My Story – Her Story

Ratika’s Story 

I went to the market the other day to buy some good western wear and I realised that not many shops had enough options for me. Do you know why? It is because I am twenty kilograms overweight and my sizes are around 4XL. Most of the brand’s do not have sizes above 2XL.

Whenever I ask the shopkeepers as to whether they have XL sizes, their answer is always in affirmative in the beginning of the conversation but then few minutes later, once I tell them that my size is 4XL, always the answer has been sorry madam, we only have upto 2XL. Why such a disgrace to a woman who is scientifically overweight but medically fitter than most of the thinnest women around.

It has always been a pain.  What will an obese women do? How will she manage this discrimination?

Whenever I go to the malls, whenever I go to a branded store to find stuff for myself there are no clothes available in my sizes.

Actually whatever types of designs I like, I am not able to fit myself into it because the branded fashion designers are really not available to make that kind of dresses for obese women.

And then there is your husband who is saying that you should accept yourself as you are. He may be right we should accept our selves the way we are but what about the people who are around you, the market around you, the places around you.

Do they really let you to accept as you are, being a fat, obese and not fitting in into the normal of the society. Whenever you go places you will always find people looking at you in a very strange way, like when you walk into a store and when they don’t have your size, even the salesman doesn’t want to come near you because he knows he will not have stuffs to show you.

It is humiliating at times.  When everyone, like even when you are looking for some clothes for your sister or may be somebody else, you know you will find it there. But there is nobody available to actually help you.

You may be a very helpful, loving kind of a woman, liked and appreciated for your selflessness but still your husband’s family or your own brother’s and sisters will unconsciously make you feel bad. It is not even their fault.

The sad reality, that’s how the society has been conditioned. You feel bad about yourself that inspite of exercises, walking, dieting you are not able to lose weight. Life is not just about looking thin. You have so many things to look forward to, responsibilities because of which you are not able to follow in a very religious manner. It is because of the routine. You feel weak at times because of the judgemental society around you. We try to fit into the perspectives of others in society. Other people want to see you as they want to which is to look thin, irrespective of your vitals being normal. You are happy with your body, you know you are just overweight but then many other people are suffering from lots of diseases despite being thin. They will overlook those problems and keep on advising you because you are overweight. You will have problems with your knees, you will have problems with the ankles, you will have this problem, you have that problem, you should do different things, you should lose weight. It’s not that you don’t want to accept yourself but frankly speaking nobody is letting you accept yourself in the way you are.

Ajit’s Story

“Why are you after your life? Why do you think it is important to become thin? What I feel is more important is to stay healthy but yes even I cannot overcome the norms of society. The normal of society is that a fit man, a man who looks healthy, should have a very beautiful, curvaceous and smart woman and if you don’t get her, it means that you were not capable of wooing a beautiful and sexy girl while you were in your younger days or maybe while when you were getting married. But trust you me it’s not the body, normal of the society should not be to look thin, it should be to being healthy. What is more important, is the compatibility of the two people who are getting into a married relationship or maybe in a love relationship. So if I have to talk about my story then this is what it is.

So whenever I am with my set of people I try and meet all of my friends whenever possible but I don’t meet people who I am not comfortable with. With just one meeting I can decide whether to meet him the next time or not. I don’t easily allow people to enter my family’s zone. And if I realize that a person who I just met doesn’t deserve to even know about my family, I ensure not to allow him to get into my zone.

Now a female who looks overweight or obese, may not be unhealthy. Let me talk about myself and my wife. I get my health profile check done every 6 months. I have high cholesterol. My wife also gets her health checkup done every six months she doesn’t have any problem. She is obese, she is overweight but she is probably more energetic than me.

So where does this come from- this comes from the society which has been built over some misconceptions and the misconceptions are that men should have a beautiful and curvaceous lady as a girlfriend and then as a wife and if you are not able to manage that, then you are incapable as a man or incapable as a woman.

Motivational Speaker – Author – Life Coach

Ajit Kumar Panicker