If you've been cruising around the blogosphere for any amount of time, or even on our list of links on the sidepanel, you'll have heard of The Rotund. A definite rock star of the Internet when it comes to size acceptance, its author Marianne continues to shine lights on serious issues that affect our daily lives, posing questions that very few sites dare to ask. If you're not reading The Rotund, you're missing out on some major eye-openers. Today, instead of looking out at the world, Marianne offers a contribution to the Vault, turning the spotlight to her own history.

I wasn't born fat. The only chub I had was in my cheeks, which were constantly pinched by relatives. But genetics and my great-grandmother changed that when I was 7 years old.  I spent the summer with her, grew two inches, and put on an unspecified amount of weight.

That signaled the beginning of a war with my body. 

My mother put me on my first diet that fall when I came home. She also sabotaged my first diet by not allowing me to play outside and by not having any idea what a nutritious diet ought to include. 

But she didn't want me to be fat. She had been a chubby teenager and had starved herself thin. She had been a fat adult and, again, starved herself thin. Her own mother had resorted to gastric bypass surgery--stomach stapling--in an effort to be thin. Fat was clearly the enemy and, because she loved me, she didn't want the enemy to overtake me.

The problem with this is that, medically-speaking, we aren't really sure what happens to a developing child when you start them on the rollercoaster of diets. Rather than losing weight, I gained it. And kept gaining with every attempt.

This is not surprising to me as an adult. As a child, it felt like a profound failure; it felt like I must be delusional because I was doing what people wanted me to do and it still wasn't working. 

My weight became a growing point of contention. It became a family problem. Everyone--mom, dad, grandparents, cousins--had a stake in the outcome of my next diet. And they all did this because they loved me. Because they didn't want me to be fat. Because they didn't think it was possible to be happy and healthy and fat all at the same time.

Of course, all of their efforts just made me fatter. And I learned how to hate my body, my rebellious body that wouldn't respond no matter what eating program I was following. My body became something separate from who I was ; it was easier to ignore it than accept that I was fundamentally flawed.

I got the message loud and clear: No one will ever love you if you are fat. It is a good thing you are smart because you will never be pretty if you stay fat. Look how pretty your cousin is, ask her how she lost weight.

And I got the more subtle messages as well, the ones that taught me how unworthy I was. I will buy you nice clothes when you lose weight. If you lose weight, I will take you to the museum. I will give you five dollars for every pound you lose. 

I wore baggy clothes from K-Mart while I carried my mother's bags full of clothes around the mall when we went shopping on the weekends. My fat body was not as worthwhile as her thin one. My fat body was inherently unattractive. My fat body meant I didn't even look at clothes, much less think about dating. 

And that's how things continued. I was in my 20s before it even occurred to me that I wasn't a repulsive blob. That I was active and involved in life and busy seeing all kinds of people. That when I wasn't eating in a highly disordered way, I felt good and strong and at home in my body.

I think back over my experiences as a fat kid a lot these days. There are always new stories of fat kids who want bariatric surgery, fat kids who ought to be taken away from their parents, fat kids who have gotten unsatisfactory BMI report cards. And it makes me incredibly sad because these kids know nothing but shame for their bodies. And when they grow up, because we all grow up, they are going to carry that shame with them and it's going to affect every part of their lives.

That's why I stopped dieting. That's why I started blogging and talking to people and encouraging others to love the body that they are in at any given moment. I don't want more fat kids to hate themselves. I don't want those fat kids to grow into adults who hate themselves. 

I can't change the whole world with one blog entry. But I can help one person. And that is how things have to start. I am 29 years old and I am still a fat kid, learning how to relate to my body. Only this time, I am doing it without the shame. --Marianne