personal – The Concordian

Learning to accept yourself and deal with trauma as an overweight person

TW: Eating disorders, body image, body dysmorphia

First, let me get this straight: being fat is not wrong. It’s not because you do not correspond to the ideal conception of beauty set by Instagram influencers that you are not worthy of living, nor are you responsible for anything. If you feel at peace with your body, good for you, and you should never feel pressure because your kind of beauty is different from others’ standards.

“Hey, fat guy!”, “Are you the guy from Super Size Me?” Yes, I’ve heard these phrases directed at me. “Susan Boyle,” “Big Mama,”—these were just some of my nicknames. On Jan. 31, 2018, I was 18 and weighed 287 pounds, almost twice the normal weight for a boy my age. My BMI was 42 at the time, and deemed me morbidly obese.

Being overweight is tough, especially as a teenager. Teenagers are cruel and immature. Some will try to hurt you—these ones, you’d better ignore altogether. Others will try to fight with you, and I fought back, which I do not recommend since it almost got me expelled. Most of the time, people don’t realize they’re hurting you. In this case, you have two options: say how you feel, which requires an extraordinary amount of courage, or hurt in silence, which is the option most people choose, and the most destructive.

Depending on the characters, some people will be very affected by mockery, and some just won’t care. I belonged to the first category. One time, I was coming home from school when an old woman stopped me to comment on my sweater, and as she left, she yelled, in front of my friends, “And don’t get any fatter!” I’d never been so humiliated, and I spent the rest of the afternoon crying on my couch.

Harassment is one thing, but what’s worse is isolation. When you’re fat (let’s call a spade a spade), you don’t go out, because people might notice your double-chin; you don’t go to parties because girls might reject you; you don’t go on vacation because you’re uncomfortable being shirtless, it goes on and on. You stay at home, so you feel miserable, so you eat to forget. And once you enter this vicious circle, it’s very difficult to get out.

That’s how I went from being a perfectly healthy 13-year-old boy to becoming an 18-year-old teenager with no girlfriend, no real friends, and for whom tying shoes was a struggle.

Because being overweight is such a painful reality, I think some people tend to find excuses: “I have big bones,” “It’s genetic,” or “I have a hormonal problem.” And sometimes it’s true, but in most cases, I think being overweight is the result of bad eating habits, not enough exercise, or both. And even if you have to accept this responsibility, it does not make you any less valuable of a person. As a matter of fact, I tend to consider overweight people victims. Yes, you might snack too much sometimes or find excuses to avoid the gym, but this is not due to you having an abnormally large stomach or lower physical abilities. Eating is often compensation for trauma.

In my case, it was an unfortunate, routine doctor’s appointment that started it all. I was six years old and in perfect shape. The quack pediatrician checked me and told my parents, “If he’s not skinny now, he is going to become fat later.” At that very moment, he implanted that idea in my dad’s brain like Leonardo DiCaprio implanted the idea that the world was not real into Marion Cotillard’s head in Inception.

I recall a ski trip with my cousins. It was lunch time and we decide to go to a restaurant. Everybody savoured a raclette except me—my dad forced me to eat salmon with straight beans. I was only 10 and unknowingly, he created a complex in me.

As I said earlier, there’s no guilt to feel about being overweight, whether you’re slightly overweight or obese. However, because it is a disease that can put your life at risk, I’ll never blame someone for wanting me to lose weight. My dad used to tell me, “You know I don’t care about your appearance, as long as you’re healthy.” We live in an era of self-acceptance, which is great, but if you want to change, it’s your right to.

So, if you want to lose weight, here are my Four Fight Commandments (because it will be a fight): First, talk with the people who care about you. Believe me, nothing will bring you more comfort than their support. I know the loneliness of being overweight, and it’s too much pain to endure for one person. Vent as much as you need; they will never judge you and it’ll be a huge load off your shoulders.

Second, talk to a therapist. I know it can be scary. I refused at first, but you must identify your trauma to be able to treat it. A therapist will listen to you and give you a professional and educated opinion.

Third, find the right diet for you. We all have different bodies and taste buds. You have to find, with the help of a dietician, the diet most adapted to your body type and eating habits. Last, if you feel like you can’t do it alone, surgery is one solution. It’s called bariatric surgery: gastric band, sleeve or bypass. These are major and irreversible surgeries, so you want to think twice before going through that. I’ve considered this option, and there is no shame in that.

Don’t get me wrong, it will be a long road, sometimes you will want to quit, but if I did it (and I was a desperate case) everybody can. And don’t forget, whether you are skinny, fat or somewhere in the middle, the only thing that matters is that you are at peace with who you are.

