Pineapple Shaming

To be friends or not be—what fat brings out in people around food.

The summer of 1995 was a pivotal point in my life. I was twenty-nine years old, just had a baby, which had me regain a lot of the weight I’d lost, setting me back sixty pounds. I now weighed 320 pounds, and was short of breath going up the smallest flight of stairs. I decided to spend that summer in Paris, as a pilgrimage to introduce my daughter to everyone, immerse, remember, and spend time with the people of my childhood.

I organized a dinner for my Parisian friends. Some I’d known forever, some I’d worked with, some I’d dated before, and one I wanted to date now. They had in common that I loved them; they were my peeps when I was in town.

We were meeting at the trendy restaurant newly opened by filmmaker Luc Besson; it was impossible to get a table but mom was friendly with the maître d’ and got us in. The chandelier in the lobby was possibly the largest ever made; the Rothko on the wall, the most expensive painting I’d seen outside a museum; and the net worth in the room probably exceeded that of a small country.

Their dress code was “I’m rich,” mine, “I’m fat.” Although, now that I shopped in California, I’d upgraded from corduroys.

These dinners were strategic; my trips were short, and I wanted to optimize my time. Tonight, I’d asked my best friend Varda to come early, so we could have a moment; Mom had introduced us after meeting her at a garden party, and was right to think she was my kind of people. Florence was second to arrive; she was studying architecture, and had just met the man who’d become her husband. Matt was next, he dated models but loved spending time with me; he was handsome and I loved spending time with him. Arnaud was my editor at the magazine for which I wrote. He’d done a workshop to reconnect with his masculine self, chopping wood, shirtless in a forest. I liked that, I liked him — liked him, liked him. I’d never told, and he’d never guessed. I was single. Maybe tonight?

Last came Valerie, new to my inner circle; I’d met her while waiting for the elevator in my parent’s building, and by the time we landed in the lobby, we’d planned tea. She was bored out of her mind with her plastic surgeon husband and looking for a therapist. I knew a few; I could help. We had a lovely tea, so I included her in the dinner.

Those years, I had a double identity: In my Californian life, I was a mid-size-obese person, surrounded by more morbid ones, and shit was going my way, and I was a young mother, and a successful correspondent for a trendy magazine. Back in Paris, around such thin and rich people, I was a full-size-obese person, failing to fix my life. I felt like an oversized nothing-on-legs.

The way I perceived myself was very affected by how my friends held me in their minds. If they thought less of me, I thought less of me; and vice versa. To extract myself from their dysfunctional beliefs required the same force it would take to lift a rocket off the ground. My eating practices were so erratic in my twenties, that when dining out, they would customarily ask if I was going to order steamed veggies, no butter; or appetizer, entrée, dessert + dessert. That’s why I’d left the country; the distance helped — even if they didn’t intend to hurt me, it hurt anyway.

I ranked my people by their level of acceptance — or judgment — of my gastronomical routines. Those with whom I could eat freely, and those I would meet for lunch after already having had lunch; so I would be congratulated for eating so lightly. Tonight, I was with my safe group; I could eat in front of them. But, still, I felt the need to justify, “I haven’t had lunch, I can eat whatever, I’m on vacation, I’ll get back on my diet in LA,” I said, stringing excuses together real fast.

My desire for food was like a furious horse. Once out, there was no stopping it. Only years later, did I grasp the concept that I had to manage it before I took it out of the barn and not try to rein it in when already galloping a million miles an hour.

The menu included five of my ultimate favorite dishes: Foie Gras, gratin Dauphinois, cassoulet, sole drowned in butter, and seven-hour lamb. I wanted all of them. Tonight, the horse was unquestionably out, and there was no stopping it. I ordered all of my dishes family-style, so I could sample them all. My next move was to help myself without anyone noticing I was eating more than my share. I was either good at the subterfuge, or my friends were kind enough not to comment. I went beyond satiation that night. The food did not disappoint.

“I get why it takes weeks to get a table here,” Arnaud said. “This is the best meal I’ve had in a long time.”

We all hummed and rubbed our bellies.

Varda, Matt, Florence, Arnaud and Valerie were getting along famously. Minutes into the meal, people were finding out they’d gone to school with each-others’ sisters, could help each other find jobs, had gone to the same vacation spots, and belonged to the same gyms. The mood at the table was delicious.

