I’m a bit tired of my family treating me differently due to my size.

(I’d just like to clarify first and foremost that this post is in no way meant to shame anybody of any body type).

So I (19F) used to live with my mom (52F), dad (52M), and brother (24M) up until a year ago. For some context, I am sort of smaller in size. That’s not a way for me to be all like “Ooh, I’m so petite I can fit into a shoebox.” I just mean that in comparison to my family members, I am smaller. I am 5’2, and currently weigh 100 pounds. The rest of my family members, including my parents, brother, and grandparents, all are over 260 pounds. That is in no way to shame them on their size, it’s just something I felt that was important to point out.

I really don’t know why or how, but I have always had a hard time gaining weight, despite eating pretty much the same diet as the rest of my family growing up. I will admit that I have lost a few more pounds since moving away. Growing up, I was always seen by my family as the “tiny” one. I can’t go to any family gathering without them making jokes about me practically looking like a skeleton, how I need to eat more, etc. (Again, please don’t interpret what I say here as me trying to brag about anything. If anything, I should probably gain a few more pounds…) It gets a bit tiring after a while, since it seems that most of what my family talks about is weight. And, while it may sound strange, I fear of how my family will react if I ever were to gain a couple more pounds in the future, since they make a big deal about my weight. When I was 16, I was a bit anorexic, and I still struggle with food to this day. With the comments they make about my and their weight all the time (even though I have told them that it makes me very uncomfortable) I always just say that I am not hungry when it is time to eat during family gatherings, since I weirdly cannot eat in front of my family. It has to be alone or with a friend. If I ever do eat in front of them, I am suddenly flooded with comments like, “Oh my god, she’s actually eating! I thought you just starved all day! Eat everything on your plate now! Good girl!” They’d say it in such a condescending way that completely kills my appetite.

Being “the small one” also had other drawbacks. Like, for example, I’ve always got terrible motion sickness when I ride in cars, and sitting in the back seat can sometimes be pretty nausea inducing. My brother on the other hand has always bragged about how he never once got car sick. But, when we need to ride in a car all together, I can never have the front seat even just once since the leg room is too small for my brother in the back. We once had to do a six hour drive with me being forced into the back seat the entire time, where I spent the entire ride feeling sick to my stomach. Also, since my dad and brother did need more space when sitting in the front, they had to put their seats back a good bit, leaving me with very little to no leg room.

It’s like this for other stuff, too. Like, if we’re flying in a plane, I am always forced into the middle seat. I remember a few years ago, me, my dad, and my brother all went out on a big trip to an amazing amusement park for two whole weeks. (We’re major roller coaster fanatics.) My mom stayed behind since she’s not really a roller coaster fan… But anyways, hotels usually don’t provide 3 beds, so the room we got only had 2. To make it worse, it didn’t even have one of those pull out beds on the couch. Because my dad and brother are larger in size, they told me that I have to take the couch, which was so short that I had to really curl my legs into in order to lay down. While the trip was insanely fun, it was sort of hell every night to sleep on an uncomfortable couch while dealing with the two loudest snorers in history…

I get that these are little things, and very “first world problem” stuff. It’s just the little things like that which got a bit under my skin as the years went on. Just constantly being told, “you have to take the uncomfortable option because you’re the youngest and smallest.” Though, I understand that it would be unfair to ask my dad or brother to sit in the back seat, or sleep on the couch, so I suppose I shouldn’t be complaining so much.

All these troubles are (mostly) behind me now. A year ago, I’ve moved to Japan, and since moving, my diet has been much better, and I’ve been moving a lot more. Though, I do periodically fly back to visit my family for sometimes a month at a time during my summer/spring breaks. I’m on one of those visits right now, and I already feel pretty sluggish and just overall more icky than usual. I’ve asked my parents to purchase some healthier options at the store, or let me go to the gym (I’d be paying for membership of course), but they’d just look at me weird and say that I’m already thin, so I don’t need to do those things.

Again, this stuff’s all trivial, and is most of the time not a problem anymore. Just something that tires me a bit…