I arrived at Georgia Southern University in 2005 weighing 105 pounds, in size 00 low-rise jeans and a size DD bra. It wasn’t until around sophomore year of college that I finally started to gain weight, and I was thrilled at the idea of my bottom half finally catching up to my top half. Grown woman weight, as I would soon come to know it, was seen as a beautiful thing, and as a Black girl from Atlanta, I saw full hips, thick thighs and big butts as a source of pride long before J.
Fast-forward to 2020, and I was recently reminded of this experience when I came across a Twitter thread started by influencer Tayler Rayne, asking her followers to share their own grown woman weight photos. I scrolled through the thread of beautiful, confident, curvy women celebrating weight gain as an achievement, and the photos gave me a true sense of empowerment. I think back and wish my younger self had been able to see such positive examples of women embracing their changing bodies.
I got accepted and made the big move, but found quickly that a temporary fix for my overall issues wouldn’t be enough. I still didn’t have the proper coping mechanisms to deal with the daily highs and lows that came with just being a human being, especially one in a new, unfamiliar place. I often felt victimized, like the world was picking on me specifically. So I slowly abandoned my strict diet, and the weight came back on with a vengeance.