The Weigh to Happiness

Felix the Fat

"OMG, you look amazing!"

"So do you! That top is fantastic!"

Hannah rolled her eyes, already regretting coming. That girl literally said omg. Hannah thought crankily. Who talks like that?

She walked past the row of tables full of food, searching for a drinking fountain. Anything to distract me from those losers. Hannah thought, but really, she was trying to distract herself from the donuts on the table at the very end. In particular, a chocolate caramel one that seemed to be calling her name.

"Okay, everyone, let's get started."

In the midst of the shuffling Hannah seriously considered leaving. She didn't want to be there with a bunch of desperate losers, and she definitely didn't want to be there with that chocolate caramel donut begging to be eaten.

I promised I'd come. Hannah reminded herself, finding a seat at the back. I'll just stay for a bit, and then no one can say I didn't try.

"Welcome to our new guests, and welcome back to our old friends!" An overly cheerful woman said from the front. "We're delighted to have you all here."

Hannah tried to tune the woman out as she glanced around the room. Happy at any size! One sign read. Don't weight to be happy! Another suggested. Love yourself! Another one demanded, all of them as perky and excited as the annoying woman blathering on at the front.

The woman, Hannah noted, was a cow. Almost literally. She was an enormous woman with huge, heavy teats and a spotted dress that looked suspiciously bovine.

I would never show my face in public if I looked like her. Hannah thought, crossing her arms over her meagre chest. Not if you paid me a million dollars.

But the woman clearly didn't hear Hannah's bitter thoughts, because she was still rattling on cheerfully as if she wasn't creating her own gravitational pull.

I just have to last a bit longer. Hannah thought, trying to not think about that donut.

She glanced around the room again, trying to ignore the overly cheerful woman's speech. The people in the room were even more annoying than the stupid slogans and the stupid woman with her cow dress and her eternal smile.

Although the people in the room were all different shapes and sizes, Hannah was an obvious outlier. Most of the people in the room were fat, even obese, but Hannah was decidedly not. She sat firmly on the other end of the spectrum, a waif of a girl at seventy eight pounds and one ounce, so gaunt she barely felt like a person.

I promised. Hannah thought, gritting her teeth. I promised I'd come to a Weigh to Happiness meeting, so my stupid friends would get off my back.

Hannah wasn't a stupid girl. She knew she had a problem. She knew she needed help. But she also knew that nothing ever helped.

No doctors, no shrinks, no clinics, no stints in Disordered Eating rehabs. Nothing. Nothing helped Hannah to control her mind's obsession with food.

And she already knew that a body positivity meeting wasn't going to help, but her friends had insisted. They were worried, and one of them had suggested this meeting.

"Great job, Jemma!" The cheerful woman said, shaking fat fists in excitement. "I'm so happy to hear about your trip to the buffet!"

Hannah rolled her eyes. Is she always this excited, or just about food?

"Anybody else?" The cheerful woman asked, her eyes scanning the audience. "Anyone else have a body positive breakthrough?"

Another fat hand went up, and a portly man stood up with some effort. "I did, Joy. Last week, one of my coworkers made a joke about fat people." The man said, resting his hands on a sizeable gut. "Instead of getting upset, I looked him straight in the eye and told him I didn't think it was funny."