I'm Not Going Anywhere

I've got news for Sharon Osbourne.

I'm not disappearing.

I'm not going anywhere.

It was her choice - but it's not mine.

Up until a few days ago, I knew her only as Ozzy Osbourne's long-suffering Rock-of-Gibraltar-wife, albeit a little out there herself.

Thanks to her highly-rated reality show, "The Osbournes," most of America knows Sharon Osbourne as a fashionable, somewhat loopy Beverly Hills mum who more often than not peppers her speech with vocabulary way too salty for even MTV's raunchy fare.

But until three days ago, I had no idea she was a sister.

Or I should say, a former sister.

Sharon Osbourne once was a woman of size.

It's a little known fact that she's managed to keep off the airwaves (despite the ultra-invasive nature of reality shows).

But oh, that Barabara Walters, she sure can dig: In a recent 20/20 interview, Walters revealed that, until about ten years ago, Sharon Osbourne had spent much of most of her life as a person of size, or as Osbourne bluntly put it, "fat".

Judging by old photos of her, she looked to be about a size eighteen, tops.

But Sharon one day decided she could no longer tolerate her physical condition. The main reason? "Fat people are treated worse than drug addicts," she said, looking Walters squarely in the eye.

You don't have to tell ME, sister.

It's a fact I'm well aware of. I could write a book on the emotional havoc that goes hand in hand with being a person of size in the 21st century, living in the continental United States.

I'm appalled at the way we are treated and judged. I was raised by parents who were size-loathing (their own and mine). Until the age of 21, I bought into the shame garbage.

I even lost 100 lbs. on more than one occasion, and regained it. The latter I attribute partly to genetics (family genes will have their way with you, believe me) and as a biological/psychological response to the insane deprivation that's become a national pasttime known as dieting.

Getting off the hellish merry-go-round of shame and denial took work; believe me, I didn't skimp on the therapy. Yes, I'm through with dieting.

Dieting is now so passé due to the flourishing gastric bypass culture. Just ask Carnie Wilson. Did you see her on Oprah as she frolicked in her backyard, a shadow of her former self? Or Al Roker - the new People Magazine Coverboy - in that predictable, post-dramatic-weight-loss portrait? Al's the newly thin guy nearly swallowed up by the predictable billowing pair of pants he wore at his heaviest.

Hey, don't get me wrong - I'm happy for Wilson and Roker. Quite possibly, it was the right choice - for them.

My point is, it's an individual choice and there are those of size among us who don't feel the need to have ourselves sliced open to have our plumbing completely rerouted in order to look like the American ideal. It's clear that people of size tend to be treated poorly, especially by the media. But is lining up for bariatic surgery to have our stomachs mutilated, the answer? I've got insurance coverage, and, if I wanted to, I could make a phone call to a certain bariatric surgeon in New Jersey and it would be done. But I won't.

I'm well aware of the medical condition touted as morbid obesity and, as I said, surgery may be the right choice for some people. But read up on the bariatric bypass craze. People who are as small as a size 14 are lining up for it.

It is an alarming and dangerous trend which frankly scares me. Isn't it a bit akin to nightmarish periods in history where certain groups were commanded to fit in, or die? Remember the Crusades? Conforming, especially when one conforms to something one is not, is not the answer.

Six people I know personally have had the surgery. For some, it's been a wonderful solution to weight loss (I can't qualify it with the word permanent because they've barely passed the one-year mark). At least two of them are back at square one weight-wise, with more than a few gastrointestinal abnormalities upsetting their digestive apple cart. Translation: not only did it not solve the problem, they now have more physical (and in all probability, emotional) problems than when they began.

Then there's the friend who has to trot over to the hospital once a month for vitamin injections - not pleasant.

I must admit that a few of my post-surgical friends are exuberant at their smaller size and report a sense of bliss like they've never felt before - but the flipside of it is the simmering rage at an instantaneous first -class citizen treatment. In their hearts, they know how fundamentally wrong it is to be treated with respect and admiration merely because they're a smaller size.

Well, guess what? I think it's possible to be treated like a first-class citizen at any size. And unless we stand up for ourselves and demand it, it ain't happening.

It's simple math, ladies and gentlemen. If you slink around and believe you're no better than a piece of bird-dung, that is how you'll be treated.

Me? I've come to look at myself as an activist - a size 26 activist.

I'm not going away. As long as I'm still on the planet, the people in my world will know I openly love and respect myself as I am and that there is more than one standard of beauty to admire.

Do I realize there are people out there who don't 'approve' of my size? Sure I do, but I refuse to give their opinions the time of day. The truth is, we humans come in various shapes and sizes and colors and that it's all beautiful (as opposed to only 1/4 beautiful).

I'm not apologizing for myself anymore. And guess what? My demands for respect are met. Believe me, they're met.

The answer for me is not to disappear.

I'm here to stay - in all of my curvacious, plus-sized glory.

Stacey Morris

Stacey Morris is a reporter for The Post-Star newspaper in Glens Falls, N.Y. Her Web site is www.staceymorris.com

 

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