I can remember my mom going to the grocery store every Saturday and coming home with a large bag of potato chips, a box of Ho Hos, and a two-liter bottle of Pepsi. Those snacks would be gone by the afternoon, my brothers and I hurrying to eat them before they disappeared. There was always a definite competition in my house for food.
I smile now when I think about how much I complain about my kids being picky eaters, because really, they are nothing compared to my brothers and me. I would eat no fruit whatsoever. I couldn’t stand the texture of it, and to this day I don’t eat any. I would eat very few vegetables, either. Sometimes my mom could get us to eat green beans with fatback or corn on the cob smothered in butter. I never wanted to try new things; I always hated going over to other people’s houses to eat. I can remember having lunch at my friend Michelle’s house. I was probably five years old. Her mother put the plate in front of me, and I stared at the brown bread. Brown bread? I’d never seen such a thing. And I wasn’t about to put it in my mouth. I was too ashamed to come out and say it, so I did what any five-year-old would do. I waited until Michelle’s mother wasn’t looking and I threw the bread on the floor, under the table. Problem solved.
Michelle’s parents were professors at Duke University and were obviously a little more enlightened when it came to healthy eating. I remember bringing over a bag of Funyuns to share with Michelle, and her father asked to see the bag. He turned it over and began reading the ingredients. I couldn’t imagine what he was doing, and I don’t remember his ultimate verdict.
No, my parents were not college professors. We were a distinctly blue-collar family with enough money to get by but not a whole lot left over. Food was a cheap way to show love and bring pleasure. Not only did my dad buy us afternoon snacks, but he also would make mammoth “Daddy Burgers” on the grill, each thick patty smothered with mounds of cheese. My mom would cook her own french fries in our FryDaddy. And sweet tea flowed freely. Whenever we had a hankerin’ for dessert, my brothers and I knew to look in Dad’s top dresser drawer—he always had cookies or candy bars stashed there. When we were out of school for the summer, Mom would leave us a dollar each to go to the store and buy whatever we wanted to eat. My brothers and I fought like cats and dogs, but I can distinctly remember my brother Jimmy and I pooling our money once and buying a Chef Boyardee Pizza Kit. Making that pizza with Jimmy is something I remember fondly.
Every memory, every special occasion, was tied up with food—and still is. My first thought when I wake up in the morning is, What will I eat today? My last thought when I go to sleep is, What will I eat tomorrow? If I know a special occasion is coming up, I ponder all the food possibilities. It occupies my every waking thought.
College brought a whole new level of food independence. I was still twenty-five pounds lighter, and I managed to keep most of it off freshman year. But it occurred to me that I could have anything I wanted to eat, anytime I wanted. No longer was I limited to the one soft drink a day Dad bought for an afternoon snack; the campus cafeteria had all the soda I could want, on tap. I brought a refrigerator to school, and my roommate provided a microwave. This brought all new possibilities: I could eat sugarcoated cereal for breakfast every morning, and microwave pizza in our room. Probably the most damaging part of my newfound food freedom was burger baskets. I was stuck on campus without a car, and back then there were no fast-food places in our little college town. But we had an on-campus burger joint, and I made a regular practice of ordering a hamburger-and-fries basket. I remember being in awe of the fact that I could do this at 9:00 and 10:00 p.m., long after I’d eaten dinner. I can do this to get through my studying, I told myself. I just need a pick-me-up. How I didn’t gain all my weight back and more that freshman year, I’ll never know. But it would happen soon enough.
By my sophomore year I was living off campus with a roommate. I was also commuting an hour and a half each way to work as a reporter at a television station in South Carolina. I worked horrible hours and had to drive miles and miles on the interstate. This was where my fast-food addiction really heated up. I was working late. I was tired. I was stressed from the job, the commute, the full load of courses I was taking and, oh yeah, I was planning a wedding. It was almost too easy to give in to the temptation of the many fast-food places up and down I-95, most of which were open twenty-four hours. I found myself stopping for burgers and fries at midnight three and four times a week, always telling myself that this was the last time, I just needed it to get through the commute. Famous last words.
