I’ve never been thin. I’ve been toned (hardly) — athletic, even — but never thin. As a young girl, sticky and messy and as unkempt as a festering scab, I would glamorize a particular body type: stick thin, collarbones like a shield pointing out of a sweater that made for a perfect accessory when paired with an on-point outfit. Thin bodies have always been a passport into spaces I wasn’t readily allowed into.

At 17, my sister developed anorexia, gradually losing weight and touting her ultra thinness like a scout’s honorary badge. At the time, I was just 10 and plump like a human-sized gulab jamun, and cared little about bodies or beauty, deciding that I had neither. Slowly, though, the way she’d navigate her own physicality — usually with casual disdain, withholding from all kinds of food groups — began to seep into me, a porous, chubby little thing. Psychologically, I began to build myself in her image, angry that when at family functions, all the other young girls, and even the aunties, would revel at her skinniness. I was upset that I was the opposite of her completely, I’d never been thin and I wondered if I ever would be, thinking it was a sign of success.

Later, at 18, right after an unwanted pregnancy, I put... READ MORE >