The new adage that I've made up goes, "Once a fat boy, always a fat boy." Hopefully it'll catch on as the explanation for a condition I've discovered (or created depending on your point of view) called "FAT BOY SYNDROME." The name pretty much says it all, which means I'm going to have trouble getting 700ish words out of this topic. Crap.
Basically, being a kid, while a fun, glorious, and magical time can also be very awkward, scary, and emotionally debilitating. One of the most hateful parts of childhood is "baby fat." Oh, sure, it's cute on actual babies. Everyone loves a tubby baby, with those little fat rolls on the wrist and general chubbiness, but it starts to get old when said baby is of Junior High age. I was a big baby (still am according to most), born at 9 pounds, 14 ounces, which was fine (except maybe for my petite mother), but that largeness stuck with me through my formative years. There's this weird worldview for those of us who were chunks in grade school. I started to stretch out by high school (which, not coincidentally, was when several girls stopped ignoring/hating me), but the damage was already done.
There are rumors that I was downright SKINNY in high school, but I never felt that way. Looking into the mirror, I saw the same chubby cheeks that had always been there. Not literally. I wasn't insane. But that feeling of having about fifty extra pounds was still there, even as my pants size went down four or five sizes. (Around the waist, not the inseam-- wouldn’t that have been weird?)
Childhood is where we build our perceptions and outlooks on life, so even though situations (and waistlines) may change, everything's informed by what came before it, building blocks and whatnot. So if a fella started out as a thunder thigh’d lunchbox, it stands to reason that that part of him will still be there even as the pounds are shed. I keep using myself as an example because I'm writing this (and I'm very, very D.J.-centric), but I'm not the best one. Why? Well, though I started chubby then went through a svelte phase, no one's going to call me skinny nowadays. Sure, I'm not fat (except in Hell A, where my doctor actually called me obese at a weight that'd be perfectly healthy in Ohio), but I'm a thick fella.
A much better example of this syndrome than me, though, is none other than actor Jerry O'Connell. Who? The chubby kid in Stand By Me. He wasn't actually fat, but, well, he was chubbier than most kids in movies, so he was cast as such. Thing is, Jerry's now a muscular, handsome fella who has dated the likes of Rebecca Romijn, and yet... have you ever seen an interview with him? I have (not sure why), and he still talks like a fat kid. There's this over eagerness, this awkward desire to please, this inherent "dorkiness" that seems to be there with most chubby guys, and it just doesn't go away. Doesn't matter if you merely stretched out like my lazy ass or have abs of steal like former funky chunky Jerry O'Connell. Once a fat boy, always a fat boy.
What are the symptoms of FBS (Fat Boy Syndrome)? Basically, there's an overall feeling perhaps best exemplified by Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s creepy character in one scene in Boogie Nights. You know the part where everything's going great, porn's paying off for everyone, so the boys are on a shopping spree? They buy matching outfits, and Marky Mark and John C. Reilly are looking fly and living it up... then the camera moves to Hoffman awkwardly tugging down on his tight shirt, trying to pull it over his belly. Now, he's actually got some chunk, but suffers of Fat Boy Syndrome would feel that way even if they were 6'4" with a 32 inch waste. It's that weird feeling that things aren't as peachy as they are for others-- that nothing quite fits.
It's Fat Boy Syndrome. It's not curable, but it's possible to live with it. How do I know? Because I do, and so do many others like me. I was thinking of designing a ribbon to symbolize it. Any awareness ribbon colors not taken? Maybe I'll just make the FBS one out of bacon.
