BLOG #8 --- October 6, 2014 “Marching Into a Lifetime of Obesity” – by Patty Hullett *Excerpt from book to be published soon – Bye-Bye Fatty Patty It was so strange in high school that after Don and I had been going steady for a couple of months, it occurred to us that we were doing the exact same thing. He thought he was too fat for me, and I thought I was too fat for him. So, what were we doing? It seemed that both of us starting losing weight, as we were kind of starving ourselves and skipping meals, while never admitting to each other that we were both in the midst of enduring self-imposed diets. And we all know that starving ourselves is an impossible way to live. After we got to know each other better, we were able to express our true feelings, and it became a joke that both of us were trying to become “skinny”, each one for the other one. I guess the next thing that happened really became the road to my demise. Don started telling me that he loved me --- just like I was --- fat or skinny. That is probably the worst thing that could have happened to me, because I truly believed him, and so we both started eating with reckless abandon. He was actually putting his stamp of approval on my life-long overeating habit. I had so enjoyed my freshman and sophomore years of high school, especially being in the band and being a part of the majorette line. However, my band director pulled a surprise move for try-outs in the spring of 1971. Usually we tried out toward the end of the school year (May) – for the following year. Of course I had put some weight back on, especially since Don and I loved to drive to Dallas to go out and eat. Also we enjoyed going to sporting events, and that often meant a second dinner on the way home. It could be a quick trip through Jack-In-The-Box, on running into Lone Star Donuts at eleven o’clock at night for a dozen of hot, freshly-made donuts! Either way, I had been packing on the weight without really noticing it. I so thoroughly enjoyed my dating life with Don but I didn’t know that I had gotten so out of hand with the extra meals and uncounted calories. Out of the blue, all of the girls that had decided to try-out for majorette the following school year were asked to report to the band director’s office after school. This was surprisingly in March of ’71, even before Easter. So many of our older twirling teammates were graduating in a couple of months, and that meant that it only left a few baton girls who were qualified to try-out. Individually, he sent each one of us into another waiting room to be weighed. Of course, none of us thought he would actually weigh us that day, but he did it anyway. Much to my chagrin, when it was my turn I stepped up on the scales and a nurse called out my weight of 156 pounds. According to the doctor’s weight chart that she held in her hand, I was supposed to weight 130 to 135 pounds for my age and height. Back then, there were no variations based on the size of our frames, or any other contributing factors which might help or hurt the recording of my final weight. Basic hard fact: The nurse then broke my heart when she told me that I needed to lose a total of 21 pounds. Wow! I hadn’t realized that I had gained that much weight, but there it was, written down in black and white. Mr. Band Director then called us all back into his office and announced that I was the only one out of the group that was overweight according to the doctor’s chart he held in his hand. He then advised me that I had only two weeks to lose the allotted amount of weight, as recorded by the attending nurse. Well, it might as well have been a hundred pounds for me to get rid of, because it looked totally hopeless at this point. Two weeks would equal 14 days, and that would come out to 1 ½ pounds a day that I would need to lose. I was in tears as I dragged myself home and shared with my mother about the impossible task I had facing me. She jumped right in and told me that she would do anything she could to try and assist me. Short of praying for a miracle, I couldn’t think of a thing she could do to help me at this point. The next 14 days were very stressful and hard to describe. I tried to eat very, very small meals, and followed each meal up with a half of grapefruit. I had successfully lost about 15 pounds in the same amount of time a couple of years ago, and by using the same grapefruit diet. You basically ate small amounts of protein at meal times and then the acid in the grapefruit, that you added after the meal, sort of magically ate-up the fat portion of the protein (like broiled steak, baked fish, etc.), thus, promoting quick weight-loss. A couple of the days I felt really faint and was scared I might pass-out at school. That would have really embarrassed me, if they had had to call an ambulance to pick me up. Anyway, I did the best I could. Everybody around me was trying to support me --- even my dad and Don, too. Try as I might, at the end of the two weeks, I was unable to reach the unattainable goal the band director had set for me. I was as low as I’d ever been during my teenage years. I had lost 12 pounds by weigh-in day, but that still left me with 9 more to lose. And that meant that I could not try-out for majorette for the following year (11th grade). Per the band director, no time extensions would be granted. At age sixteen, I was crushed beyond recognition. All of this happened on a Friday afternoon, and I had no desire to go back to school the following Monday. I felt that my life was over. Here I was the reigning Amateur Athletic Union (A.A.U.) State Champion baton twirler; I had traveled all over the country for baton lessons and camps and for various competitions. Individually I had even competed at the National Baton Twirling Association’s biggest event (“nationals”) two different years in a row at St. Paul, Minnesota. Regardless of what any of us thought, because of 9 stinking pounds, my life was changed forever. All of this as a result of the figures found on some stupid medical chart, and due to the harsh judgment of my egotistical band director, I was booted out of my high school majorette line. I had never thought about suicide --- until now. I felt as if I were drowning in my own fat. It was truly a dark time in my life. It hurts me even today when I think back to that turning point in my high school years. I cried for days on end. My mother and father finally set up an appointment with my high school principal and the band director a couple of weeks later to discuss me getting cut from the majorette line, but it really did no good. The band director wasn’t budging, and the principal didn’t have the guts to use his power to go over the head of the band director. You see, Mr. Band Director had been so successful with his band program at our school that no one dared try to oppose him in any way. So, in a nutshell, this weight-prejudiced band director (that had vocally claimed previously that he WAS NOT going to have fat girls marching in front of HIS band) single-handedly changed the course of my life. One man’s opinion of me had deeply damaged my self-esteem and made me feel devalued as a person. No longer did I think any more about going to college (and I was ranked in the Top 10 of my 1973 LHS Class). I probably could have gone to any of the major colleges on an academic or baton twirling scholarship, or both. But no longer did I feel the need to continue on in baton twirling lessons and competitions, no longer did I care whether I was a part of my school or not. I didn’t really care about any of it any more. It didn’t matter to me if I lived or died, but as a Christian I knew down deep in my heart that suicide was not an option for me. So instead, I hunkered down in the effort to get the heck out of there, to complete my schooling and graduate, and then to move on with my so-called life. I immediately exited band class, and then the director had the audacity to send a note home to ask my mother why I had dropped out. My mother called and told him in no uncertain terms, “If you declared that Patty is too fat to twirl in front of your band, then she is certainly too fat to march and carry a horn in your organization.” Touché for my mother! She always stood beside me then, and she is still standing there with me today, even from Heaven. Years later we realized that what my parents should have done was to file a lawsuit against the school. But back then, no one really knew how to do just that. I guess it just makes me sick to my stomach when I go to high school football games today, and see all of the overweight girls (and guys) in the drill teams, in the bands, even some in the cheerleading squads. Mostly I can’t fathom it being “OK today” when I see 300 pound girls waving the large flags in front of their bands. It somehow doesn’t seem fair to me. But on the other hand, I am so proud that they have the courage to be out in front of people at whatever size and it’s great that they feel ok about themselves. I sometimes want to stand up in the stands and shout, “You go, Girl”, or “You go, Boy”! “Good for you!” It reminds me of the movie, “An Officer and a Gentleman”. One of the closing scenes is where Richard Geer comes into the factory and picks up his bride-to-be (Debra Winger), and carries her out in front of her girlfriend. This girlfriend is so proud for her. She certainly didn’t get carried out of the “going-nowhere life”, but her best friend did, so she was overjoyed at her friend’s good fortune! That’s how I feel when I see other overweight people getting more recognition and acceptance these days. Maybe I wasn’t accepted during “my time” in high school, but fat people do have more rights today be a part of things and to be a “real” person regardless of their size. And I say, “I support you totally. CASE-IN-POINT: It literally took me years to get over the damage my band director did to my confidence and self-esteem. It took me even more time to finally forgive him and move on with my life. If you are a teacher or a coach or if you’re in a leadership position over school students, then please take a meaningful hint from this blog story……. Your words or judgment over a student might just “make” or “break” them. Please choose your words carefully and remember how hurtful a situation might be to this person, as you try to understand his or her point of view. Please choose to be an encourager instead of a discourager.
Posted on: Mon, 06 Oct 2014 04:17:18 +0000
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