All my life I’ve been getting comments on my body;
“You’re fat!”
“You look like a door!”
All the time.
That I have to lose weight to be loved or to, at least, be accepted.
body image, bullying

I've always struggled with how my parents treated me,
And the way they looked at me because of my body shape.
I’ve been struggling with obesity,
Ever since I hit puberty.

I’m a 17 year old boy.
I used to be made fun of all the time for being thin.
I wasn’t remarkably thin or frail,
My weight was optimal,
Not a pound heavier and not a pound lighter.
It wasn’t just society that made fun of my body,
Unfortunately, I was made fun of at home.
body image, bullying, family

For years I straightened my hair and wore makeup. I forgot what my natural hair looked like.
On weekends, I would wash my hair and let it dry it in its natural state.
It was such a nice feeling.
body image, hair, beauty standards, bullying

Imagine that you’re a teenager, 13 years old, and you’re mocked nearly every day at school
because you weigh too much.
On top of that, imagine some of the stupid things that your classmates and teachers say,
social stigma, social pressure, masculinity, bullying, body image

I was born with an autoimmune disease,
That attacks the thyroid gland.
I started showing symptoms when I was 5 years old.
I was a fat child.
I’ve been fat for as long as I could remember.
I was bullied ever since I was little,
By everyone in my life,
Because of my weight.

When I was in college, a joke started about someone in our group and spread throughout the entire university:
“Is that your body, Ahmed, or your mother’s?

I’m 16 years old.
People have made fun of me ever since I was little.
My father was very short,
And I was born a twin.
To make sense of the way I looked,
They used to tell me,
That my twin brother was trying to absorb me,
When we were in our mother’s womb.
But what happened was that he absorbed my food instead.

I’m thin,
I don’t have any muscles or abs.
I was okay with that, to an extent, in the beginning,
Because my body hadn’t fully developed yet,
Or basically, because I hadn’t decided to go the gym yet.
body image, bullying, masculinity

Ever since elementary school,
I’ve been told that I’m overweight.
That I have curves that make me look older than I am.
I decided to lose weight when I went to university.
Even though I wasn’t really overweight.
A lot of people even told me that I had a good body.
body image, bullying, beauty standards