There has been exactly one time in my life when I was the epitome of the Asian female body ideal: at birth, two months early from my scheduled arrival date and clocking in at a scant 4.1 pounds. Yes, perhaps I had peaked too soon. I filled out to an average size as I left infancy and entered childhood, a bit of spastic kid who was often found running amok with my older siblings and our neighborhood pals. We were fed on a steady diet of Korean food and immigrant mom reinterpretations of American delicacies, my favorite being a Spam and egg sandwich; though, a McDonald’s cheeseburger was still my meal of champions for birthdays and special outings.

Then, in the year between first and second grade, home-cooked meals were replaced with a rotating line-up of frozen dinners: Salisbury steak, macaroni and cheese, and other calorie, fat, cholesterol and sodium-laden fare meant for a Hungry Man and, apparently in someone’s estimation, a trio of growing Korean American kids. The buzz and ding of the microwave became all too familiar in my household and opening up cardboard boxes and punching ventilation holes in the tops of our trays with a fork became a quotidian task.

Under the brunt of mental and physical abuse from my father, my mother had left our home to live with her sister on the other side of the country, the only other person she knew in the States. Now parenting alone, my father’s efforts in the domestic arena were indicative of his mental state due to alcoholism. Food became less of a form of nourishment and more of a rote responsibility that should require minimal effort. Fruits and vegetables were never purchased unless in the form of a gelatinous side dish to processed meat and dehydrated mashed potatoes. And as latchkey kids, we had the responsibility of zapping all of our after school snacks and meals until another round of frozen meals were heated for dinner. The disastrous diet and the emotional turmoil of being without our mother and in a complex love/fear relationship with our father set us on a path of steady weight gain and misguided coping mechanisms.

In a year or so when my mother had returned, unable to be separated from her children, I remember being shocked at the sight of cut fruit, of baked potatoes, of pots and pans simmering on the stove. Though the freezer soon thinned of those cardboard boxes, the proverbial damage had already been done to our brains and bellies. Weight loss attempts started early and continued to adulthood, fluctuating by the years and outside of the normal scope of puberty, particularly as our home life remained as volatile as ever. While never reaching obesity, the extra weight we carried was noticeable as we were also marked by our racial characteristics; fat Asian children were simply unheard of, unseen, and unacceptable.

Ironically, our year of processed food binging was never discussed, yet our increasing weights were always fodder for discussion not just from our parents but from other Korean families. There was a collective amnesia surrounding our weight, pounds that had been amassed out of the cultural taboo; talks of family strife, alcoholism, abuse, separation and their consequences were verboten despite their glaring presence. Or perhaps the idea of trauma and self-medication were deemed too clinical or far-fetched to cause even a blip on anyone’s radar. We were overweight and the consensus was “Get smaller.” And when we did drop our weight, at various times throughout our lives and by varying degrees, the response was simply, “Good.” End of story.

Not a year of my life has gone by without a majority of my days spent thinking about my weight in some capacity. I fear looking fat in front of older relatives, I refuse public appearances in swimwear, I am undoubtedly the most clothed women in any bar or nightclub, I furiously un-tag unflattering photos of myself on Facebook, I often wonder at what weight I will become an aesthetically unacceptable companion to my Asian American boyfriend, and against all I believe in, I compare myself to every Asian, white, Black, Latina woman who crosses my path.  Eating unhealthily under emotionally unhealthy circumstances at a critical point in my youth has made it nearly impossible for me to think of my body in healthy terms.

But, I did say “nearly.”

I cannot singlehandedly and immediately change this global perception of how women of my ethnicity or race are supposed to look. And without a terminal illness or severe drug problem (knock on wood), I can’t physically achieve that ideal anyway. I won’t put on false piety and say that there aren’t parts of my body that I wish to shrink or modify, parts that I will go to great lengths to conceal. To say I love all my flaws — and believe it — is a daunting task. And I won’t say it if it’s not true. So, I’ll stick with statements that I can stand by: I cannot realistically ignore the body ideals embedded in Asian/American cultures. I cannot change my past, no matter how old I get or how well I learn to process and cope. And I cannot accept that my weight is not just a skewed numerical measurement of my worth until I allow myself to believe that my body is not some figure to be publicly scrutinized but is a symbol of the life events that have shaped me, life events that I refuse to ignore out of cultural expectation.

Anonymous | Oakland, CA | USA

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