Instead of a plan of action, I walked out of that nutritionist’s office with a bundle of humiliation and a new layer of shame

My dream of creating beautiful clothing for every size had started years before, when I was a high school girl shivering on the scale in a nutritionist’s office.

“You need to lose weight,” the nutritionist told me, her lips pursed in disgust.

I stepped off the scale and slipped my shoes back on, not bothering to look at the number on the scale screen. Whatever it was, I knew it was big — too big for an 11th-grade girl who wanted to look good and fit in.

“You’re going to graduate high school soon and then start dating,” the nutritionist continued. “Unless you get skinnier, who is going to want to marry you?” She shook her head side to side. “I can’t imagine that someone will want to marry you like this.”

I bit my lip and blinked back the tears. Didn’t she know that I knew I was overweight? How would making me feel worse help me?

I’d never been a skinny kid, but over the winter of 11th grade, I started gaining even more weight.

“The buttons on my skirt are too tight,” I told my mother a few months into the school year.

She sighed and called up a local nutritionist to make an appointment. “We’re going to help you through this phase,” my mother reassured me.

But instead of a plan of action, I walked out of that nutritionist’s office with a bundle of humiliation and a new layer of shame. I was an embarrassment to anyone who knew me. No one would ever want to marry me. In a world that considers marriage to be a prize — and the only one — I would never amount to much. Was there any hope for me?