Over the Knife
(Or Why I'll Never Be Carnie Wilson)
by Diane Anderson-Minshall

I’ll admit it: I’m one of the forty million Americans who are considered obese. I spent my childhood in Southern California—trapped geographically between the blue-eyed blondes of the beach cities and the willowy, petite Asian girls of Little Saigon. I was neither, and have forever been saddled with a bit of a complex because of it. I know there are new options for fat people nowadays—weight-loss surgery, for one. I’ve seen it in action on my mom, my aunt, my sister and a handful of other friends. I even toyed with the idea myself—a few hours on the operating table and a lifetime of size-ten jeans. Who doesn’t dream of that?

I know at least a dozen women who’ve had stomach stapling, gastric bypass or laparoscopic duodenal switch (a hybrid surgery that reduces the stomach and bypasses part of the bowel). I considered surgery myself, very briefly. Not because I think I’m unsexy or want to wear cooler clothes (the latter, though, is true), or because I’m unhealthy. I eat ten veggies a day (count ’em—ten!), go to the gym six days a week and probably can outrun many women my age. I’m not unhealthy, but the more I hear about the long-term effects of obesity, the more I worry about whether I am doing enough to be healthy. I worry that while today I’m okay with my size, what if in six years I’m carnival fat and won’t be so self-actualized about it all. I worry that maybe it’s not okay to be self-accepting. Perhaps somewhere deep inside I still believe what my family has told me: that self-acceptance actually means accepting defeat.

Diane Anderson-Minshall is the founder of Girlfriends, Alice and Roxie magazines. Her work has appeared in dozens of publications, inlcuding Bitch, Bust, Venus, Utne Reader and Seventeen. She is currently the entertainment editor of Curve magazine. She lives in California.