"She got fat!"

When I was 12, I spent the summer in South Carolina with my grandparents. It was so much fun. Gammy’s home-cooked meals are amazing, and I ate well all summer.
On my way back home at the end of the summer, my grandparents and I stopped at my great-grandma’s house. As soon as she opened the door and saw me, she gasped and said to my grandma, “She got fat!” I didn’t understand what it meant at the time, but I did know it was probably a bad thing because of the way she said it.

Like every 12-year-old, I wanted to fit in, so I figured if I was fat, I should do something about it. I started skipping breakfast. Once I got to high school, I started skipping both breakfast and lunch. I was obsessed with being thin. It was so easy to hide in the beginning.