Eating meat filled a void for me. Since my parents divorced when I was five, my dad stopped visiting me as he started a new family. My mom had to work extra hard to fill the financial gap—her job as an actress meant she was constantly away from home. Lacking the care I craved, I saw eating as a substitute. A warm, tender piece of meat felt like a parent's embrace. Its heartiness reassured me that I was loved and cared for.
Whenever my nanny made Chinese braised pork, I would stand in front of the pot and watch it simmer. I drooled at the giggling fat layer and glistening skin of the pork belly as its pale white color gradually turned caramel brown. When my mom was around, I begged her for trips to Japanese barbecues so frequently that most of our gatherings with family and friends were held there. Our adult friends always said that as a 10-year-old kid, I ate even more than them. Those who sat at the same dinner table as me exclaimed that watching me eat made them happier as I would cheerily gulp down bowls of rice and plates of beef without a worry in the world.
Alas, I was not one of those people who defied the law of energy conservation. My body shape fully reflected my unrestricted love for the combination of carbs, fat, and protein. Growing up, one of my favorite shirts was a shirt with a fox face printed on it. My tennis coach always joked that when other people wore the shirt, the fox's face was flat, but when I wore it, the fox looked way more realistic as it became "3-D." I loved the shirt because I possessed the unique ability to make the fox "come to life." My belly was my trophy—it got me the attention I lacked from my parents. I walked with my shoulders back, displaying it in full glory. I even had a party trick where I would place a bottle of water on my belly without it falling—it never failed to impress. Others often referred to me as "little chubby," but I was never offended. It made me feel cute and loved.
When, at 11 years old, I overheard my mom's conversation with a friend over dinner, things changed. "You should seriously stop posting photos of your son on social media," he said, unaware that I had finished using the bathroom and was close enough to hear. "Do you even see the things they are saying on there? I mean, what would he think if he saw hundreds of people calling him fat and ugly?" I stayed out of their field of vision, waiting to hear the rest.
"You're right," my mom replied. Despite not seeing her expression, I could hear the dejection in her voice. Unsure how to feel and whether or not I wanted them to know I heard, I waited in silence before announcing I was back.
As I sat back down at the dinner table, I felt sourness gradually intensifying in my heart as I began to process that people didn't like me because of how I looked. Even my own mother didn't want to post pictures of me anymore. I didn't want to question them because I didn't want them to feel bad about me hearing. I didn't want them to find out about the shame I started to feel.
As the sourness lingered in my heart, my mentality began to shift. When people called me "little chubby," I no longer felt love, instead, I felt scorn. Walking on the street, I saw people's malicious gazes, peering at me with disrespect, thinking, "How can a kid be so fat?" Instead of walking with my back straight and belly out, I started to hunch, wanting to hide the lump with the rest of my body—I didn't want the attention if it was out of scorn. I thought that if I lost the lump and achieved a body that my mom's fans liked, I could stop people from disliking me and become someone my mom was proud to show off—I could gain loving attention.
To better understand what netizens liked, I searched "good body shape" on Baidu. To my surprise, I couldn't find a single photo of a man. I could only see photos of females with large breasts and thin waists. I didn't understand why good body shape only pertained to women. I altered my search terms to "handsome man." There, I saw guys with sharp jawlines and thin complexions, contradictory to my round face and even rounder complexion. On WeChat, I saw a friend post about Eddie Peng's birthday. She called him the most attractive man in the world and attached a photo of Eddie with chiseled abs. My protruding belly gave me scornful attention. Eddie's defined abs gave him loving attention. I began to understand that society and the internet see desirability in men as having little to no fat and obviously protruding muscles.
Knowing sports are a means to weight loss and muscle gain, I begged my tennis coach to help me find a way to look more like Eddie Peng. She introduced me to a fitness coach who had been a professional soccer player. He was almost 40 years old but still had clearly visible abs. He advised me to cut out all meat from my diet and do 150 sit-ups, 150 leg raises, and 150 back extensions six times a week after my tennis training sessions. I was shocked initially—eating meat was an irreplaceable part of my life, and other than playing tennis, I rarely exercised so intensely! However, driven by my desperate motivation for people to like me, for my mom to be proud of me, and for loving attention, I agreed to follow through.
