Quitting P.E. Lessons (six years after I stopped taking them)

To My Old Physical Ed Teachers,

(a letter from the fat, asthmatic kid)

When I was younger, I used to hate you. 

You almost certainly already know this. Day in and day out, you get to fight with uncommunicative, unfit kids who haven't brought their trainers or don't want to play hockey and it exhausts you. Like every teacher you are required to tick boxes and fulfil government requirements and after hours spent on your feet there is nothing more frustrating than having to wait outside the changing room, during your short valuable lesson time, for the kid who won't take their school jumper off. Even if you are the most patient, gentle P.E. teacher in the world, you will have had the glare of death from a pupil at least once a week. 

And let's be honest: you probably hated me too. I held your class up. I always seemed to be unable to breathe when you wanted me to do something difficult. I argued back. I never met the targets you set for lessons, and I was always one of the slowest to change. I was not an ideal pupil, and believe you me, my teachers let me know about that. 

School is over for me now. I'm a graduate with many friends training to become teachers (and I have to admit - I'm even considering it myself). There's not one of them who won't make an excellent teacher, and a great colleague for you. What I'm trying to say is that I'm seeing things from your perspective, and I appreciate what you do, and that teaching sport is not as easy as it is made out to be. 

But I can't forget what it was like being that fat, asthmatic kid in the classroom.

I cannot forget the teacher who screamed at me to keep running whenever I stopped, out of breath, despite the fact that this contravenes all guidelines on how to manage students with asthma in sports lessons.

I cannot forget watching the 'top set' learn interesting sports - javelin, hurdles, hockey, tennis - while the bottom set ran round the field again or 'circuit training' while you looked at your phone. 

I cannot forget being shouted at for being the last changed - because the popular kids wouldn't let me have a space on the bench to get changed in, or because frequent taunts and people grabbing at my bra straps often made me feel so insecure I couldn't get changed except in one of the few toilet cubicles. 

I cannot forget being laughed at by the sixth formers who marshalled the cross-country race as I pounded around the track in a solid 237th place, desperately out of breath. 

I cannot forget you telling me to get on with it even when it would have been dangerous for me to do so.

I cannot forget you literally turning your back on me when I approached you to talk to you about what I needed to be able to achieve during your lesson and what I needed you to know about my asthma. 

I cannot forget the look on the faces of the two popular team captains you picked as they stared blankly at the scrawny kids and the fat kids and the unpopular kids left on the bench.

I cannot forget that you classed cricket and rugby as boys' sports, so I was twenty before, thanks to my six nations' loving housemates, I discovered that I really love rugby. I cannot forget that you taught us that healthy female bodies are slim and light, that I never learnt that heavier, muscular bodies are sporting bodies too. I cannot forget that you allowed a culture of bullying and victimising to thrive in your classroom, and that you let one set of insecure students play their insecurities off on another. I cannot forget that we only talked about the human body in terms of what was wrong with us and how we could correct it, and never celebrated what we were already good at. I cannot forget.

And this is why I cannot forget.

I cannot forget because everything you taught us stayed with me. When I swim I imagine you are standing at the end of the pool, shouting at me to go faster, calling me weak when I rest. When I'm working as part of a team, especially physical tasks, I go out of my way to look busy and seek continual affirmation that I'm doing the right thing because of the fear of letting my team down, and being laughed at - or worse, looked at in disgust. If I'm buying clothing or equipment for any physical activity, I go for inconspicuous, skin-covering clothes, because your lessons taught me to dread being noticed while exercising, and the unchallenged attentions of my peers taught me that my body was ugly and to be ashamed of. I cannot forget because that embarrassment and shame is with me in every mirror I look into. 

