Its harder to be overweight. The effects that society has on the obese.

40 lbs

I was a chubby child. It learned early that the extra pounds I carried not only made me physically standout from my peers, they also socially alienated me from them. Because I was fat I was the last one picked to square dance in the fourth grade, and because I was fat I was teased and called pregnant by the "country folks" from the small town to which my family moved. Because I was fat I became anorexic.

Luckily, I recovered. Today I weigh an extra 40 lbs heavier than when I graduated high school, however, now I'm clinically obese. The health problems I caused myself as an anorexic, and the emotional stress I put on my loved ones, are the only things that stop me from going back to my anorexic ways. It's no wonder I constantly feel the pressure to go back to hardly eating and obsessive exercise.

An obese topless man on a motorcycle. Original cap...

English: English actress Kate Winslet. Español: A...

Overweight : / ?

I am constantly being given the message that as an overweight person I'm not good enough, or there's something wrong with me. I also know what it is like to be thin, and the advantages it carries. It is an up hill battle to be happy and successful as an overweight person.

The roadblocks are everywhere for the overweight. I can't even walk into the average store to buy clothing because the average clothing store stops at either size 13 or 14, and I wear a size 16. Though most studies suggest that the "average sized" American woman is between a size 12 and 18, the images we are bombarded with by the media are all between a size 0 and a size 6. Actresses in Hollywood, like Kate Winslet of "Titanic" and "Iris," are called "fat" when they become a size 8. The well known plus size model,