Whenever I remember it, I think I had a fairly happy childhood. When I think about it more closely I realise that everything was not OK and many of the things that happened to me were not normal. I was always encouraged to finish all the food on my plate and was praised for being a good eater. I was a good girl. everyone said so. I used to have fun playing and being quite active. I always wanted to be a ballerina. At age 4, some well meaning doctor or my mother or both decided that I was too fat and needed to go on a diet. I have seen pictures of myself at this age and I was not huge. Slightly chubby are the words I would use. (Not really surprising since I had never once decided for myself how much food to eat). So I was made to eat less food. A gold star on the fridge marked every weight loss. Once I had a certain number of gold stars I got to pick a gift. The first gift was a red handbag, then a radio shaped like a hamburger (yes I know it's pretty ironic). It's actually pretty amazing that I can remember this so vividly. I also remember one afternoon saying that I was hungry and then a while later my mother put a whole bowl full of tinned fruit on the kitchen bench. Thinking it was for me, I ate it all. I later got into trouble because that bowl of fruit was meant for "The whole family" (My mum, dad and I).

I really didn't think there was anything wrong with my body, until I started hearing comments from my father such as "Oh look, she has stretch marks like a pregnant lady" I learnt quickly that my body was huge and I should be ashamed of it. When I started school I realised that as well as being FAT I was quite clearly much taller than most of the other children. I started to wish myself shorter as well as thinner. When I was about 7 I begged my mother to let me do ballet. Again I discovered that I was too big. I had to go on another diet and I still could not get small enough. I learnt all the dances and did the exams, but I always seemed to fail. Much later my mother told me that I had been failed because they "didn't want fat ballerinas" (My teacher's words) This now makes me so cross. I never wanted to make it a career, I just loved to dance. HOW DARE THEY judge a little girl by the size of her body rather than her dancing ability.

Anyway I moved away from the world of classical ballet and started doing jazz ballet instead somewhere where they were much more accepting of me. They even put me in the front row because I was good rather than hiding me up the back. Anyway I don't remember being teased by the other kids at school, probably because when I look back at photos, I was only slightly larger than they were. I do remember all the food I used to eat in the period from when I got home from school (about 3:30) and when my parents got home from work (about 5) I would eat anything I could find. Chocolate was a forbidden food only for adults, so I'd have some of that. Biscuits, lollies, ice cream, sugar and sultana sandwiches. Anything I could get my hands on I ate. Then my mother would cook me dinner and I would eat all of that even though I was really full (otherwise they might get suspicious) Once I ate all my dinner I got to eat dessert.

For as long as I can remember the only beverage in the house was diet soft drinks. Now I NEVER drink them. They really taste quite disgusting, and I HATE the after taste. When I go back to my parents place that's all they have still. I also remember having to order my lunch from the school, since my mother worked and didn't have time to make it. This was in year 1, and I soon worked out that for the cost of a salad sandwich (what my mother thought I bought every day) I could buy a plain cheese sandwich and a cream horn (absolutely forbidden). My parent's don't know I did this still to this day. I used to crave everything else the other kids had for their lunch. They got meat pies and pizzas and hot dogs. They got biscuits or chips for recess and I got a piece of fruit.

High school just seemed to make things worse. ALL my friends were dieting. I can still remember one friend telling us how she lost so much weight by taking lots of laxatives and I was thinking "I wish I had some money so I could buy some and lose weight too". We egged each other on by passing around the latest diet, some of them bizarre and most of them dangerous. We ate rice cakes for lunch, then stopped at the shops on the way home from school to buy a block of chocolate and eat it. I kept telling my friend that she looked great, but I was quite disgustingly fat. I can still remember the letters my best friend and I used to write each other, all about how huge we were and how we would never get boyfriends. (egad!) I look at photos now and think how sad. I was about 6'7" and weighed about 60 kg (132 lbs) which is really quite normal. I was convinced that I was absolutely huge. I really wasn't, but I felt huge inside.

Anyway I went to university and thinks started to get out of hand. My parents had even less control over what I ate. I lived on campus and ate terrible college food. Luckily there was a snack machine which I visited quite regularly. Also there was a supermarket nearby I liked to visit. I felt very lonely there, because I didn't really like any of the people there. I sat in my room alone or watched TV at night. I also started to go to the gym almost every night to do weights or aerobics. I swung between being `good' exercising like a maniac and `bad' eating everything in sight. In school I was always one of the smartest and never needed to study, so now I didn't know how. My grades suffered and I failed a few classes. I now thought I was fat AND stupid. I ate even more.

I finally started to calm down a bit when I moved off campus and into a house with some friends. I didn't diet, but I never ate meat after my bad experiences in college. My friends and I would go on shopping expeditions in our pyjamas at 3 am to buy chocolate (she was naturally thin) Chocolate started to lose it's edge for me a bit because I had it around. Everyone was eating it and I calmed down around food in general. Everyone in the house was eating whatever they wanted and stopping when they had enough. I had no idea people could live like this!! I naturally lost a bit of weight and was pleasantly surprised. My grades got better. I soon finished my degree and moved home with my parents. Then my problems started getting worse.

My parents were shocked at the size I was now. As a Christmas present I got a subscription to "The Diet Factory", one of those places where they supply all your meals to a total of 1200 calories (? Or kilojoules. they actually don't mean anything to me anymore!) I followed that for about 8 months, and of course I lost weight. I started to "cheat" on the diet after about 6 months. Just little things at first like an extra yoghurt, but after a while I just stopped. I was sick of it all, and even though I didn't want to be fat again, I knew I didn't want to put myself through all the weighing and measuring and pre determined portions again. A few months later I saw "When women stop hating their bodies" in a bookshop and bought it straight away. While reading it, it just made so much sense. I tried to follow it, but I was eating in secret from my family. I had all kinds of food, but it wasn't legalised because I had it hidden in my room. I still have not told my family I have given up dieting. It's none of their business, but I think I am getting strong enough so that I could tell them one day. I no longer live there and they have no more influence on me. Anyway, I never dieted again, and kept working at this OO thing. I read lots of other books, and did a course called NECTAR, which is based on OO principles and helped me become more aware of the choices I make and why. This really gave me a big boost, however after a bit of backsliding in the last few months, joining this group has helped me immensely. I realise even more that if I am ever going to "get over" this thing that I need to work on my emotional issues. I weigh more now than I did before my last diet, but I think I am stable (the same clothes still fit me) I am pretty sure that I have lost a bit from my all time high, and seem to be gradually losing weight. (I don't weigh, but people keep asking me if I have lost weight). I know I have made a lot of progress when I think about how I used to be and the things I used to say to myself. I live with my boyfriend of six years and he loves me for me. He tells me I am gorgeous and it's becoming easier to believe him. This was tough for me, because I was never good with compliments. I used to wonder why the person was so blatantly lying to me.

Anyway, it's been a long road, but I know it's been worth it. I can never go back to who I was and I wouldn't want to either. I am much happier and more comfortable with my body now at size 22 than I ever was at a size 12. I walk, swim and am thinking of taking up dancing just because I love to move my body around. The dancing thing may be hard though, as it has so many painful memories attached. I know this is very long, so thanks for reading so far. It has been good for me to write this all down, so I hope it also helps other people in some way. ~Kylie Smith

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