“The Taste of Thin” by Carolyn Pledge-Amaral

The speaker, a tall woman sporting a bobble of perfect blonde hair and a well-fitting suit with a Weight Watcher’s pin anchored to her lapel, looked out into the audience at Christ Church Hall and said, “Nothing tastes as good as thin.”

Most of the portly middle-aged women nodded, and some offered a little sidebar with the person next to them until they finally quieted and refocused on the speaker.

I finished my weigh-in and slipped into an empty seat to consider this sage advice. Did thin taste as good as Tim Hortons’ bow-tie éclair or a slice (or two) of Napoli combination pizza? A hotdog and chips from Fuzzy’s on the Esplanade or a chunk of a Woolworth’s birthday cake topped with a huge pink rose? Could the taste of thinness trump a plate of Moo Goo Gai Pan from the Peking Restaurant? I ran my tongue around my mouth and imagined pounds crunching between my teeth like potato chips.

But food fantasies aside, I understood the metaphor even then. Thin was power and freedom. A thin Carolyn would sashay into class and heads would turn. Guys would clamour for a date and the girls, even the perky cheerleaders, would drool with envy. A thin Carolyn would still be a smart and capable Carolyn, so she’d have the whole package and would be free to do whatever she wanted. Thinness would offer a portal into a personality previously obscured by fat, and a thin Carolyn, in particular, a thin “Miss Ways and Means Committee,” would win the Winter Carnival Queen title. Thinness offered the palate something no delicacy could.

I listened as the leader continued to extoll the virtues of the program and the success of her personal journey. She’d gone from an overweight Mom, to a slim, confident Weight Watchers spokesperson. Since losing “the weight,” her life had done a 180 and that life could be ours too.

The women next to me leaned in and said, “Did you lose?”

I nodded and held up two fingers.

She patted my thigh. “Good for you.” She pointed to a pin on her collar and added, “I got my lifetime award today. Fifty-two pounds.”

“Congratulations. That’s great.” At almost sixteen, I was notably younger than this woman and most people in the hall. I’d never been one to shy away from adult company or adult settings. Life at home had me growing up in a hurry, so I could talk to just about anyone about anything. But today, not in the mood for chit-chat, I turned my body slightly away from the woman and studied my blue and white attendance booklet. Since joining Weight Watchers, I’d managed to lose almost thirteen pounds. Each week I acquired a new stamp that listed my weigh-in weight and then my gain or loss in a separate little box, any gains flagged with a big black circle. I’d only had one gain since I started, but that circle screamed, “Watch out! You’re only a few circles away from failure.”

I shivered and pulled my winter jacket over my shoulders. I’d worn my thinnest blouse even though it was January. I didn’t want some bulky sweater messing up my weight loss. I would have shaved my legs and flossed my teeth if I’d thought it would have made a difference. Ever since I’d been chosen “Miss Ways and Means Committee,” I’d doubled down on my weight loss efforts, meticulously logging and weighing everything that went in my mouth. If I ate another can of tuna, I’d grow fins.

Each club, organization or sports team at school was allotted a representative to compete in the Sydney Academy Winter Carnival Queen pageant. That year, my first year of high school, I’d joined every club and organization from debate to model parliament to student government. Other than a firm and unrealized longing to be a competition cheerleader with a short blue and white pleated dress, sports had never been my thing. I gravitated towards the cerebral, the organizational, the social, and the “Ways and Means Committee,” a fund-raising group for school activities, fit the bill perfectly. As the only girl on the committee, I’d managed to snag their winter carnival nomination, but as a tenth-grade student, my hopes seemed slim. The Winter Carnival Queen would most likely go to a senior, a twelfth-grade girl. Still, I wasn’t about to sashay across the stage without giving it my personal best.

I listened as two women behind me discussed the Scarsdale Diet. I’d tried that too, with pretty solid success, although I’d pretty near starved to death in the process. I had done the two-week regimen with my older sister Brenda, the two of us scarfing down grapefruit and downing cans of Tab. Later I’d discover the Scarsdale plan was essentially a thousand calorie a-day diet, its deprivation (and ketosis) fueling our feuds rather than stoking the bonds of sisterhood. More athletic than me, Brenda seemed better able to maintain her weight, although I’d recently discovered a box of Ayds, the popular appetite suppressant “mineral candy” of the 80s, stashed under her bed. Being Miss Goodie-Two-Shoes, I popped one in my mouth and then marched downstairs with the box of chewy caramels as evidence of my sister’s deviance, a decision that ended in a full out hair-pulling sister brawl, that if nothing else, had burned a few extra calories.

I tuned out the Weight Watchers presentation and schemed my winter carnival wardrobe, imagining my lithe body floating effortlessly across the Sydney Academy stage. Contestants needed an interview dress and a gown for the pageant. The interview dress, one that would later illicit a compliment from Pierre Trudeau at a “Young Liberal” luncheon, I owned already. A blue Mandarin-collar traditional Chinese cheongsam, the dress cinched my now tiny waist and smoothed my ample bust and round hips. Between the dress and my confidence in dealing with adults, I hoped I’d be able to make an impact on the judges. I made mental lists of my talents and practiced answering questions in front of the mirror.

