At the risk of making this seem like an Oprah special, I want to share that I was a fat kid. I’m using the term “fat” because that’s what one of my best friends suddenly called me when I was 11 years old while we waited outside for school to start. He came to school different that day, his hair slicked back instead of his typical bedhead, and he was wearing a newly placed gold chain around his neck. He had unbuttoned a few buttons on his shirt until the teachers made him button it back up. Until that day, he and I would spend recess pretending to be giant robots, lifting rocks and throwing them onto the ground, wreaking havoc on imagined hideouts of evil villains who threatened the world with nefarious schemes. That all changed one day and it changed so suddenly that I recall it viscerally, like our friendship burnt down the way a house disappears in a four-alarm fire. I literally remember the smell of the grass that day.

Can you relate to this author’s story? I was ‘toddy potty 2×4 who can’t get through the bathroom door’. Go to the source if you were like me: The Emotional Toll of Childhood Obesity | Psychology Today