But you've had too much of my life, and you've almost had my physical fitness. Moving to university, I found a pool where I wouldn't be approached by creeps and a community where personal fitness is encouraged across a range of abilities and sports. Although I wasn't brave enough to go to a class or join a team (and I wanted to), I have managed to start taking control of my asthma and my fitness. I know what works for me and best of all, I've started enjoying exercising, away from judgement and grading. I am the largest I have ever been and also the fittest. My asthma is far worse than it was at school, partly thanks to a year in a damp and mouldy house, but I've learnt a lot about what I can do and how to look after my condition. 

If I had to go back to one of your classes, I would suck, unquestionably. This is the place I've been mentally every time I have exercised since I stopped P.E. at sixteen. 

Things are changing. You never saw me swim at school (only the Top Set got to visit the pool), but actually, I'm not bad. I snap on that lycra and polyester like it's my own superhero costume, complete with bug-eye prescription goggles, and head out the door on my own, because I want to. And from now on, you are no longer welcome to come with me. 

Dear Joanna: You Look Okay (TW: Eating Disorders)

Trigger Warning: In this letter I talk about body confidence and eating disorders. 

Dear Joanna,

Of all the letters I'm going to write to you, this one seemed like the most important, because it was so important to you for so long. 

At the moment you are thirteen and one of the tallest girls in your year. You are what they call an 'early bloomer' - people often thought that you were a year 9 student when you were only in year 7, which you kind of liked. Your problem is that although you are as tall, and sometimes as mature, as someone in their mid-teens, you still have a child's body shape. You have puppy fat, with big apple cheeks, wide arms, and a stomach that sticks out, especially when you slump, which you have a habit of doing. 

Around this point, you start to realise that some of the other girls in your year look a bit different from you. They have proper breasts and hips, and boys fancy them - and no-one fancies you (that you are aware of. Actually, a few boys do, but they don't tell you till much later!). You become increasingly self-conscious. Around this point you start wearing baggy clothes to hide your shape, and moaning to your friends about how fat you are. Then you discover the scales. 

The record of how much you weigh is scattered about in your diary. The day you tip from nine stone into ten, I remember, is particularly dismal. I remember, around fifteen or so, having to listen to a boy in your class moaning about how he weighed nine stone; you sat there, hating him, but hating yourself more. I remember your joy after you had flu for a few weeks and your cheeks hollowed out a little. I still pinch my cheeks, trying to decide if they're any chubbier than they were the week before.

During the summer before you turn fourteen, you decide to take action. Whilst you're off school, you make your own breakfast and lunch, and as you get up after your parents have gone to work, it's not hard to hide it when you start skipping meals. You have to eat dinner because you eat as a family, but soon you're surviving the rest of the day on an apple and water. You weigh yourself obsessively. The weight is not coming off. After about two weeks of your secret diet, the whole family goes to visit your grandparents, where your Grandma cooks a beautiful roast lunch. You force yourself to eat it, dreading the weight you'll put on. When it gets to pudding, you refuse to eat it, and at Grandma and Granddad's, pudding is not optional. You almost cry. 'I can't do it.' Mum takes you outside and tells you that she'd rather that you were obese than that you had an eating disorder. You talk for a while, then go in, and eat pudding.

Of course, it doesn't end there, even though you do start eating breakfast again after that week. A few months later a girl who starved herself to death is in the news. She weighed under 5 stone, and you looked at her and thought, 'I wish I was as strong willed as her. She went a bit too far - I could stop before I kill myself.' I think you knew that anorexia doesn't work that way, but you convinced yourself that being anorexic meant that you were in charge of your body, not destroying yourself. I can still see that photo of the dead girl. You could see every bone in her body.

At the time, you thought the thing that was stopping you was your lack of will power, and you hated yourself for it, but the real thing that stopped you was your faith, and your family. In God you found the certainty that even though, in your eyes, you were fat and ugly, you were loved and your life had a purpose. It didn't matter what you looked like as long as your were living for him. You were also scared of hurting your family, especially your parents, and so you fought against all the stupid urges, and they supported you, as they still do and always will. 

