The Tale of Bridget Bear

by Betsy C. B.

It was a quiet afternoon in the forest of Brie—just North of the Land ‘O Lakes—and Bridget Bear was strolling joyfully down the path that led to her home. She had stopped to inhale the fragrance of a patch of buttercups when suddenly, a rude passerby bumped into her and continued on without apologizing. This startled Bridget, as the inhabitants of the forest had always been kind, friendly folk.

Bridget turned and saw Penny Pig—a pig that had always been rather small for her species—hurrying down the path. She’s looking downright skinny these days, Bridget thought to herself, not at all healthy for a pig. Suddenly, Penny turned around and yelled at her, "You really ought to do something about your weight!" She stuck her exceedingly piggish nose in the air and walked on.

Bridget stood there, dumbfounded. My weight? She thought to herself, What’s wrong with my weight? Why, I’m exactly the right size for a bear this time of year. Maybe she thinks I’m not big enough to make it through the coming winter. It’s only early summer, but she might be right. I probably could stand to gain a kilo or two.

When Bridget arrived at her house she found a notice tacked to her front door. ‘Thin is in!’ it proclaimed. ‘Get Rid of Ugly Fat! Lose all the weight you want today! Call Penny at the Penny Pig Weight Loss Center today!’ Beneath the ad was a picture of Penny, with her cheeks and tummy sucked in, looking unnaturally thin.

Bridget read the flyer as she entered her home. "Who ever heard of such a thing?" she muttered to herself. "Why on earth would anyone try to be thin? Why, if there was a famine, or even just a poor year for nuts and berries, they’d die of starvation!" Bridget tossed the ad into the recycling bin and went into the kitchen to fix herself a nice, hot bowl of porridge (which her friend Goldilocks had taught her how to make just right).

Three weeks later, nearly everyone in the forest was dieting. Even Bridget’s closest friends, Belinda Beaver and Rachel Raccoon, had joined in. Day after day, they pressured Bridget to go to Penny Pig’s. "You just can’t be happy looking the way you do, dear," said Belinda. "Come join us at Penny’s. You’d feel so much better."

"And look better too!" chimed in Rachel.

"Besides," Belinda continued, "it’s not healthy for you to be so fat!"

Bridget didn’t understand how it could be healthier for her to be less bear-like. After all, Mother Nature herself had created Bridget and all of her kind this way, and Mother Nature was never wrong, so how could Bridget not be exactly her ‘right’ size?

Eventually, however, Bridget got tired of everyone telling her how ugly she was, so she reluctantly made an appointment at Penny’s.

At the diet center, sheep, cows, bears, chipmunks, raccoons—and even the already slender deer, cats, snakes, and weasels—formed a line that went around the barn. Penny Pig’s services were by no means free, and each of the animals had to pay a substantial fee to join. Bridget tired under the weight of the enormous jars of honey she had brought to give Penny as payment.

Once inside, Bridget was weighed and measured by two very slender weasels. She was given a small amount of rations—no nuts, just berries and dried fish—that she was told must last her the entire week. "But this is less than I usually eat in a day!" Bridget cried.

"Well, that’s exactly the point, isn’t it? You can’t expect to eat like a bear and still have the figure of a weasel, now can you?" said the thinner of the two assistants.

"Is this how you got so thin?" asked Bridget.

"Me? Why, I’ve never had to diet a day in my life. I was born this way."

"Me too." Chirped the other assistant. Bridget was really beginning to dislike these weasels.

Bridget went home depressed by the tiny amount of food she could have for the week. Still, she was determined to lose weight. Hours of ‘counseling’ at Penny Pig’s had convinced her that being fat was not only unattractive, but unhealthy. Further, she was told that slender, good-looking types shouldn’t have to endure the sight of her fat, lumbering, bear body. She was shown ‘before’ and ‘after’ pictures of lots of animals who’d successfully lost weight. At first, Bridget thought the ‘before’ pictures were far more attractive and healthy-looking, but eventually she came to understand that she was wrong.

Bridget became completely obsessed with food and constantly read cookbooks and cooking magazines and began clipping recipes she would prepare someday when she was thin and could eat everything she wanted.

She thumbed through fashion magazines like Bear-zar and Glam-bear. All of the models were frightfully thin. After weeks of diet talks at Penny’s, Bridget came to view the starved models as beautiful, and—for the first time in her life—Bridget felt ashamed of the way she looked. She didn’t see how she’d ever look like the bears in the magazines, but she was determined to try.

Bridget’s self-confidence was gone. There was no longer a spring in her girlish bear step when she walked through the forest. She cast her eyes downward, and no longer smiled.

A month later, Bridget was more miserable than ever. The lack of food made her tummy hurt something awful. One day she couldn’t stand it anymore and ate so much she could hardly move. The next day she was back on her diet, but found she couldn’t stay on it more than a week or two at a time. It was just too painful. So, she would starve herself for long periods of time, and then, she would eat large amounts of food to make up for her extreme hunger. This happened over and over again. For every four pounds of weight she lost, she gained back six or more. After several months, she was fatter than when she’d started the Penny Pig Plan—fatter, in fact, than she’d ever been in her life.