The gown I’d spied at Jacobson’s, a dusty pink satin number with lacy edging, an empire waist and spaghetti straps that would fit the bill perfectly. Each contestant would be escorted through the gym and up onto the stage, and while I’d already asked my long-time boyfriend, Lloyd, I would have given my perfect Dorothy Hamill haircut to go skating down the aisle with a handsome Sydney Academy hockey player or even better, Michael, the brainy basketball player who I’d had a crush on since elementary school. But at that time, I didn’t have the wherewithal to orchestrate a breakup, not with so much tension at home. Lloyd made me feel safe and loved and needed, and I couldn’t take a chance on losing that for an evening with a heart-throb.

“When you think about it,” the leader of Weight Watchers said, jarring me away from my pageant planning, “a loss is really a win.” This revelation trigged another round of nods and comments. The life-timer next to me smiled and gave a thumbs up. I offered a strained grin in return while I processed the idea. Could that logic extend to the pageant? Could my inevitable loss really be construed as a win? Would I say, “Thank God, I’m not the queen? Yay, me!” Maybe fame would be too overwhelming; if I won, I wouldn’t be able to turn the crown in and go home. Maybe this bobble-head had a point—but, no. I doubted I’d feel that way. What girl didn’t want to feel beautiful, accomplished—noticed? And what said that more loudly than a title?

I wondered what Dad would say if he sat on the toilet with the Cape Breton Post spread at his feet and found me smiling up at him crowned and caped. But as he’d been starting his mornings with his head facing the toilet bowl, rather than his backside, any press coverage would likely go unnoticed. Since our exodus to the apartment on Rotary Drive and back home the year before, Dad had managed an extra-long spell on the wagon, navigating potholes and sharp turns like a driver at a chuckwagon event. Even Brenda had started to believe Mom might have been right; that this time, things would be different. We’d both let our guards down and allowed our hearts to take on a normal sinus rhythm. But when Dad fell, he’d fallen hard, and since then, each bender seemed more volatile, more dangerous, and more unpredictable.

 I was under no illusion that Dad would make his way to the pageant, and I didn’t want him to, not drunk and wearing green work clothes with an Export ‘A’ dangling from the corner of his mouth. In fact, the thought of him popping up in the gymnasium like a Jack-in-the box with that maniacal smile put my stomach in knots. I doubted he’d care anyway. I had little idea what fatherly approval felt like, so I told myself I didn’t need it. The only hope I had of making an impact on my father was to become the first female Prime Minister of Canada. I made mental note to share this political aspiration in my pageant interview.

 However, as I made my way out of Christ Church hall, the only thing painfully clear to me was my hunger. I wanted to go home and chew on something with a little more flavour than thin.

I don’t remember much about the weeks that followed, the interview or the pageant itself, even though I was selected as first runner up to the Carnival Queen, a pretty twelfth-grade cheerleader with hair like Farah Fawcett. Whether or not my lofty career aspirations had impressed the judges, or my thinness played a role in this success, I’d never know, but photographs of me beaming in my dusty rose gown confirm that I’d likely reached my weight loss goals. And the Weight Watchers lady had been right. For a tenth-grade student sporting a wedge, the loss was most certainly a win. I got the lights and the flowers and the limelight for a night without carrying the weight of a crown. The taste of thin, the freedom and glory I had thought would follow, had been fleeting and not much of a meal at all. Real freedom came only when I rejected weekly weigh-ins and canned tuna.

My sharpest memory, the scene that comes into clear focus for me, came weeks later. My father emerged from the bedroom after days sobering up, his latest bender having come to an inevitable end. Mom cornered him in the kitchen as I was leaving for school. She recounted my winter carnival accomplishments the way one does should they meet an old friend in a grocery store, with bright eyes and a look of deep pride in having produced such an accomplished, beautiful child. And she meant it. Even Brenda had stood up and cheered when they called my name, our diet wars a distant memory. Had technology allowed back then, Mom might have scrolled through her phone and shown him pictures, offered proof that I’d been crowned first runner up.  

I stood there as if on stage again, my stomach a boomerang as I waited for the final results. But like that grocery store friend, Dad’s hands fumbled in his pockets as he awkwardly shifted his weight, wearing a smile that said he needed to get to the produce section. I lingered in frozen foods, goosebumps mapping my body. I appreciated what my mother had tried to do, her face a-glow and her smile wide, but I wished she’d never told him. Rather than sullying my moment by having to watch him squirm and search for words, making the title seem trite, I could have imagined his pride instead.

“That’s nice,” Dad eventually managed before he escaped to the safety of the garage, and I scurried off to school. I thought I’d wanted the crown for myself. Instead, I realized that as much as I tried to convince myself otherwise, I couldn’t divorce myself from wanting Dad’s approval any more than my mother could simply divorce my father. Divorce is complex in all its forms. Parenting too. I would come to understand that much later. Dad hadn’t intentionally trivialized the accomplishment; he simply had no idea how to be a father. He could barely take care of himself.

As I made my way to school that day kicking chunks of dirty ice under a grey February sky, I decided the carnival title was mine whether it mattered to my father or not. He couldn’t take that away from me. The yearbook photo of the Winter Carnival Queen with her first and second place side-kicks would be documented for perpetuity. Years later, Brenda would mistakenly remember me having been crowned Queen. Memory, even misguided, had teeth.

Of course, nothing could stop me from dreaming of a meaty title like the Prime Minister of Canada, sending Dad roses on his birthday, or any of the other things I would try over the course of my lifetime to see my father smile or bring him into the folds of my family. But eventually these efforts became grounded in love, not some desperate need for approval.

Like Weight Watchers, my father may have shaped me, but that day, I began to realize I didn’t have to let him define me. And that, I discovered, was true power.

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