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" I am not a member of Fat Liberation, nor do I think that obesity is healthy. But I do believe that in many ways my life has been a more charmed and happy one because I was always large. For one thing, my parents thought I was drop-dead gorgeous. I grew up thinking it was wonderful to be big and strong and to be able to knock down other children in the playground if I needed to. But I never felt the need.  Then, in my teens, I discovered it was not all right to be a big girl. At school, I was always the last to be picked for any kind of sports team. Once, I unwisely asked a teacher what &amp;quot;jowls&amp;quot; were. &amp;quot;Big chubby cheeks like what you have,&amp;quot; she said, not unkindly. But the name stuck: For a whole year, I was called Jowls Binchy At my first dance, nobody danced with me \u2014 nobody at all. But I didn&amp;#039;t want to disappoint my parents, so I said it was a great night. My mother knew. She said, &amp;quot;One day you&amp;#039;ll realize what&amp;#039;s important, Maeve. It will be a wonderful day.&amp;quot; It was a while arriving, that day.  I would console myself with the view expressed by one of the nuns who taught us. She said, &amp;quot;Whom the Lord loveth He also persecuteth.&amp;quot; I decided the Lord must love me hugely.  Once I went to university, things started to change. I discovered that men were just like everyone else, really. They liked you if you were good-tempered and easy to talk to. And being a big girl meant other females trusted you more, and confided in you. I realized that you didn&amp;#039;t have to make self-deprecating remarks or turn yourself into the butt of some unspoken joke. I also discovered that being big didn&amp;#039;t deter possible suitors.  When I was just over 30 and working as a journalist, I met a man so good I feared there might be some Great Obstacle somewhere, like he might already be married or have some awful problem that I would only discover later. I hardly dared to hope we would see each other again and was delighted when we became friends.  One day he invited me to go to lunch in France, which was very romantic, and he told me that he thought I was the one for him. I let my glass of wine fall on the floor, I was so shocked. My confidence left me for a moment, and I regressed back to those tortured teenage years.  &amp;quot;But aren&amp;#039;t I a bit...well...a bit chubby to be The One?&amp;quot; I asked.  He looked at me bewildered. And soon I became bewildered myself. What had that got to do with anything when you loved someone? I might never have had this great understanding, and 30 years of a very happy marriage, had I been a petite little girl. I would have had cheekbones, of course, which would have been nice, but I prefer the sense of ease and comfort that has made a happy life happier still. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/inspirational-stories/a12134/maeve-binchy-overweight-may07/>