HOW WEIGHT LOSS CHANGED MY LIFE FOREVER

Aakash Suppiah

Weight loss has always been a much-discussed topic in our society. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit’s “Tackling Obesity in Asean” report, Malaysia now has the honour of having the highest obesity prevalence in Southeast Asia. It was estimated that almost 40 percent of Malaysian were considered overweight while around 13.3 per cent are considered obese. With these facts, it is probably no surprise that ever since when I was young I was constantly slighter bigger then my peers. Now, life is bliss when you are young. No one really judges you for being overweight. Most who do however will keep it to their selves to avoid being rude. This ignorance made me even fatter. Without a care in the world I was happy revelling in my gluttony. The church generally considers gluttony, or gula in latin to be one of the seven deadly sins and such should be discouraged. Unfortunately, my parents aren’t Christians and generally did not care that I was massively overeating. They did however, notice that I was rather overweight, however they mostly thought it was something frivolous like baby fat. In fact, the first time that it was revealed to me that I was fat was when I was around the age of 11. At this age, I visited my relatives in Sarawak. They live in long houses and are a very traditionalistic group of people. As such, they were not used to seeing a fat kid and thus made fun of me and bullied me throughout the whole journey. Until to this day I still have nightmares about that place.

                  The real problem started to emerge when I was started Middle School. At this age, most of the young ignorance present in young children start to disappear and instead it is replaced by hurtful honestly. I was bullied for my weight and made fun of by the other students. No one can really blame them, if i saw someone who was visibly different then me at that age, I would probably poke fun of him as well. I was nicknamed “apple” after the shape of my body by my fellow students and that nickname stuck around until now.

 Now, the main reason I decided to write this article was to write about my experience about obesity. That should be quite clear if you had been paying attention so far but I actually wanted to focus upon a quite serious and often overlooked side effect of childhood obesity which was the huge negative mental effect it has on children. I started getting bullied about my weight around the time I started middle school which unsurprisingly is also time when I think most people’s personality starts to develop. What I meant by that statement was that this was the time where we will learn about social norms. For example, how to interact, make friends, keep friends and generally learn how to differentiate what is acceptable to society and what is not. Based on the social interaction we have with our friends, we begin to learn basic communicating skills that we will most defiantly carry on to the future. This means that with all the bullying going on, my personality started to change for the worst. I became less social, less confident and I started developing a minor case of selective mutualism. I would not talk unless spoken to. I was afraid to share my own opinion to avoid being an outcast. I wanted to fit in. I believe it genetically ingrain into every human being to have the feeling to be accepted by everyone.

Thus, I started creating a defensive mechanism to disallow bullying. I would make fun of myself or tease myself before anyone could. This made me somewhat of the class clown as I would crack jokes at my own expense. This weird defensive mechanism I created proved to be an utter success. My friend stopped bullying me. After all, it was no fun to tease someone if they themselves are making fun of their selves. I just accepted that I would forever be “that one fat guy”.

When I was sixteen years old, I reached the peak of my obesity. I weighed around a hundred and ten kg. I was officially classified as morbidly obese. I could my body hurting and aching all the time. My confidence has never been lower. Honestly, I felt useless. I felt that I had no right to live, that I was a waste of space and human flesh. A disgrace to humanity. I was depressed and lonely. This made me realise that if I did nothing, I would eventually die at young age. I decided to make a change. I decided to lose weight. Previously, I have started all kinds of diet or exercise routine but none of them really stuck around. Most of the time it was because I got lazy. But this time I was determined. I started working out and dieting. And slowly and steadily I started to lose weight. What drove to push on was remembering how I felt when I was at the peak of my obesity.

After almost two years I now weight around 78 kg and I feel better than ever. I have noticed a lot of differences after losing weight. Surely the most obvious one is that you are physically smaller, but the biggest changes are actually more physiological related then physical. First and foremost, your confidence will start to skyrocket. I truly and wholeheartedly believe that that confidence is crucial in order for anyone to live a happy, successful live. A person who lacks confidence will often miss out on many things in life. Furthermore, you will live a less stressful life without all that extra burden. Moreover, you will also feel a boost in self-esteem. Honestly, the benefits are endless. Life just seems much better after losing weight. I no doubt continue to strive to lose more weight and I highly encouraged everyone to do so. Do not just accept and be content with your life if it is miserable. Do something today and make a change. After all, isn’t that what the “All Black” spirit is all about?