CC Sanders’s Reviews > I am Elephant, I am Butterfly > Status Update

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.”