How to Destroy Someone’s Sense of Worth from Childhood On…

Photo by Susan Wilkinson on Unsplash

When I was a “preteen” I was fat, I’d been fat since I was 8. Being fat in the late 1950s and living in a lower middle-class family was not the recipe for psychological growth and self-esteem.

I knew that eating less and exercising might help me lose weight. But my parents pushed the “clean your plate” mantra — after living through the Great Depression. My younger…