Moose: A Memoir of Fat Camp
When her doctor told her to gain 50 pounds during her pregnancy, Stephanie Klein found herself recalling all the “insecurity, awkwardness, disappointment and embarrassment” of being an “overweight child” and of a youth spent fighting it. Even during the summers, when other children were free to just play, she was sent to fat camp. Through her sometimes funny and sometimes sad memoir, Klein recounts those days, realizing that everybody shares these feelings growing up, and it’s not just about size. In the end, she learns to love herself for who she is and what she does, not what she weighs. Daring to face your worst feelings and loving yourself anyway? We think that’s part of what being a Torrid diva is all about.

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You’re writing about some very embarrassing moments. Was it just that you wanted to reach out to other women? What was it that prompted you to write about these things?
I wanted be true to my own experience and what I went through. I have these diary entries that I really wrote when I was 12, 13, 14 years old. That was my own experience. That was what was going on in my head. I think that a lot of people beat themselves up and are really hard on themselves the same way that I was. Maybe they put on a brave front. Maybe they don’t want to admit it, but I think it’s a very human thing, self-doubt, having those moments. I can understand how people might read the book and say, “Oh, it’s so self-loathing.” Really, it’s about, [how] we all have those moments of self-loathing and telling your brain to slap your emotions, get them on track, and be like, get with it! Don’t sit there feeling sorry for yourself. Do something! Do the best you can with what you’re given, and don’t try to conform and be like everyone else. That was why I put it all out there and shared some embarrassing moments. I think they’re universal. I think we all have them and it’s not the end of the world. It’s something that, eventually, you can laugh about.


What made you want to approach Torrid, in particular, to sell this book?
When I was of that age, in the ’80s, there wasn’t any movement of “good self-esteem,” of feeling good about who you are. There was no Torrid when I was there. It [made me angry]. It sucked. I hated that I was “the fat girl.” I didn’t have the tools to feel good about myself, to feel confident and love myself for who I was. When I walked through my local mall here in Texas, and I saw Torrid, I was like, oh, my god! This is the best thing ever! I want to talk to Torrid. I think that it’s so important, and I wish that there were Torrids when I was growing up because I was made to feel ashamed. Everything from my own father telling me, “No one likes a fat girl” and that “No one’s gonna like you if you’re [fat].” The emphasis was never on who I was as a person. It was always about what I looked like, and I was told what I looked like was bad. The last thing I want is for my kids or anyone to feel that way about themselves. I am genuinely a huge fan of Torrid. When you guys came to the mall here, I was so excited. I absolutely love Torrid and want to stand for it. Anything I can do to help change perceptions.


Do you think if Torrid had been around when you were younger, it would have changed the way you felt about yourself because you would have felt fashionable?
Yeah. I wouldn’t have felt like a freak having to wear my dad’s clothes. I had to cut the labels out of his clothes, the sizes written on the back of the pants, but they fit correctly. I think it does hold you back because, when we all feel our best, let’s say, when you get your hair blown out, you get your nails done, you feel pretty. You feel clean. And it’s important to always do the best with what you have, to feel good about where you are now. I think too many people get wrapped up in what I call the “someday syndrome.” Whether it’s someday, when I make more money, or, someday, when I don’t live with my parents, or, someday, when I’m thinner, then I’ll be happy. It never ever, ever works out that way. It just doesn’t. I show that in Moose. Moose isn’t this book where I just lost weight and now I’m pretty and everybody loves me. That’s not what it’s about. It’s about [asking] how can I make myself the happiest and the best that I’m capable of being now? I think that if Torrid were around, I’d be even more of a rock star!


It seemed that you wanted to point out that everybody has body-image issues, everybody has stuff that they don’t like about themselves.
Oh, yeah. It’s not just about the fat girl. First of all, everyone gets made fun of on one level or another. I mean, there are people who don’t like their bodies because they’re too thin. Everyone has these fashion faux pas that they’re afraid that they’re going to make. It’s not about, necessarily, what size you are. Everyone has it. The kid with the mustache growing up. Everyone’s got their thing that they’re made fun of [for]. You know what? That’s not what defines me. I have a lot of different things that make up who I am. I think women, in general, in society, are made to feel a certain way, and I want to challenge that. I even wrote in my blog about watching a movie, and the biggest insult they could come up with is, “One day, you’ll grow up to be old and fat.” That’s always one of the adjectives in there as this horrible thing to become. Like leprosy or something. I love life very much. I think it’s important to be healthy so that you live a long time, but I also believe that it’s important to live life with gusto and to enjoy it—enjoy every part of it.