During the intense fitness sessions, I often cried from the pain. When, at times, my mom watched the training, she would insist that the coach and I stop after seeing my pink face and distorted expressions. During the meals after my training, I craved the comfort and heartiness that meat brought me. Although I suffered physically and mentally, I seldom deviated from the plan. With abundant physical activity and inadequate protein, I fell ill a lot, experiencing stomach issues, persistent colds, and frequent bouts of fever. In retrospect, my current slow metabolism and below-average height might also be a consequence of that time. Slowly, I disassociated food with the feeling of care and security. Instead, I began to find these feelings in possessing a body that others liked. As the comfort I found in food shrunk, so did my weight and waist size.
Even after I looked like a "normal" kid, my bodily pursuits didn't stop as I would become insecure when my belly began to protrude after a large meal or when bits of fat started to accumulate. Fat made me anxious as I associated a traditionally desirable body with security and loving attention. Thus, I got into a constant tug of war with myself and my body. While eating food still brought joy, I would blame myself for overeating or eating things that strayed me away from the Eddie Peng body. Eating has never again been the carefree and comforting experience it once was. The stress of calories now always accompanies it.
I noticed that I was not alone in this tug-of-war. In 7th grade, I ate a lot of salads. Although I didn't enjoy it, I preferred it over other lunch options at school, such as pizza, lasagna, and fried dumplings, which made me immensely guilty afterward. Female teachers and students usually dominated the salad bar. I seldom saw male peers like me. After bumping into the same classmate at the salad bar three times in a row, I asked her if she liked eating salads. She told me, "Not really." She was eating it so she could lose some weight. I was shocked. I didn't think many other people my age stressed about their weight and body image. Over the next few days, I asked others at the salad bar whether they enjoyed eating salad. To my surprise, a good portion of them didn't and were doing it to control their weight. This made me realize that many of my peers, especially females, were in the same tug of war as me. Reflecting on my experience exploring what society saw as a desirable body on the internet and social media, these findings made sense. After all, searching for "good body shape," I couldn't find a single picture of a dude.
In 2022, during online classes, I relied on TickTok to satisfy my craving for social connections. I saw many attempts at the "from fat guy to lean bodybuilder in 100 days challenge." Many relied on cutting carbohydrates out of their diets as their final sprint to achieve "aesthetic" bodies. Seeing the praise that these content creators got when they displayed their low body fat and chiseled abs, I decided to also eliminate carbohydrates from my diet to be guilt-free and achieve a truly "desirable" body, thinking it would for sure make my mom's fans love me, and thus, make her proud of me. Seeing my body look closer to Eddie Peng's every day filled the void that eating meat used to fill. Ignoring the signals of tiredness and the multiple gastroenteritis that caused me to go to the hospital, I achieved a body fat percentage of 7% and the looks of a lean bodybuilder.
It was then that I gained the courage to participate in my mom's TikToks and a reality TV show. The criticisms I once got for being "fat and ugly" were replaced by praises of my handsomeness. I was even #1 trending on Weibo for two days in a row.
I achieved what I wanted as a kid. I got people to like me because of my appearance. My mom was now proud to show off her kid to the world. I had all the "loving" attention I wanted. However, this superficial happiness dissipated quickly. Sustaining my near-carbless diet for ~4 months, the drawbacks of maintaining such a body consumed my originally colorful life—the lack of carbs made me lethargic on the tennis court and in my day-to-day, and my low-fat storage increased my anxiety. Rather than liking the Ethan that was praised by everyone, I missed my younger self, who was healthy, carefree, and obtained genuine, unrestrained joy and comfort from food. I wanted to find that kid again.
Thus, I broke my carbless streak with a bowl of rice along with Chinese braised pork. I felt like I ascended to the heavens. Unfortunately, after the ascension, I was immediately dragged down by immense insecurity and guilt as the fear of accumulating fat returned. The thought of my mom being less proud of me and receiving less loving attention made me insecure. Despite accepting that I valued carefree happiness more than how others viewed me, I couldn't dissociate how others viewed me with happiness. How could I be happy if I thought everyone looked at me with scorn and disgust?
Instead of eating meat, maintaining an "aesthetic" body now fills the void for me. Although I still feel guilty whenever I overeat or eat food that I think will make me chubby, I constantly tell myself that my health and happiness are more important. Maybe I can only embrace food and myself if I find a way to break this void. I am searching…