Former Trenton resident Jean Renfro Anspaugh, author of the book ?Fat Like Us,? has had a life-long companion: the issue of weight – her weight – in particular.
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?I?ve always been a big girl. So, I?ve led a different kind of life than normal-weight or thin girls. I knew, almost from birth, that my body was wrong and even threatening to others. What is personal and private to most people – their bodies- was in my case open to unsolicited comments, helpful advice, painful ridicule and sometimes violence from the general public.?
-from ?Fat Like Us? by Jean Renfro Anspaugh
Former Trenton resident Jean Renfro Anspaugh, author of the book ?Fat Like Us,? has had a life-long companion: the issue of weight – her weight – in particular.
The daughter of Mary and Gerald Renfro of Trenton, Ms. Anspaugh was a self-described fat kid who struggled through childhood eating angel food cake for her birthday while her guests enjoyed bakery-made cake with ice cream. When she hit her early teens, she began growing taller and a new body began to appear. After another six months of furious dieting, she found herself in a size 7 and living the life she had dreamed about – the life of a thin girl , a ?regular? girl. With the new body came new confidence and a zest for life. It also brought attention from the opposite sex.
At age 14, on her first date, Ms. Anspaugh was kidnapped, taken 100 miles from home and raped. Told by police that her outfit (white shorts, a halter top) had attributed to the attack, Ms. Anspaugh, in the next two months, gained 70 pounds – weight she would carry, both literally and figuratively, for many years to come.
Ms. Anspaugh?s journey through the world of dieting has made her an expert of sorts. In fact, she is known as ?the folklorist of the fat.? In August 1988, she decided she had had enough. In a last-ditch effort to lose weight, Ms. Anspaugh sold everything she owned and moved across the country to Durham, NC, ?the diet capital of the world.? Having tried every diet possible and still topping out at 315 pounds, Ms. Anspaugh planted herself at the Rice Diet Center, where she existed on 700 calories of rice and fruit and paying about $150 per week. Her first impression, she said, was that maybe she wasn?t as big as she had thought.
?I?m sitting there looking around and there?s this person next to me who?s like 600 pounds. So I?m thinking, ?Maybe I should have tried Weight Watchers one more time. I may be fat, but I?m not that fat!?,? she recalled, laughing before adding. ?I thought they were all hateful, then I realized ?they?re not hateful, they?re starving here?.?
When she left the program, she was 100 pounds lighter and, after a lifetime of dieting, she found herself in 1989 writing about the subject for a personal narrative class she was taking in graduate school. Doing the fieldwork in Durham, she realized that the world of dieting has its own culture. From there, came the book, which has launched her career and put her in demand for speaking engagements and personal appearances. The subject, she said, even the title of the book, brings out some taboos about weight issues.
?I wanted the title to be ?in-your-face? and it is. When I was on ?60 Minutes,? Morley Safer (the interviewer) didn?t want to say the word ?fat?. He said, ?You?re…..? and I said ?fat.? Then he said it. He said he had used the word ?fat? on TV years before and didn?t want to use it again. People didn?t like it.
?I?ve even had people say ?If you had called it Plump Like Us or Overweight Like Us that would have been okay.? They?ll say they?re buying the book for their friend or their sister, because they don?t want to admit they?re fat.?
The culture of the diet world fascinates Ms. Anspaugh, who makes her home in Greensboro, NC.
?It has its own language, its own ritual,? she explained, noting, for example, that the word ?nickel? means a 500-pound woman. She talks about dieting as an occupation, in which people diet 40 hours a week and take the weekends and holidays off.
?When the post office closes, we eat,? she said.
People who lose a lot of weight have much in common, she said, including an ?epiphany,? an experience that makes them finally say, ?enough is enough.?
?For me, it was when a chair collapsed under me. It can be something like that or it can be birthdays, divorce, going to college, death or some other milestone where they say ?I have to confront my weight?.?
In a time when hundreds of diets are pitched to an ever-growing society of overweight Americans, Ms. Anspaugh agreed with a recent study that found that to lose weight and keep it off, a diet of around 1,300 calories, with exercise that allows the dieter to reach his or her target heart rate has been shown to work best. The average American consumes between 3,000 and 6,000 calories each day.
The key, she said, is to find the diet that works for each individual. In her case, she eats 1,200 calories each day and exercises regularly. She said she no longer eats to comfort herself, but to enjoy the pleasure of the taste. By changing her reason for eating and being able to see the meaning behind what she eats, she has been able to continue losing weight.
Many issues contribute to a person?s weight gain or inability to lose weight, she said, including rape. In fact, she was recently featured on National Public Radio discussing ?The Weight of Rape,? which addresses the fact that, like herself, many overweight people, including men, have been victims of rape. They then put up a ?wall of safety? around themselves in the form of fat.
Overweight people also often find themselves unable to address other areas of their lives as well, including dysfunctional family situations, unsatisfying jobs, unfulfilled dreams and goals, she said. For most of them, weight is the main issue and it is the one that has to be addressed before other situations can be resolved.
?You?ll see women who stayed in jobs where they?re not happy or in abusive marriages until after they lost weight,? she commented. ?Once they have confronted the weight issue, they find the strength to find the job they want or to get out of the abusive relationship.?
Losing the weight changes a person?s life, she said, but they can never go back to eating the way they did or for the reasons they did. That kind of change can have a negative effect on family relationships.
?When you lose weight, your family is happy for you for like, two weeks. Then they start asking ?can?t we go out to eat??.?
While they at first may feel like everyone is treating them like ?queen for a day,? changes occur later that can rock a marriage or other close relationships.
What keeps Ms. Anspaugh motivated after all these years?
?Well, I?m on TV a lot,? she laughed, while also admitting that she is a role model, which is a another big motivator.
She is certainly in demand, speaking across the country on weight issues, the causes and effects of being overweight and the culture of the fat world. Readers of ?Redbook? magazine can read her story in the December 2002 issue. In addition, she maintains a website, www.fatlikeus.com and is currently partnering with another site, www.overweightpeople.com, which provides support for overweight people.
In the midst of her appearances and writing and lobbying for what she calls the ?under-represented? overweight, Ms. Anspaugh continues her own battle with weight and said she hasn?t ruled out gastric bypass surgery, a risky procedure offered only to those who are significantly overweight.
But while the battle with her weight may not be won, she?s definitely taken the upper hand.
?Once you decide to lose the weight, you can never go back to eating the way you did,? she said. ?It?s a lifetime change.?
By Ronda Lickteig