“Maybe we should all meet on our bikes next Sunday and brunch afterwards,” Varda said.

An excited murmur could be heard around the table as people agreed and looked forward to another shared culinary adventure.

 “Will you be having dessert?” our waitress asked, listing options. “Chocolate profiteroles, or lava cake, peach cobbler, or bananas with rum and vanilla ice cream.”

Everyone was wondering if they had room for a little more; if maybe they’d share some cake — the kind with chocolate melted yummy goo on the inside.

I don’t touch processed sugar, so I tuned out while they were debating. Sugar is a drug for me, no question. If I eat a little, I want a lot. I look at sugar the way I look at cigarettes: not good for me. “Come on, have just a little bit of cake,” friends will often say on my birthday.” Ummm, no — I don’t have just a little bit of cocaine. Sugar is a line I don’t cross.

Except once, years into my sugar-sobriety, my beloved cat Obsidian had died, and I did not know how — or want— to deal with the spirit-collapse that occurred as I held him and watched the needle go in. I wanted to crawl out of my body straight into a jar of Nutella. And I did. Four days in a row, interrupted by an abnormal quantity of baths and naps.

My body got so sick. After three days, shivering and sweating, I heard an inner prayer from my liver, “Please stop, I’m begging you, stop.” And I did — for the very last time.

Sugar is not a reward; it’s a punishment, a curse, a slow descent into hell, where I no longer feel in charge of my own body. I become an obsessive junkie, able to do nothing but think about my next fix; my skin itches and my thoughts become jumbled; my fingers tremble — pretty much from my first bite.

Hearing that I was off sugar, our waitress returned to the table with one last offer.

“We also have pineapple,” she added. “They say it’s good for you. It burns fat.”

“Then bring two for Sophie,” said my new “friend” Valerie, for the whole table to hear.

My blood froze. Had she just said that? My anger rose, giving me a taste of metal in the back of my mouth. Erasing instantly the flavors of this delicious meal; food and friendship — all of it, gone.

“I would love some pineapple,” Matt said, in an effort to rescue me.

“That sounds delicious,” I said, keeping my cool. I was a pro at dissimulating my shame in all embarrassing situations. I’d mastered that skill, witnessing Mom having to remain stoic in the face of dad’s incessant sexual inappropriateness; as if her life depended on it — because, perhaps, it did. 

I knew I was paying a price for using that skill even when I was younger. In the name of being polite and saving face, I didn’t react honestly and that made me a fraud. By pretending to be unaffected by Valerie’s cruelty, I was subscribing to the collective assumption that fat people are fair targets.

“Yes,” I said. “Bring pineapple for the whole table.”

Valerie, by now, realized that she’d shamed me in front of my tribe; particularly Arnaud, the guy I was closing in on. To regain my equilibrium, I feigned a need to go to the bathroom; Valerie feigned an emergency and left. By the time I returned to the table, she was gone — I was glad, there was nothing gracious I could say to her.

When I sat back down, Matt and I looked at each other with the sweet compassion we fat people recognize as, “I see you, I feel you, you’re okay.” Matt had been a fat teenager, and these scars don’t go away.

“Four servings of pineapple, on the house,” our waitress said with a big smile.

She was a curvy girl, she’d seen what’d happened; her offering was probably one of empathy. I was very moved by all their attempts to make me feel better, although it made me feel broken; their sympathy wouldn’t have been necessary, had I not been fat.

The issue of people making comments about weight is complex. A few years later, in LA, I was meeting my friend Heide for lunch, and noticed when I got there that she’d lost a considerable amount of weight.

“Is everything okay, you’re looking really skinny?” I asked.

“Imagine if I’d walked up to you, and said, ‘Soph, you’re looking really fat, is everything okay?’” she said, kindly but firmly, making me swallow my own medicine.

Point taken. In that very instant, images of that night came flooding back: Valerie, four servings of fat-burning pineapple, my walk of shame to the bathroom, friends and waitresses trying to rescue me, and Arnaud not taking me home.

I apologized to Heide and proceeded to share my pineapple story. We smiled, appreciating we had similar torments when we were kids, even if they took different shapes. Being skinny or obese removes everything that makes a woman’s body, a woman’s body. Our fathers had the same — non-existent — boundaries; we just coped differently.

I never hung with Valerie again; but when I encounter pineapple, it reminds me not to spend time with unkind people.