Just a Few Inches

Before

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Those unwanted inches? That's what the fast-talking male voiceover said in the television ad, spoken as if all women would want them taken off. In my Journalism and Media Studies class, I had learned and understood the marketing strategies of the pill's makers before I even bought them. With twenty-twenty hindsight, I'm ashamed to admit that I let the ad prey upon my desperation, and I'm ashamed at how superficial what I was desperate about was.

As I think about those supposed unwanted inches, only just a few of them-if even that many-were unwanted. The others, I wanted to keep. But they were taken off too, from places I never imagined they could be taken off, all because of those stupid...

No, I won't preface anything I write with a statement of blame like that. It would come across with an extreme bias, and I need to behave more like the journalist I had been studying to become. So I'll begin with simple, unbiased facts.

My name is Carrie Roberts. When I first saw the ad that February, I was a senior in high school, a few months after turning eighteen. I got decent grades-not top-of-the-class super-smart grades-but I did my homework regularly with the goal of getting into college, probably a state school since my reach school truly was a reach for me. I never got more than an occasional C on report cards, so I considered myself at least a slightly above average student. I was also quite active-not just physically fit-and was almost always on the go with an extremely busy schedule during my senior year. I live in Montvale, Maryland, part of a typical middle-class blended family: I have a mother, a stepfather, a younger stepsister, and an even younger half-sister.

But you want the measurements, the factual numbers, since this is all about unwanted inches. The before Carrie stood five feet, eight inches tall, which is above average for a female my age. I weighed-well, you don't ask a woman her weight-so let's just say for now that I was well within the range that is considered ideal for my height. I eventually learned I was in the lower half of that range, so I suppose that made me below average in that regard.

And therein lies the irony-and I thank my English teachers for correctly teaching me the concept. You would think that a girl of below average weight for her height wouldn't have unwanted inches, let alone have a need or a desire to take them off. But I did. I could blame society, or the media, or over-exposed celebrities, or the way my classmates looked at me in the hallways and the gym, or whatever else for the unreal feminine ideals imposed upon my body, but again, that would be laying blame elsewhere. As I said, it was an act of desperation that led me to a method to take off those few unwanted inches.

I was above average height, below average weight, a slightly above average student, applying to average colleges, from an averaged-income family, living in a mid- (average?) Atlantic state. Average all those together and I clearly come across as just an average girl. But I don't particularly care for the word average after all that has happened to me. Journalists-all writers-pick and choose their words carefully and precisely, so instead, I'm opting to use the word normal.

Back then, my life was as normal as it could possibly be. I was a normal eighteen-year-old girl-worried about my senior year of high school, my looks, my clothes, my popularity, my grades, my college applications, the upcoming Valentine's Sweetheart Dance, my boyfriend, and whether I was ready for sex or not. As angst-ridden as all these worries could be at times, it was comfortable to know that they were my worries, and that it was absolutely expected for me to have them. It was perfectly normal for me to have them.

Like I said, everything about me was normal.

Until I started losing inches.