Cindy writes:

A cosmetic surgeon’s prescription: If you want to ‘enjoy your youth,’ lose weight.

I’m one of those lucky women whose body image problems were passed down through the women in her family.

I’ll skip the details, and get to the meat of my story.

At 23, I had breast reduction surgery. I never had problems exercising, never had back pain. I just had large breasts. My mother — who is heavy and large-breasted — finally convinced me that I should have a reduction surgery. I guess she thought it was the only thing that might make me look slimmer.

I’ve been heavy since adolescence. (The heaviest I’ve ever been is 164, but to my family, that means you’re “a cow.” I am under five feet tall, I should say.) Anyway, I expected the doctor to tell me he wouldn’t do the surgery until I lost X amount of pounds. He didn’t. He cleared me. He told me the reduction would improve my mobility and keep me free of back pain. Basically, the surgery would be good for my health.

At a post surgery check up, the surgeon ended my appointment with a stern moral lecture about my weight. He didn’t feed me any crap about my health. I have low cholesterol, low blood pressure and a robust immune system. I’d come through the surgery great and only needed pain medication for one day after surgery.

His concern? He didn’t say it outright, but his concern is that no man would ever want to sleep with me. He actually told me how great his life was because he was trim (Yeah, dude, your life isn’t great because you are filthy rich, have a yacht and a medical degree. Yeah, your weight is responsible for that endless supply of sex-ready vixens you have on speed dial!) He took my parents money, did the boob job and told me I was too ugly to screw. Nice. (I have to say my once beautiful breasts were disfigured permanently from the reduction. They are oddly shaped, I have keloid scars and have lost feeling is portions of my breasts.) If I could go back, I’d cancel the surgery.

Even though I was enjoying my youth plenty (as in having regular, rather exuberant sex with another girl — I had the broken coffee table to prove it) this made me feel like a leper. I sat in my car and bawled, and never went back.

Fast forward 14 years. I now have a family doctor who isn’t fat-phobic and doesn’t prescribe weight loss for every little thing. I refer all my friends to him.

I’m still “enjoying” my relative youth.

Miss my large breasts, though.