The Story of a Fat Little Girl

By Suzanne Heller

Copyright 1966

I distinctly remember receiving this book as a gift when I was quite young.  I was old enough to read it by myself, and old enough to understand how sad this book is.  

It is a simple story.  A little girl is teased because she is fat.  Her clothes all say “chubby” on the label.  She didn’t fit in a chair very well and when someone took a photo, she couldn’t entirely fit in the picture.  She wasn’t very good at games like hide-and-seek because she always stuck out.  She knew she was fat and it hurt her feelings to be called names.  One day, she decided to go on a diet and start exercising.  She said no to cake and candy and she practiced touching her toes and doing deep knee bends.  After a while, she began to see changes.  Her chubby clothes began to get too big.  She got thinner and thinner until eventually, nobody made fun of her any more.

I always thought this book was sad.  Why did that little girl feel she had to change the way she looked to get people to like her?  However, if the book ended here, it wouldn’t be so bad.  After all, the little girl took control of her health, and now she could run and play with the other children.

But the worst part of all is that the book doesn’t end here.  Because now that the other children stopped making fun of the formerly fat little girl, they started making fun of another girl who was very tall.   

And the closing line of the book:  “Sometimes people can be very mean.”  

  
That poor tall girl.  Unlike the first girl, she can’t do a thing about her height.  No diet or exercise will change that.  So how about instead of forcing people to change until they are just like us, we instead accept them for who they are?