What was the experience of writing the book like?
I’ll tell you, one of the hardest parts of writing the book was how much of my adult self to interject into the book. There are things that happened to me when I was younger that, now, as an adult, I want to show the reader, uh, hi, I’m not OK with that. I want to stop the reader from judging me. It’s not what I feel now. It’s what I felt then. The other hard thing about writing it is thinking, what is my mother going to think? I write about things I think my parents didn’t handle all that well. I’m saying it very openly. I’ve said it to them in person, so they knew it was coming. I think that the book is very honest, and it’s honest about how I felt about myself as a person. I write about how, then, it wasn’t necessarily my weight that people had a problem with. Maybe it was who I was. I was so dead set on trying to change their minds, trying to make them like me. Now I realize that not everybody has to like me, has to love me. I’m OK with that. I think that’s the difference. But it’s an honest thing. Even as adults, we all want to be liked. We all want to be loved. We all want to be accepted. But you know what? This is who I am. In my blog, I get a lot of feedback that’s like, “[Too much information.] No guy is ever going to want to marry you if he reads all this stuff about you.” I said, wait! Wait a minute. You want me to stop being who I am and stop being true to what I want to do for some guy who might exist out there? The guy that I find will like me for who I am, just the way I am. And that’s the way it’s going to be. And then, of course, I met my husband through my blog. He read all about me, who I was. He was like, “I love you!”


What was the editing process like?
I knew that, structurally, I liked the idea of starting it with my adult self and going back to these huge flashbacks of my childhood, then coming full circle. What was a challenge was which stories to include, which not to, and how. Originally, I tried writing the childhood part chronologically, so that the things that were happening at, say, the pool at North Hills, I had that happening before I went to camp, because that’s how I lived it. Then, when I read it, it [didn’t] work that way. I needed those as flashbacks to emphasize what was going on that time at camp. It was a hard balance, trying not to lose the reader as [I did] flashbacks. A reader, someone who’s trying to write a book, asked me recently, “How do you write all those things knowing your parents are going to read it?” I told them to write it as if no one is going to read it. Then let it sit and go back to it. I ended up leaving almost everything in. There was one part I took out about my mother and her family because it’s not really my story to tell. Other than that, everything else I kept. I think when we’re honest with ourselves, completely, that’s what gives you an emotional reaction. [The reader says], “Yeah, I totally know. I get that. I feel that.” Even embarrassing stuff like [the time] I was obsessed with boobs. People read that and they’re like, “I don’t understand. Is she a lesbian?” I think it’s a normal obsession for girls to have growing up. I think it’s perfectly normal. I think it’s [good] to know other people feel these things.


There’s definitely a sense that you missed out on a lot of childhood things due to this constant concern over your weight. Do you ever wonder what else you might have accomplished if the focus weren’t so much on your weight?
I think that I was always trying to prove myself. I spent a great amount of energy doing things that I thought would make other people like me more instead of things that I wanted to do. Like, I loved drama growing up, singing and musicals. But I was discouraged from it because I felt like you could never be the lead when you’re the fat girl. I never had enough self-esteem to try things. I do regret that I put so much energy into fear—fear of being judged, fear of being criticized. I think that I did miss out on a lot of good things. There’s a part in the book where I wrote about how I finally got the courage to dive off the high board of the country club pool. It was this amazing moment. I couldn’t have been happier, and it was all sort of darkened when the woman standing at the side couldn’t pull me out of the pool. [My weight] influenced every single aspect of my life in a negative way. That sucks! Too many people let that be a determining factor in their lives and let it stop them from doing what they’re destined to do.


Was there one thing, one opportunity from childhood, that you would really like to have again?
Gosh, there were so many! I will say that I was never so heavy that I was turned away from a ride at an amusement park, but I do remember feeling that even the simple things, such as going on the seesaw at a playground, I couldn’t do. You’d have to pile up three or four kids on the other side. For me, it was simple things like that. Like the whole pay-what-you-weigh thing at the restaurant [mentioned in her blog]. Constantly, I couldn’t even enjoy family holidays. My grandmother was always taking my food away, wanting to diet for me.


Weight is obviously an issue throughout your childhood and adulthood; why did you choose that first trip to Camp Yanisin as the focus of your book?
Because that was where it all started for me. First of all, I’m sent away to fat camp because, quite frankly, there [was] something wrong with me, according to the world and to my parents, and they want to fix me. They have me take this “before” picture and they tell me not to smile because, “It’s your before picture and you’re fat, and you’re not supposed to be happy about that. You’re happy at the end of the summer when you’re thinner. Then you can smile.” What kinda [nonsense] is that? I’m sorry, but that’s not cool. That’s not a cool message to be sending, that you shouldn’t be happy with who you are. Remembering those things and having the benefit of my adult insight, I wanted to show the contrast, [show] how much growing you can do.