I definitely was eating more fast food, but I wasn’t at the bingeing point yet. That would come just a little later, when the weight started to pile on from the extra burgers and fries and endless soda. The stress from gaining weight and all the other things in my life started to get to me, and in a desperate attempt to stop the madness, I would employ what worked so well for me on that New Year’s Eve back in 1990. I would load up on fast food, promising myself that this was the last time, all I needed was to get it out of my system. But more and more I found that what I thought was a foolproof method no longer worked. My resolve would erode quickly, and I would eat more. The weight began to pile on even more, and for the first time in my life, I entered a weight class I never thought I would achieve. The more I tried to fix it, the worse it became. I felt as though I was sinking in quicksand.
Over the years, I brought bingeing to an art form. It usually centered around fast food, but not always. Sometimes I couldn’t leave the house, afraid Michael would know what I was up to. I would take a loaf of bread, a jar of pasta sauce, and a tub of butter, and over the course of an afternoon, I would eat all of it. I would tell Michael I was “working” in our second bedroom that I used as an office. And I would just eat and eat and eat. I eventually would get sick and have to go to the bathroom, but if I waited just a little while, I was ready to eat again. And again and again.
Fast food was always my drug of choice, though. In early 2000 I started a new job that had me commuting an hour each way, again along the interstate. I would call Pizza Hut before I left work for the day. Imagine how mortified I was when they knew me by my order, “Ms. Joyner? Oh yes, a medium pepperoni and sausage pizza and a twenty-ounce Mountain Dew?” I sheepishly said, “Yes,” and left to pick up my food. I was embarrassed to be remembered for my standing order, especially when the purchase of a single drink must have clued the folks into the fact that this was indeed a meal for one. But not too embarrassed to keep going.
I could down the whole pizza in the first twenty minutes or so of my hour-long drive home. Then, when I was halfway there, I would stop off the interstate and hit McDonald’s for a double cheeseburger meal. By the time I finished that, I was home and felt pretty sick. But I’d go to the bathroom and wait a few minutes, and then I was ready to go again. Sometimes I would have a full dinner with Michael.
Other times I’d go to the grocery store and get a pint of Häagen-Dazs and eat it in my office, telling Michael again that I was working. Sometimes I would forget to throw the trash away from my binge eating, and I would see that Michael had found it in my car and thrown it away himself.
I was so ashamed, but I felt powerless to stop it. Michael would complain that my car smelled like ketchup. If we rode together on the weekends, he would sigh heavily and roll the windows down, unable to take the smell. I said nothing. What could I say? Promise not to do it again? Even I, in my advanced stage of denial, knew those promises were empty.
After a day of binge eating, I would have what I call a “binge hangover” the next morning. I would feel so gassy, so bloated. My stomach would ache, and I would have to go to the bathroom several times. I would have no energy, and worse, I had incredible guilt and remorse.
I suppose that’s why I would hardly ever binge in the mornings; that was a time for regret and repurpose. I would set out each day to right the wrongs of the day before. If I was lucky, I could make it for a couple of days without bingeing again. At my worst my resolve was gone by lunchtime.
There was such shame surrounding what I was doing to myself and to my body that I kept it hidden as much as I could. Still, someone who is addicted to food isn’t allowed the luxury of anonymity; we wear our failures on our bodies for the world to see. I used to be envious of people with drug or alcohol problems. At least they could hide their addictions, if even for a little while, from the rest of the population. A fat person might as well wear a sign with flashing neon lights: I CAN’T CONTROL MYSELF!
