STUFFED

Losing Weight

The ominous sound of a trumpet wakes Courtney up.

She thought her mom was bluffing but she's been here for three days now so it must be real.

Courtney gets up and follows the rest of the pudgy teenagers out of the cabin. Watching the people in front of her waddling from side to side, unable to walk in a straight line because of how fat they are, makes her wonder if that's what she looks like too.

They fill the buffet line in the dinning hall and serve themselves breakfast. The options are subpar and everything tastes the same. Courtney puts blueberries on top of her plain oatmeal because she likes to pretend that they're candy. Once they reach the end of the buffet line, and before they're allowed to sit down, a staff member checks their plates to make sure they haven't taken too much.

Someone three people ahead of her is getting their plate confiscated. The staff member reprimands them quietly for taking too much and throws their entire plate out. They are handed a cardboard take out box as a replacement and they walk away to go sit down at one of the tables.

Other than that, breakfast is boring and uneventful.

After breakfast, the campers go back to their cabins and get changed for the post breakfast walk.

All of the walks are always unnecessarily long. Courtney assumes that the councilors think if they present a relatively easy task like walking the campers will take to it with relatively little fuss; but then they just take advantage of the situation and turn it into a hike and no one wants to go anymore.

Courtney finds that if she distracts herself, the torture goes by quicker.

She walks at the back with a few of the slower people and joins in on their conversation. Well, she doesn't actually say anything technically but she listens and reacts all the same and they don't seem to mind.

One girl named Madison tells the story of how she ended up at fat camp.

"The last year was really hard for me. I lost my Grandma in January and then it kind of went downhill from there. We were best friends, we did everything together; our favourite thing to do was bake. My grandma's house was where I went when my mom was pissing me off and we'd both talk shit about her together. So when I lost her I'd bake all the time. I would make our favourite recipes over and over until I was baking sometimes twice a day. I had to start hiding it because my mom was getting suspicious so I would silently bake at like, three in the morning sometimes and clean everything up before anybody woke up. I threw her off my scent for a little while but when my stomach kept getting bigger and the hoodies kept getting smaller... I got sent here."

Madison's story was kind of tragic really. She was mourning the loss of her grandma and just couldn't help herself from finding comfort in food.

Another camper told their story about their struggle with a thyroid condition that made them gain weight and there were even a couple of the girls whose birth control made them twice their regular size. Everyone's reasons for being as big as they are are completely valid and understandable so when the group questions Courtney's weight gain she doesn't know what to say.

She couldn't very well just come right out and say "Yeah, I gain weight on purpose because I like to."

So she lies.

"I was in a pretty unhealthy relationship and I just ended up gaining a bunch of weight. Hopefully being here will help me start over."

Her response is a lot shorter than everyone else's and she's nervous that someone is going to call her out for it.

Courtney waits anxiously as she watches them digest her narrative. Someone responds, validating her story, and then the group moves on to a different topic.