Bisque Post: Wait, Aren't You Supposed to Have a Spare Tire?

I would not mind that I am gaining weight if people would stop making it their business.

While I may never wear low waisted jeans or be satisfied with the tailoring in my collared shirts, not once have I doubted that I am a solid individual. It would be hard to forget that I'm built sturdy--I bear the shoulders of a linebacker and am usually throwing myself around like I'm invincible. Looking past my body though, I am clever sometimes, can usually find a good pun if you give me a second, and always bake enough cookies to share. These attributes are intangible evidence of my solid structure.

I'm not just singing my praises in the first paragraph though, I swear. The point I'm trying to make is that there is much more to me, and in fact to everyone, than their body type. This should be an obvious statement, right? One tooted by feminists everywhere. If this is such a widely accepted fact, why then have no less than a dozen complete strangers felt it their job to warn me about my weight? From the time I found out I was coming to Hungary, people I didn't know or were vaguely connected to told me to "take my fat pants with me" "get ready to get fatter" and many variations on "what are you going to do about the weight you gain?" Today, at an event centered around a cooking competition a random man warned me not to eat too much because I would *insert your preference of explosion onomatopoeia and hand gestures*

I like to think I'm pretty adept in social situations, but what do you even say to that.

I would like not to become a barge during my exchange. In a perfect world, the organic fruits and vegetables along with the walking and volleyball would slim me down. But, what's wrong with gaining weight? I'm healthy, I can still probably do more sit-ups in a minute than you, and most of all I'm happy. Being fat does not effect my ability to learn the language here. It does not limit my ability to illicit peals of laughter from my classmates. It doesn't even really harm my volleyball playing. But, do you know what does stop me from speaking Hungarian, what keeps my wordplay theoretical, and keeps my dives inches short of a dropped ball because I was too worried about how my shorts fit? Every sentence I hear questioning how I can be so confident now, and how I'm going to stay confident as my face fills out and my figure gets plumper. Every moment I'm in the middle of something and I get stopped to hear warnings about my impending fat-splosion. Every stupid cautionary tale I have to endure about the white bread Hungarians like, or how many dishes involve potatoes, or if I really want to eat a kakao csiga. Spoiler alert, yes, I do want to eat that kakao csiga, because in all likelihood I just had a ninety minute volleyball practice and didn't really eat breakfast this morning. Also have you seen kakao csigas they are heaven.

Trying to make a long rant concise: It is not my fat that is keeping me from success and happiness, it's the people who care more about it than they do about me. I can guarantee you exchange students have more interesting things to talk about than how many kilos they've gained--why not ask about those things instead?