Indeed eating in public is a no-win situation for the obese. If we eat a lot, people stare and confirm for themselves what they’d already been thinking. If we eat a little, people smirk, knowing full well there’s more to the story. Thus I did whatever I had to do to avoid eating in public. At work I would eat lunch in my car, away from prying eyes. At family gatherings I would put the bare minimum on my plate. I suppose this is the behavior that prompted my father-in-law to once ask me if I hid food. It was pretty early in our marriage, and I’m sure Michael’s parents were struggling for answers as they saw me spiral out of control. When I tearfully confessed to them that I was trying to get my weight under control, Mr. Joyner said he knew a man who would find candy wrappers stuffed into desk drawers at his home, knowing that they belonged to his wife. Was that what I was doing? I told him yes, although I really, at that point, didn’t hide food at home. Perhaps that’s where I got the idea to do so, because I did actually do that many years later. You would think the humiliation I endured as the result of my father-in-law’s questions would shame me into finally doing something about my eating. You would think.
The bingeing and the hiding of food made me feel even lonelier. Being a fat woman is one of the loneliest things you can be. Family and friends want to help you, but they don’t know how, and they’re afraid to say the wrong thing, so they usually don’t say anything. I’ve found that when I have tried to bring it up, even with Michael, it makes others very uncomfortable, and I usually just drop the subject. Fat women don’t even acknowledge other fat women, because doing so means you are one of them, and most of us want to deny that as long as possible. You can’t even commiserate with those who understand best. So you keep everything inside, struggling and hurting all alone.
It didn’t help that a great deal of my eating was in the car, either commuting to and from work or—worse—sneaking out of the house to eat, telling Michael I was going to the store or running some other errand. Mealtimes for fat people are not the social gatherings that others enjoy. Instead they are desperate times filled with self-hatred and broken promises. When the eating is finished, the deal making begins. And on and on it goes.
Sometimes I wonder how many cheeseburgers I’ve had in my lifetime, how many french fries I have eaten. How much space would all of my trash take up at the landfill? I swear, with all the meals I have purchased, I wonder, how could I have never won one of those fast-food giveaways? You know, like the Monopoly games at McDonald’s? Certainly my odds at winning were better than most. But alas, I have not won anything from eating fast food.
When it became vogue to sue fast-food chains for various reasons, I had to chuckle. Were these people really serious? Yes, fast food had done a ton of damage to my health and to my happiness, but whose fault was that? Could I ever blame someone else for something I chose to do, even though I felt powerless to stop it? I think we all know that large quantities of fast food are harmful to the body, and we don’t need movies like Super Size Me to prove it. I suppose eating fast food for our generation is like smoking was to our parents’ generation. Smoking for my parents was the cool, cheap way to get your kicks. But now we know how harmful it is to the body, and our parents are hopelessly addicted. My generation has gotten used to fast food as a cheap and convenient way to eat, but we’re starting to see how bad it is for our health. Hopefully it’s a lesson we can help our kids learn early.
Now that I am a parent, I am so completely paranoid about what and how my kids eat. I really don’t blame my parents for the way I turned out, yet I know that if I’d had a better idea of healthier eating habits from an earlier age, then perhaps the struggle wouldn’t have been so mighty. In any case, I vowed not to let my kids eat crap. When my daughter, Emma, was just three months old, I caught my brother about to put his finger in her mouth, a finger that held the slightest dollop of whipped cream from a piece of apple pie. My mother was holding Emma and smiling broadly as Uncle Jimmy prepared to give her a treat. My screams caused Jimmy to jump back, and my mother almost dropped the baby. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” I shrieked, grabbing Emma in a huff. How dare they do something like that! Of course, they thought I was overreacting, but really, three months old? Yeah, I think that’s a little early. Besides, couldn’t they understand where I was coming from? I simply wanted to avoid future heartache for my child.
So I scrutinize everything that goes into my kids’ mouths. But much to my chagrin, I have a couple of picky eaters to raise. On the one hand, both Emma and my son, Eli, will eat almost any kind of fruit. That makes my heart sing, especially since I don’t touch the stuff. Vegetables are a different story. Emma will eat broccoli, but only with cheese. She’ll eat green beans, begrudgingly. She’ll eat green lettuce and cucumbers—and every once in a while, a raw carrot or two. But that’s about it. And Eli, at four years old, won’t let any vegetables come near him. Nothing. I bribe, I plead, I beg, but it’s not happening. Still, they don’t drink soda, and we limit fast food to the “rare” category. Emma will drink her weight in milk, and Eli likes apple juice a little too much, but at least they’re doing much better than I ever did as a kid.