Graphic by @sundaemorningcoffee

Concordia student Carol Nguyen shows self-discovery and reflection in captivating films

Carol Nguyen is the director, writer and editor of eight short films—she is also 19 years old. The undergraduate student at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema found success at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) as a three-time winner of the Jump Cuts award for young filmmakers in 2014, 2015 and 2016. Nguyen is also an ambassador of the Share

Her Journey campaign, a TIFF initiative to raise awareness about gender equality in film. Additionally, she attended the 2018 Sundance Film Festival as an Ignite fellow to establish and develop connections in the film industry.

The common thread among the Toronto-born filmmaker’s notable works, like How Do You Pronounce Pho? (2014), This Home is Not Empty (2015), and recently, Every Grain of Rice (2017), is her use of distinct aesthetic forms and voiceover presences.

Born from personal struggles and understandings, the films don’t adhere to traditional documentary mediums, varying in their use of live action, animation, archives and miniatures. Nguyen’s work plays with the way we perceive reality and embraces creative techniques that are truthful to the filmmaker’s stories. She is a committed filmmaker and returns to consistent themes throughout her body of work.

As a child who grew up in a hybrid Vietnamese-Canadian household, Nguyen’s cultural identity is a prominent feature of her films. In one of her first shorts, How Do You Pronounce Pho?, she explores this hybridity. Told from her perspective as a teenager, the film shows Nguyen as she realizes the cultural differences between her school peers and herself. “Food was a metaphor for me trying to blend into another culture,” the filmmaker explained. “When you are young, you don’t think about complex ideas like that, and it comes out in the most simple things, like your school lunches and comments, as microaggressions.”

Nguyen’s film, Every Grain of Rice (2017), explores the relationship between food and cultural assimilation.

In this work, Nguyen shows her interest in the topic of hybrid culture. Her narration describes her experience tasting “culturally unstable” Western concepts of ethnic cuisine versus authentic Vietnamese meals cooked by her mother. The film empowers the candid young voice while still considering it in the process of learning about cultural hybridity.

How Do You Pronounce Pho? reflects on the process of learning not to limit ourselves to certain groups and languages. For Nguyen, it’s important to interact, collaborate and share ideas with others in a multicultural society. “Not to do so would mean missing enriching and impending stories and experiences,” she said.

As beautiful as hybrid culture can be, it can also be frightening. Three years after making How Do You Pronounce Pho?, Nguyen explored her fears in Every Grain of Rice, a film that delves into the relationship between food and cultural assimilation. She addressed the cultural assimilation that follows each generation. While emotionally attached to some of her parents’ Vietnamese traditions, the young filmmaker doesn’t substantially continue them, but holds the last tie with Vietnamese culture in her family.

“When my parents die, everything that goes along with my Vietnamese culture will die with them,” Nguyen said. “I’m not going to carry the recipes and the stories that they have.”

Thinking of topics for her films wasn’t always so clear for Nguyen. In 11th grade, Nguyen experienced a bout of writer’s block and became extremely uninspired. “I was stumped. I didn’t know what to make a film about,” she said. “Something that helped me was my teachers getting me back to the roots of film, back to my personal roots, asking questions like: ‘Why are you making this type of film? Why does it matter to you?’”

This Home is Not Empty (2015) is centred around a miniature paper replica of Nguyen’s childhood home.

What followed was This Home is Not Empty, in which Nguyen tried to portray her nostalgia for childhood. Using paper, she created a highly detailed miniature of her childhood home. The small-scale house is abandoned, sitting in a studio. Shots of the replica are contrasted with lively family photographs. The miniatures are constrained to dark grey tones on an insignificant scale. Objects are on the ground, her childhood fish tank is smashed and food is left out on the miniature table. With this film, Nguyen builds a paper collage of archives and reconstructions. She compares the photographs to the paper replica so the viewer can interpret their nostalgic relationship.

The filmmaker confronts the audience with a unique approach to represent her thoughts. The film’s universe isn’t constrained to fictionalized memories. In a delicate way, the viewer is brought outside the paper house. Nguyen presents her work while embracing the process of making it. The filmmaker shows the hands that place the objects of the paper house, and the studio in which it is lit. The film presents her memories with honesty.

Nguyen’s films depict her internal explorations, and their highly controlled aesthetic gives a sense of restrained emotions. This February, Nguyen will direct her ninth film, the second to be produced within the Mel Hoppenheim film production program.

You can see This Home is Not Empty and How Do You Pronounce Pho? on Nguyen’s Vimeo page.

Feature photo by Charles Duquet.