Breaking Silence, Reclaiming Self: A Reflection on Hunger
“Every body has a story and a history. Here I offer mine with a memoir of my body and my hunger” (Gay 2017, 3).
In middle school, a boy shattered my sense of self-worth with just three words.
“Big fat Laura.”
He said it so casually, the smirk on his face sharper than any insult. I remember freezing, staying silent as the words echoed. I didn’t cry. I didn’t even flinch. Instead, I laughed it off, as if mocking myself could dull the sting. At that moment, silence felt safer than confrontation, a survival instinct ingrained in me as a child. But inside, those words planted a seed of shame that grew, wrapping its tendrils around my confidence. What made it sting even more was how they mirrored the beauty ideals I grew up with in my family and culture.
In my Chinese household, beauty was a narrow ideal: 好女不过百—“a good woman’s weight should not exceed 50 kilograms”. This phrase hovered over every meal, every glance in the mirror, and every comment about my appearance. “You have elephant thighs,” my brother teased. “You keep putting on weight; eat less,” my grandma chided. Each comment added weight to my shoulders, reinforcing an identity I hadn’t chosen but couldn’t escape—one shaped by cultural expectations that equated a woman’s worth with the size of her body.
Falling short of the 50-kilogram standard, though trivial to some, felt like a quiet failure etched into my sense of self—a persistent reminder that I didn’t measure up, that my body was inherently flawed. At every turn, I faced a choice: to internalize these criticisms or push back. Unsure how to fight a tide so deeply rooted in culture and society, I chose the former, letting the waves of expectation carry me further away from who I was meant to be.
Reading Roxane Gay’s Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body brought these memories rushing back. In her memoir, Gay recounts her life as a “577 pound” Black and Haitian woman in a world that measures worth by the number on a scale (Gay 2017, 10). Her pain is visceral as she recounts a sexual assault trauma at the age of 12 that left her seeking refuge in food and isolation, turning her body into both her shield and her battleground. As Gay writes, “Some boys had destroyed me, and I barely survived it. I knew I wouldn’t be able to endure another such violation, and so I ate because I thought that if my body became repulsive, I could keep men away” (Gay 2017, 13). This act of prioritizing safety over social acceptance came at a steep cost: deeper isolation and relentless judgment from a society unwilling to see her beyond her size.
Gay’s experiences with relentless familial pressures to lose weight resonate deeply with me. She too wrestled with the weight of unspoken expectations, and like me, she often chose silence. Gay did not tell her family about the sexual assault she endured, fearing they would no longer see her as a good, obedient child (Gay 2017, 46). The fear of disappointing loved ones, of shattering the image they hold of us, is something I understand all too well. The expectations she describes feel as though they’ve been etched into my mind, impossible to erase. They linger in conversations, glances, and unspoken rules, making it difficult to voice my truths. Like Gay, I find myself silenced—not by a lack of words, but by the weight of fear and the impossibility of being fully understood. How can I admit to my mother that I was fat-shamed in middle school, when deep down, I fear she would secretly agree with the boy? The thought is unbearable—a double blow, as though the voices of the world and home had conspired against me.
Gay’s memoir exposes how societal expectations trap individuals in cycles of conformity and self-criticism. “The bigger you are, the smaller your world becomes” (Gay 2017, 210). These words capture the brutal reality for those who don’t fit the mold. Overweight people are not just judged; they are reduced, made to feel as though their value lies in how little space they occupy. These stringent societal standards manifest across cultures, shaping the lives of women from diverse backgrounds. From Black and Haitian women like Gay, whose experiences are shaped by racial and gendered biases, to Chinese girls like me, whose struggles are compounded by cultural proverbs, expectations weigh heavily on women across different cultures. These narrow definitions of beauty, whether rooted in media or cultural traditions, create a global epidemic of inadequacy, reminding us that standards can be deeply harmful as well as confining.
What struck me the most about Hunger was Gay’s refusal to conform and her ultimate choice to reclaim her narrative. Her memoir isn’t a triumphant tale of weight loss or self-transformation. It’s a raw, unflinching exploration of trauma, resilience, and the complex relationship between body and self. By sharing her story, Gay confronts the societal norms that perpetuate shame and exclusion. Her words gave shape to emotions I’ve carried for years: the shame of being made to feel ‘less than’ because of my body and the fear of speaking out against these judgments. What makes Hunger unique isn’t just Gay’s honesty in confronting her trauma—it’s her deliberate choice to challenge the societal norms that perpetuate shame. Her narrative holds power because she chose to share her most vulnerable truths with the world, refusing to let silence or shame dictate her story. In reading her memoir, I saw a reflection of my own struggles, and it helped me realise how much of my identity I had hidden behind the weight of others’ expectations. It pushed me to confront the choices I made to survive—playing the role of an obedient Chinese girl taught to accept and endure the belief that my body’s worth was tied to its size in silence without resistance. While our truths may differ, the societal pressures we face to conform, to shrink, and to silence our voices are universal. By sharing her story, Gay not only shed light on these struggles but also inspired me to begin reclaiming my own.
It starts with small acts of defiance: speaking up when family members make comments about my weight or offering support to friends facing similar struggles. Each time I resisted, it felt like reclaiming a piece of myself that I had long buried. Breaking silence isn’t just about finding my voice—it’s about rejecting ideas that enforced such silence. There are still days when I feel the weight of others’ judgment, but I remind myself that progress is not linear. Choosing to resist these narratives won’t necessarily eliminate vulnerability, but it serves as a powerful reminder that the freedom to control my body remains firmly in my grasp.
Though I have yet to break through to my mom, I’ve started small, beginning with my nieces. I tell them to value themselves beyond appearances, to reject the toxic ideals that confined the worth of many to numbers on a scale. If children are not taught self-acceptance, how can we expect them to navigate a world often so unkind?
Ultimately, the choice lies in what stories we attach to bodies, our own and others. Some may impose their judgements, trapping me in measurements and imperfections. But I choose to see my body as more than what others project onto it, embracing my self-worth and ensuring that no one can confine me to a stereotypical societal standard. Gay’s story challenges us to consider how our choices—both as individuals and as a society—shape the way we view ourselves and others. By sharing her truth, she reminds us that regaining choice is an act of courage, one that demands we confront our past, rewrite our narrative, and refuse to be defined by the standards of others.
If you can’t accept the softness of my belly, the fullness of my thighs, or the roundness of my face, then perhaps the issue was never my body—it’s your unwillingness to unlearn the biases that make you see it as less than whole.
References
Gay, Roxane. Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body. Hachette UK, 2017.