were a bulletin board covered with little yellow notes saying, "fatty," "overeater," "ugly," "obese." And I was often ill.

Over the years I tried many different diets, but none had any lasting effect. At one point I was close to 190 pounds, and I am only five feet one inch tall. Starving seemed the only way to get thin, and thin was what everyone said I should be. So I severely restricted my food intake and got myself down to 112 pounds. But could I sustain that weight? Not likely.

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