A Lesson I Deserved by Ramiyah

A Lesson I Deserved by Ramiyah - July 2025 Scholarship Essay

I've always been fat for as long as I can remember. As a kid, you don't have much control over what you eat. Your parents buy your food, and depending on their income, you may be stuck with processed foods that are quick to make but not very filling or nutritious. Combined with a lack of knowledge of nutrition, gaining weight seems inevitable, so one piece of advice I'd tell my past self is to learn about nutrition and take my health seriously even if no one is telling me how.
Everyone knows that to lose weight you should eat less, eat more healthy foods, exercise, drink water, etc, but no one tells you how much to do of each. No one tells you how to read a nutrition label or how your environment can affect your eating habits. As a kid, I ate freely, barely noticing my favorite shirts getting tighter and my pants cutting into my hips. I never thought about why people avoided sitting with me on the bus. I never realized how infrastructure was never built for the comfort of people my size. Back then, I never noticed how the protective bar on a roller coaster would never go down on me as far as it did for lighter passengers. I never realized how little space my stomach had while sitting at a restaurant booth. I also never questioned the genuineness of a person saying, “My friend likes you,” when said friend is laughing as if the prospect of being with you is something worth laughing at.
I've never hated my body, and I'm proud of that. I'm 18 now and currently weigh 233 pounds. I'm old enough to know that at my height and weight that means I am not overweight, I am obese. I'm also old enough to do something about it. I can't be upset at my younger self for not knowing something that was never taught, but I can teach myself now and have been doing a great job. I've been learning about nutrition, building better habits, and making lasting changes. Learning about weight loss and nutrition can be time consuming, but I'm 1000% sure my younger self would have benefitted from the education so that I wouldn't have to make up for it now. I'm currently almost 40 pounds down and am continuing to invest in my life.