This isn’t a succinct example of thin privilege. I’m not sure how to describe it, as fat discrimination, but it’s still a story I thought you might be interested in hearing…

When I was 15, my tiny, thin, 100lb mother sent me to a fat camp. They didn’t specifically tell me it was a “fat camp” but rather a “health and wellness summer camp.” I wasn’t anxious about going because, well, I really do love camping, and being a naive 15 year old, the constant reassurance that “it’s not a fat camp, it’s for your health” made me believe it.

In short, it was run like an army training camp. Only a bit worse. We would wake up at 5am every day and woud have 10 minutes to get out of bed, fully dressed, clothes put away, etc. We wouldn’t be allowed to eat until two hours after we ran at least two to three miles along the camp’s perimeter. If we started walking for half a lap, our entire cabin would be delayed by 10 minutes.

What’s worse, is that I have severe panic disorder as well as several other mental health conditions. The camp completely ignored my need for a specific medication routine, and would deny me my medication if I was in the midst of a panic attack or if my cabin counselor refused to let me take my medication immediately after breakfast.

My meds had to be taken with food, but I wasn’t even allowed to leave the mess hall until I recorded the amount of calories I ate in a journal (everyone was required to do this). However, our thin camp counselors obviously didn’t have to do this and would always take seconds or thirds on the dessert cart (the dessert cart that we fat kids were limited to only one cup of the sugar-free and fat-free jello).

After that, the entire camp would do jumping jacks for solid half hour. THEN those who needed medication would FINALLY be given it. I suffered severe stomach pains because I hadn’t been able to take my medication with food.

If that weren’t enough, I was also extremely prone to carsickness. The camp took place in the mountains and the vans we took to the hiking trails meant going on EXTREMELY windy roads. For my body type and drug resistance, I needed at least one tablet of dramamine or other anti-motionsickness medication if I had even the slightest chance of not losing the small breakfast they let us have. I was given a quarter of a tablet and told that was all I needed. I vomited, and was told I’d be “fine” and that it was “actually good for me, the excursion was burning away extra calories.”

Then began our daily several-mile hikes up steep mountains. Hikes that we had to complete within two hours or we’d be late for the next activity back at camp.

Ever try going uphill/mountain climbing several miles in 2 hours? I would break down into a horrible, panicked mess. To this day, I have NEVER experienced more severe panic attacks than I did during this experience.

And it wasn’t just me. Another girl had severe asthma, and she wasn’t allowed to be in charge of her own fucking inhaler. Our counselor would just say “just walk it off, you’re both fine, keep going, you can do it, this is really good for you!” And after three times of BEGGING and sobbing for a SMALL BREAK just to CATCH OUR FUCKING BREATH (literally), all cheery happy-go-lucky kindness would disappear and she would become impatient. Impatient to the point where she literally wrenched this girl back onto her feet and pushed her along, walking behind her to make sure she didn’t slow down. WHILE SHE WAS HAVING AN ASTHMA ATTACK.

Meanwhile I’m shaking like a fucking leaf and am still being denied my sedatives (an as-needed type of medication for when I got panic attacks, similar to how an asthmatic would take an inhaler). By the time we got to the top of the mountain, the girl and I were so nauseous and ill that we couldn’t eat what little lunch we were given. (Crackers and beef jerky).

And when we finally did make it back to camp, it didn’t stop there. The horrible, sickening ride back counted as our “break” since “we were just sitting the car” (EG: me and several other girls near-vomiting or actually vomiting), so we’d be carted back into the herd of other cabins where we’d being a jumping jack/miscellaneous exercise regimen.

Then around 3-4pm we’d FINALLY be given a siesta. A 30 minute siesta. That was our only break for the entire day. After that, it was sports time for the next two hours until dinner, where we had to break out our calorie diaries and enter in each and every food we ate while the counselors piled on the cottage cheese and dressings to their bacon-bit laden salads. (Our lunches and dinners, meanwhile, were similar to fat-free, sugar-free lunchables packets).

Obviously, I didn’t last long. If I wasn’t having a panic attack I was vomiting or close to doing so, which ended up aggravating my clinical depression and after two weeks I had to be sent home.

And you know how much weight I lost in all of that? Zero.

On the way to the airport, the skinny counselor driving me said: “Well at least on the bright side you probably lost a lot of weight! So how much did you lose?” “I didn’t.” “…Oh.” She didn’t make eye contact with me for the rest of the trip and ran out of the terminal like a bat out of hell once she saw my flight boarding.