Status Updates From I am Elephant, I am Butterfly

At the end of the book some great questions to reflect on. But this one … I don’t know what to think … have you equipped kids to offer sound, non-judgmental, non-condescending advice in this book?

“Does someone you know have an eating disorder? Have you tried to help this person? If so, how? Were they open to your advice?”

They are ziplining? In a camp for obese kids? I mean if it’s possible is one thing (max weight is 275lbs on most but this could be a special one to include the heavy kids?) but the person who wrote this really never has been in an obese mind to know how just the idea of ziplining probably tortures and traumatizes at least half the overweight kids

Really?

“I’d take you on hikes and all you talked about were the drive-thru’s you couldn’t wait to hit on the way home. We’d go to […], and you’d spend your time at the concession stand instead of sitting with us. All you did was talk about food, how much you wanted it, where we could go to get it, how wonderful it would be once you had it. You even convinced your mother to make you second breakfasts.

When something is supposed to sound open and tolerant and probably means well but just has that weird ring to it …

““Who cares if anyone’s gay?” I said. I’d known more than a few lesbians over the years from playing sports. It didn’t bother me on the field, and it certainly didn’t bother me now.”

Cause remember - you just gotta admit to that one crucial defining moment in your life and you are cured.

“I’ve tried to analyze it all,” Charlene said. “Maybe I’m fat to punish myself. Or maybe it’s because I want to be like Cheri so I can tell all the mean girls to eff off […]”

And this is why fat cannot *really* be beautiful. Right? …

“I took a better look at Charlene, trying to see how she would have looked back then. She must have been beautiful with her hazel eyes and clear skin and wavy strawberry-blond hair. She still was beautiful, really, but her features sort of disappeared in between puffy cheeks and extra chins.”

It’s that easy. Just admit that one moment.

“They nodded with understanding, because they, too, had let a particular moment in their lives define who they were, what they had become. I no longer wanted to be defined by the guilt eating me alive on the inside and the fear responsible for adding layers of protection on the outside. It was as though with every exposed detail, a tiny little pound melted away.”

The book never really calls out eating disorders. Never truly goes into the relationship with food. It’s quite easy really - as soon as you figured out what happened to you, you will be cured from being a fat whale.

“What happened to you?”

Yes, the amount is reasonable in later weeks, especially with lower starting weight. In a first week after these drastic changes there should be more I think.

“Three pounds?” I said. “That’s all?” “Actually, that’s quite reasonable,” Doctor Patton said. “The healthiest way is to lose between two and three a week.”

Finally some real relatable stuff.

“I’m afraid of barely making it through the summer only to go home and eat my way through the cabinets the second I stepped foot in my kitchen.”

How likely is it for a teen to have this reflection and continually know this reasoning behind being fat? Seriously asking.

“I thought…I mean, I didn’t know I’d thought it until later…if I was ugly, maybe he wouldn’t have done that to me. If I hadn’t been the kind of girl he thought I was, I’d still be a virgin.”

Just when I thought it was getting better. Like .. what??

“I couldn’t imagine sharing a room with nineteen other fat, sweaty girls, all stretched out on their beds at the same time while trying to get their shorts pulled up. No wonder so many of my bunkmates didn’t change their clothes before bed. Too much work.”

Oh I am so annoyed but I am not sure my feelings fit within the letter limit of these updates. All you have to do is break people because every fat person has another issue. But we never tie that to food. We just break them in a few hours and voila. All better.

“Charlene looked at the group as if to say, Girls, we have a break-through!”

Actually relatable

“I’m supposed to […] to reflect on why I’m fat. You see, it’s not about the food. It has nothing to do with the fact that I shove Krispy Kremes and Twinkies and anything fried down my throat at the rate of a bullet train. It has nothing to do with the candy I eat in the middle of the night, or the way the smell of gravy gives me goosebumps. Nope. It has to do with other things.”

Yes, because their own body weight is not enough - they make them wear weights around the ankles from day one and make them do the obstacle course daily. Without recovery. Sounds like a reasonable way to get teens to loose weight and learn how to keep it up at home.

Was the research to write this watching Biggest Looser?

“I thought, I could faint. Or, at least pretend to. But Charlene kicked that idea to the curb. “She’ll have to miss another activity in order to redo the course by the end of the day.” “Even after she fainted?” Charlene only shrugged, took a deep breath, and headed across the monkey bars, her grunts coming back to me like a gorilla’s.”

Could this be real? Somebody is acknowledged as beautiful even though they are fat? Didn’t think that was possible in this book!

““Me,” said an eager beaver—inching on three-hundred—seated directly across the circle from me. Even though she was heavy, she was beautiful. Her long black hair was held back in a clip, opening up her tan pore-less face and narrow eyes.

Please let this part be good and realistic. It’s sooo important.

““You’re here because you need to gain insight into who you are. By searching within yourselves, you can discover why you do the things you do. Food addiction is not about the actual food. It’s about the way food makes you feel. The way it overtakes your life. The way it controls you.””

Right. Because if you are fat you are automatically sweaty. And obviously our main character is not in contact with herself. Obviously.

“Twenty sweaty overweight girls sitting around airing their dirty laundry. My feelings were my own, and I liked it that way. Keeping things buried was how I worked best.”

It’s the little judgmental words here and there that set the tone. Really unnecessary

“Laughing, cheeks bright red, heads nodding to the music, whale-like bodies moving with an odd sort of grace through the water.”

What? Everything the camp did so far was prove the opposite!

“People have a misconception that they have to spend their days eating celery and running marathons. We are going to kick that rumor into the gutter. Now. There are dozens of ways to enjoy exercise. Just like there are dozens of ways to change your diet. We’re here to show you creative ways to do both. A little creativity goes a long way.”

A quarter through the book and all we learned about the MCs relationship with food is that she likes stuffing her face. Usually using colorfully judgmental words to describe it. No layers to it. Not exploring the psyche behind it. Not acknowledging that it is a disorder.

“I only thought about the way jam tasted when I blended it with peanut butter on bread and wolfed it down with a big glass of chocolate milk.”

When your main character doesn’t have a personality besides food.

“I couldn’t picture my mother and me digging in the dirt together. She had her hobbies, like spin class, and I had mine, like finding new ways to make a sub.”

Can someone tell me - how big does a garden need to be to fully supply vegetables for feeding roughly 100 kids on a 1200 calorie, mainly veg based diet over the whole summer? I’m low key suspicious that it must be acres and acres

Relatable thought process?

“She didn’t say anything as I lumbered away up the path. I could feel her pretty kitty cat eyes peering out of her little blond head watching my fat whale body as it lunged forward to make it up the slight incline. As I rounded a curve in the path and glanced back toward the log, I could barely see her, still standing there, blending in with the skinny tree trunks that separated us.”

“Charlene was right. Just by standing next to me, this pretty Felina made me feel like a bag of poop.”

“Her lips were perfect. As was her skin. I wondered what kind of cleanser she used.”

“She placed her tiny hands with those long pink fingernails on her hips, and batted her long lashes.”