Lifelong battle with weight not an easy road
“I’ve been overweight my entire life. In kindergarten, I was the biggest kid in the room. In eighth grade, I weighed about 230. By the time I was 18 and getting married, I was 310 or 320.
“When you get to be a teenager especially, you get really tired of people making fun of you. I can remember going home crying and being upset a lot. When I would go out with friends, I always knew I was just the sidekick. I was just the fat girl. I was not going to be the one who would be looked at by the general population as really being pretty.
“I would get the classic lines like, ‘Oh, you have such a pretty face,’ or ‘You have a great smile’ or ‘I really like your eyes.’ The worst one was, ‘Your neck is so thin for someone your size.’ I used to think that was the oddest thing. Because what they basically are saying is that it really sucks that you’re super fat because your neck is so skinny.
“Even if someone didn’t intend to sound mean, I didn’t hear, ‘You have a pretty face’ or ‘You have a thin neck.’ I heard, ‘You’re so fat that your neck really sticks out because it doesn’t fit your body.’
“Nowadays, there’s such a movement for body acceptance and loving who you are. I don’t want to downplay anybody’s struggle with weight, but I’ve never been one to say, ‘Oh, I love being fat.’ I have never been the person to think that you should accept being obese. Of course we should love everyone. Everyone is beautiful. I see that. But you should not want to stay overweight. In my opinion, especially from a health perspective, there’s nothing about being overweight that’s good.”
— Sarah Graham
Sarah is very open about her lifelong battle with weight, which has ranged from 352 pounds to 199 pounds as an adult. Through the years, she has tried everything from changing her eating and exercise habits to diet pills to surgical procedures. Today, she continues fighting the good fight.
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