It seemed like such a painful thing to return home, to be thinner, look more like what was expected of you, only to have your schoolmates treat you the same way as before.
I wanted to make that clear. It’s not just about the world [being] cruel to fat kids and nice to thin ones. When I [came] home and I [was] on the thinner side, people [were] still mean to me. It was more about who I was as a person, and maybe I needed to work on that too. You know what? It’s still the same as an adult. I still get comments. I still get fat remarks on my blog. I still get, “The babies have been born now; you shouldn’t have that double chin.” What I think is, that says a lot about who they are, about their issues.


Do you think that’s how you came to realize that everybody’s life has static? When you realized that what they were being critical of you for were really things that they were critical of about themselves?
Oh, absolutely! I write about this as well in the book, and in my blog, the whole idea of what we are so loud about not liking, what we’ll attack someone about, it’s usually something we can’t stand within ourselves. I write about how when I was young, even though I was obese, I learned to be prejudiced against fat people, even though I was one of them. I had that in my head. [Now I know] people who are picking on me, it’s their own insecurities.


Some of the most poignant points of the book happen toward the end, as you’re entering your adult life, and starting to think about what kind of mother you’re going to be. Having become a mother yourself, you write that these are things you don’t want to repeat with your own children.
I want to be that role model for my children. I’m going to tell them mommy is beautiful and you are beautiful and that is the answer.


Do you still find yourself obsessing over their weight or over what they eat?
No, no, thankfully, no. I don’t want to screw up my kids. But now I realize, whatever. I give them cookies. I believe in balance, but I’m not a nut. I believe in everything in moderation. I believe in enjoying. I cook big meals for my family. That’s how I want to live life, and I want my kids to live their lives with passion.


Do you think that you’ve overcome the feeling that your value is so closely tied to your appearance?
Absolutely. And the way I did it was I literally wrote down all the things my body has done for me, the places it’s gone. Giving birth, yes, but [also] swimming two lengths of the pool underwater, doing all of these things with my body. When I’d look at my body, I’d say, you know what? You’ve done a lot for me. I look at my body as a car, as a vehicle for who I am. I say, here’s what you’ve done for me; here’s what I’m going to do back to make you [my body] happy. I’m going to exercise. I’m going to move. I’m going to try to take care of it so that I can do more stuff with it. When I’m able to separate it like that and see [my body] as a vehicle, I’m able to not have it so closely wrapped around my identity. I’m able to stop seeing myself as the fat girl or the imperfect girl. Yeah, I’ve got this body and look at all it’s done for me. I’m a phenomenal person and I have a lot going for me. That’s where I focus. Then I’m really able to say, it’s who you are inside, what you do, how you help people and what you stand for.


What is it you really want your reader to get out of this book?
First of all, not to judge a book by its cover. Just because it has the name Moose on it, it’s not this hey-fat-girl book. I’m trying to fight the stereotypes that are out there. I hate the idea, and you see it on talk shows all the time, that you must be miserable because you’re fat. You must be trying to stuff a hole in your life. It’s just not the case. The thinnest I’ve ever been in my life, I was a miserable psycho. Then the times I’ve been most at peace with myself, generally just happy and everything is going along well, [I was heavier]. I don’t want people to get turned off by [my moments self-loathing]. I hope people give it enough of a chance to realize that that’s not the message in the end. It’s about recognizing who you are and who you want to be and to be confident with what you’ve got. You only live once. Because, one day, I promise, you’ll look back on who you are now and you’ll say, “Why didn’t I realize how awesome I was?” That is key. When you’re easier in your own skin and you’re confident, you make a difference in the world. You do positive things and you’re easier to be around. Don’t let other people tell you who you think you are. At the end of the book, I do come to the conclusion that we see ourselves so much more harshly than others see us and that [you often] come across a great, passionate, amazing woman that you know—whether you see her on TV, whether she’s the girl next door—and you say, “God, she’s so amazing!” And she can be plus-size, she can be a fat girl. Whatever! If we can see ourselves as successful, we’ll be successful.


About the Author
A foodie who sometimes abuses hair care products, Stephanie Klein is an author and one of the Internet’s most popular blogging mistresses, with more than 400,000 readers a month visiting her blog, Greek Tragedy. Her writing has been published internationally in the UK, Europe, India, Australia, Japan and China to name a few. Klein’s photography is on permanent exhibit in New York’s Hotel Gansevoort, while she lives with her husband and twins in Austin, Texas. Her first memoir, Straight Up and Dirty, is currently in development as a half-hour comedy series.