What a Difference a Day Makes: I was seven when I realised people were judging my body
Pia Zain describes being told, as a seven-year-old, that she was “too overweight” for ballet lessons. She talks about her lifelong struggle with weight issues — and about the many positive and pivotal moments that led to her today being comfortable with who she is
Pia Zain: "I’ve become very intentional and thoughtful about what gives me joy — sea-swimming, spending time with my goddaughter, being in nature. I live in my body now, in the present." Pictures: Dan Linehan
When I was seven, the professional ballet company in Washington DC where I was doing dance lessons said I could no longer attend — I wasn’t thin enough. They said: “There needs to be an arch in her back when she lies down, where you could put a stick through. She’s too overweight so you can’t.”
My mother was furious. I felt sad and very embarrassed. All my friends were going on to the next level. And I felt shame. It was the first time I realised people —strangers — were looking at my body, judging it.
A year or two later, my mother enrolled me in a university centre for children with obesity. I was put on a regime. I was weighed every week, had to eat specific foods, do certain exercises. I didn’t hate it… but I didn’t like the idea of being singled out for a particular issue that was my body.
From those two experiences, I created a coping mechanism — I was charismatic, smart, funny. I leaned on those to try to hide what I felt was a very obvious deficiency. I was very much able to put a public face on… that I was normal, even though I didn’t feel normal inside.
So I’d be the life and soul of the party — cooking for all my friends — but I’d never push myself forward to be noticed by a boy. I held back from potential intimate situations.
My childhood was in the ’70s and ’80s, not a very politically correct time. There were lots of fat jokes on TV, also an absence of people like me, who are in a larger body, in the media.
I went on to have a very multi-faceted career. I was a theatre producer in Malaysia, a journalist. In South Africa I got involved in human and gender rights issues.
Pia Zain: "I loved Ireland, I loved the welcoming-ness, and I stayed…"
When I was 39, my godmother — very rich — asked me a question nobody had ever asked me: “If you could do anything in your life, what would you do?” She didn’t want me to think about it — just to say what I’d do. So I said I would cook. And she gave me a challenge: “You cook for a year, do it any way you want, and if, at the end of the year, you find this is where your soul resides, I’ll send you to any cooking school in the world.”
It terrified me. I’d been in therapy and I told my therapist: “This really scares me… if I admit to people I love food and I’m interested in food, they’ll realise I’m fat.” She said to me, with the greatest gentleness: “Pia, people already know that.” In many ways, it was a very freeing moment.
I took up the challenge. I cooked, blogged, created a website where I posted recipes I was cooking. I went to Ballymaloe Cookery School in 2011. It was life-changing — meeting a tribe of people, whether in larger or smaller bodies, who all had the constant stream of thinking about food that I had. And they were joyous about it. Being in Ballymaloe was very much about celebrating natural foods. For me, it was a much healthier way of looking at food. It was a very joyous time. I loved Ireland, I loved the welcoming-ness, and I stayed…
I do social media work for an Irish trad band, Cork-based. One day, after a session in a hotel, I went to the bar to pay for my coffee. Written on the bill was ‘the fat woman with the band’. That moment was devastating. I was embarrassed… not just for myself but for the band. I felt this negativity reflected on them — they were hanging out with this ‘fat woman’. Of course, they’d never felt this — it was internal to me.
That moment clarified that I needed to change something in my life. Not just losing weight, I needed to have a shift in my mind about who I was…
I’m allergic to standing up in a group and being weighed. I was looking for something different.
I read about Beyondbmi — a medically led, digital weight-management clinic. In December 2023, in my 50s by now, I thought ‘If I don’t try, I won’t know,’ so I signed up.
The most important thing has been the empathy, kindness, and sense of empowerment I’ve met, be it from the doctor, dietician, or health coach. They’ve taught me to mirror that compassion to myself. It’s been life-changing. I told my health coach: “I’m sick of feeling guilty for eating a Malteser.” The response was: ‘Have a Malteser, enjoy, but be conscious of what you’re doing — don’t just do it blindly.”
It has been a year of challenging myself to do things differently. I started sea-swimming. It took months for me to go. I go with this amazing group of women on a Sunday, no matter the weather. That’s a huge shift. To be rooted and conscious of what I’m doing has flowed into all aspects of my life, whether it’s keeping my house clean or making proper choices for my body. I’ve become very intentional and thoughtful about what gives me joy — sea-swimming, spending time with my goddaughter, being in nature. I live in my body now, in the present.
Pia Zain struggled with weight issues throughout her life. She says the Beyondbmi programme — beyondbmi.ie — has given her tools to interact with food and the “disease of obesity” more positively.