Of course, you still compare yourself to other girls, and feel large. The honest truth is that you're not skinny, and you never will be - you have a large bone structure, and natural curves, and that's okay. Most women look like you, and most men are alright with that - and the ones that aren't are not worth your time! After a few years your weight stabilises and you slowly get your adult figure, and you'll feel a lot more confident in your body. One of your worst fears was that you'd keep on ballooning into Joanna the Inflatable Girl, a female Dudley Dursley, and it doesn't happen; at 20, you're roughly the national average. You stop growing at 5"5 too, so don't worry about towering over people - you actually spend a surprising amount of time feeling short...

Here are some things I want to tell you.

Firstly, one of the secrets to looking good like those confident girls in your year, is believing in yourself and your body. Wear clothes that make you feel happy and confident, hold your head up high, and believe in yourself. When I look back over my teenage years there's a clear dividing line between the places where I was confident, and had plenty of friends, and the places where I hid and was an onlooker, on the outside. The more you act as if you believe in yourself, the more other people will too. 

Secondly, you need to wash your hair more. Grease is SO not attractive. At thirteen you're hitting the hormones badly. Don't stress - you'll survive it, and one day, you will have a pimple free face. Mostly. 

Thirdly, stop weighing yourself. Instead of concentrating on all the bits of your body you dislike and how much they weigh, try and look at yourself as a whole. Remind yourself of the things you like about yourself: you have nice eyes, your hair is getting really long, you look good in your new jeans. 

Fourthly, stop reading calorie information on labels. Eating healthily means thinking about the balance of food you eat over the entire day, not just restricting yourself from eating anything with more than 150 calories. 

Let me tell you about the turning point, so you have something to look forward to. 

Age fifteen, you go to Florence with your family and visit the Uffizi, which is a very famous and beautiful art museum. Walking around in quiet awe, you notice that the women in the pictures aren't the stick thin women you've looked up to for years. At Titian's Venus of Urbino and Botticelli's Birth of Venus you stare at the female nudes, comparing their rounded forms with your own, and you have a revelation. Once upon a time, beauty meant having curves, having a figure. These women have breasts and hips; their stomachs stick out, their arms are wide. And yet the artists chose them for the women who were the epitome of all beauty: Mary, the Virgin Mother and most holy of all women, and Venus, the goddess of love. Compared to them, the models and ideals of the 21st century seem insubstantial: these women have lasted and will last long after the 'thigh-gap' or 'visible ribs' goes out of fashion. Over the years this will become a point of consolation for you: when you look at yourself and see fat and hate your curves, you will force yourself to think of these girls, and tell yourself that you are a Renaissance woman, and that is beautiful. 

Lastly, I want to tell you that you're happy with your body now, but that wouldn't be true. You are still self-conscious, and sometimes you let it get to you. Last December, when you were struggling with your workload and general health, you stopped eating properly for around two weeks, and lost at least 6 pounds, if not more - and you were happy about it. It's easier to hate yourself rather than doing something proactive to improve your health, and sometimes you give in to those feelings. It is getting better though. You are happier with your body, in general, and you do try to exercise a little more, and eat healthier (most of the time...). There are ups and downs. Mostly you eat what you want, and don't care, but sometimes, like this morning, drinking a glass of milk feels like pouring a glass of fat onto your hips. Maintaining the balance between a healthy consciousness of your health and an unhealthy obsession is tough, but it gets better.

Most importantly, you understand that the old adage 'it's what's inside that counts' really is true. You have friends who love you for who you are and wouldn't care less if you had blue skin and horns, and who you love in the same way. Work on who you are inside, and the outside will take care of itself. Nice people have their own kind of magnetism; they light up rooms; people are attracted to their personality. Faces grow to suit their owners. In the end, your body is just a tool you use for moving your spirit around. Remember that, and look after it, but who you are inside will always be more important. 

Joanna

P.S. You look good today.