Bridget began to feel rundown and grew increasingly ill. She’d never been sick a day in her life until she began dieting. Now she seemed to catch every cold and flu that went around the forest, and, to make matters even worse, her boyfriend, Briar Bear, had broken up with her the previous week. Bridget told Rachel, "I caught him looking at Cosmo-Bear the other day. He told me how disappointed he was that I didn’t look like the models in the magazine, and then he called me a big, fat bear!" Bridget began to cry.

"The nerve of the beast!" said Rachel.

Between sobs, Bridget said, "He told me that he thought he could ‘do better’, and then walked out the door. I’m so depressed I don’t know what to do! No matter what I do I just can’t seem to lose weight! How do you do it, Rachel? You’re so slender!"

"Oh, I’ve always been one of those raccoons who could eat everything in sight and never gain weight," said Rachel. "It used to be a problem, back when we worried about survival of the species and all that, but now it’s considered more important to be thin than to survive, so it’s okay. By the way, have you tried the latest ‘Bearfast Plan’? I heard that Melinda Mountain Lion lost dozens of pounds on that."

Bridget just sighed and poured them some more tea—without honey, of course. Even my best friend thinks I need to lose weight, she thought sadly to herself.

That afternoon, Bridget and Rachel went for a walk in the forest. Along the way, they passed a group of boy-bears and raccoons who began calling to them: "Hey cutie, why don’t you ditch your fat friend and come play with us?" Rachel and Bridget tried to ignore them as they continued to shout insults at Bridget, but deep inside, Bridget was hurting terribly. She cried and cried when she got home.

She had to shutter the doors and windows to avoid hearing to all the fat jokes that the Magpies were spreading throughout the forest. Her mail was filled with ads for weight plans, written to make the reader feel badly about the way they looked. Just as she was about to throw all of her mail away, she noticed an unusual envelope. On the outside—in big, bold letters—it read: IT’S OKAY TO BE FAT! At first, she thought it was probably just a trick to get her to open the letter, so they could sell her another weight-loss product. Still, she had to read it—just in case. Bridget cautiously opened the envelope and read:

Dear Friend:

This letter is being sent to all the bears in the forest. We are writing to you today with an important message: It’s Okay to be Fat! It truly is. You are a bear. Mother Nature programmed your body to be the size it is to help you to survive those times when food is scare or when you are ill—as well as your long winters of hibernation.

Don’t listen to those who would try to tell you that you shouldn’t be exactly the size you are! If you were to get as thin as ‘they’ want you to be, you would never make it through the next cold winter. If you were too thin and there was a famine, you would die.

If you feel as we do about this—that all this dieting nonsense has to stop—please join us at the next meeting of our group, ‘Animals for Size-Acceptance’, next Sunday at Brenda Sue Beaver’s house at 2pm.

Yours Very Sincerely,

(Illustrator: insert bear’s pawprint here)

Becca Bear

Bridget went to the meeting. Becca—the one who had sent her the letter—was a wonderful speaker. She said:

"When Penny Pig and others tell you that there is something wrong with you, they are not doing it to ‘help’ you. The only thing they really want is your honey.

"It has been proven that diets just don’t work. Don’t believe anyone who tells you differently.

"Don’t listen to those who tell you that it is ‘unhealthy’ to be your size. Dieting is far more hazardous to your health. Besides, fat are actually less likely to get many illnesses and diseases—like cancer and brittle-bone disease. There are no sicknesses that only fat creatures get. Fat or thin, all animals can get the same illnesses.

"Don’t forget that it is more important who you are on the inside—that you are a good, kind, loving, and compassionate animal—and not what you look like that really matters. Beauty comes from within.

"Don’t believe those who tell you that you are ‘fat and ugly’. ‘Fat’ is not a bad word, it is just a descriptive one, like ‘thin’, ‘tall’, ‘short’, ‘black’, ‘brown’, ‘white’, or ‘red’. You wouldn’t call someone ‘ugly’ just because they were brown or tall, anymore than you—or anyone—should call an animal ‘ugly’ because they’re fat!

"Besides, fat can be beautiful! There are many bears who actually prefer big, fluffy, pudgy, round bears to thin, bony, scrawny ones."

At this comment, Bridget noticed a strikingly handsome boy bear smiling at her from across the room. Bridget smiled back at him shyly.

After the meeting, the boy bear, whose name was Brett, came over to talk with her.

"I don’t understand why anyone would choose a skinny bear for a mate," said Brett. "Historically, fat bears have always been considered the most beautiful. Just look at the great paintings of Reubens Bear." Bridget nodded and smiled contentedly.

Bridget and Brett spent the next few months having a truly wonderful time—and eating their fill of all the nuts, fish, and berries they desired. They were sure to put on enough weight beforehand to comfortably survive the long period of hibernation they would have to endure.

They were married shortly thereafter and spent the winter huddled all snuggled, side by side, in their cave.

In the Spring, they started a letter-writing campaign designed to stop all dieting in the Land ‘O Lakes and beyond. Eventually, all the diet centers in the land were banished.

A law was even drafted that said, Every animal has the right to live their life free from criticism or discrimination, regardless of their size, shape, or species.

Bridget and Brett never went hungry again. They had many chubby little bear cubs, and they all lived happily ever after.

And that’s how the size-acceptance movement began. Eventually, it even spread to a small, but dedicated, segment of the human population, who are still struggling for their rights to be accepted for who they are and not what they look like.

 

copyright © 1998, Betsy Content Bogert