Eating has always been an issue for me, and I suppose it always will be. Again, I can’t help but be a little jealous of a substance abuser. When a drug addict begins recovery, he can plan to avoid situations in which he’s tempted to indulge. A food addict isn’t so lucky. I have to eat in order to live. And temptation is everywhere.
3
I’m Jennifer Joyner, and I’m Not on TV
JANUARY 1994
If I’m really quiet, maybe no one will hear me. I listen as high heels click-clack on the tile floor, making their way to the stall on the far side of the television station’s public bathroom. Whoever she is, she’s fast. Just barely a minute, and she’s already done her business, flushed, and is now washing her hands. I imagine her fixing her hair in the mirror as I hear the clang of bangles coming together. One of the anchors, no doubt. I pray that her primping will be brief, and mercifully, it is. The nameless, faceless woman click-clacks her way out the door, and once again I am alone, huddled down in a stall.
I’m ready for the tears to come—am willing them out of me—but curiously, nothing. I know the cry is there; the sorrow building in my chest threatens to cut off my very breath. I just want it out, I just want to release it, be free of it, make it finally happen so I can begin to let it go. But … nothing. Can’t make myself cry. Can’t feel the pain anymore. I’m numb.
I start to go over the events of the last hour, hoping the recollection will make the dam burst. I arrived at work a little before 5:00 p.m., ready for my evening shift as a reporter for WPDE-TV in Florence, South Carolina. It was only a part-time job, but I was just twenty-one years old, a junior in college. I wasn’t even out of school yet, and I’d already landed an on-air television gig. Everyone told me that was unheard of, that my future was as bright as they come. Funny … there’s nothing bright as I sit alone in a dingy bathroom trying to make myself sob.
My assignment this evening is to cover a PTA meeting at a local high school. It makes me chuckle when I think of how people think the life of a TV reporter is glamorous; I was going to spend my night in a school cafeteria, trying to get parents to talk to me about the rising rate of student violence. I was going to drive myself to the story (and I was horrible with directions), lug about forty pounds of camera equipment all alone, and shoot and edit the story myself, all on a 10:00 p.m. deadline. Glamorous? Hardly. Stressful? Unbelievably so, especially when
you consider the current state of my affairs: I had just hit two hundred pounds. I was constantly paranoid that my bosses would fire me at any minute; after all, how many fat people do you see on TV? I felt their eyes on me as I walked around the newsroom, and I tried to brush it off, tried to feel better by reminding myself I had been good all week. I was limiting my calories, sticking to diet sodas, and watching my portion sizes. I had managed to walk a couple of miles at the campus track three times that week and had plans to do it again the next day. I hadn’t yet stepped on the scale, but I was starting to feel somewhat confident in my efforts. Surely this would work! In no time I would lose the twenty pounds I’d gained since I started working there, and I would keep right on losing. My career would be set, and I would be so happy, finally so fulfilled. I keep telling myself that as I work, trying to avoid the prying eyes of the newsroom.
Because my meeting doesn’t start until 7:00 p.m., my job is to help everyone prepare for the 6:00 p.m. newscast. Again, say good-bye to all the glamorous television news life theories—that prep work includes ripping apart scripts and sorting them into piles for the news and sports anchors, as well as for the director and producer of the show. I am also asked to run the teleprompter for the newscast—meaning I have to sit off to the side of the set and operate the conveyor belt that carries the words the anchors read on-screen. It is mind-numbing work, but I just chalk it up to paying my dues. I settle into the cold studio for what I expect will be an uneventful newscast.
Designated Fat Girl Page 3