Although my body and I have reached if not peace, at least a state of détente, ‘fat’ remains how I experience anger, dissatisfaction, disappointment. I feel ‘fat’ if I can’t master a task at work. I feel ‘fat’ if I can’t please those I love. ‘Fat’ is how I blame myself for my failures. ‘Fat’ is how I express my anxieties. A psychologist once told me, ‘Fat is not a feeling.’ If only it were that simple. As for so many women, the pathology of self-loathing is permanently ingrained in me. I can give in to it, I can modify it, I can react against it with practiced self-acceptance, but I cannot eradicate it. It frustrates me to consider what else I might have done with the years of mental energy I have wasted on this single, senseless issue. – Peggy Orenstein (1961- )