The One Time My Obesity Worked In My Favor

“You can get the vaccine because of obesity.” This is what my mother texted me moments after New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced on Feb. 5 that anyone with a number of comorbidities was eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine, including having a body mass index (BMI) of 30 kg/m2 or higher.

Of course it would be my mom to tell me. She doesn’t live in New York state, but she has been a close observer of my body size since I was born premature and placed in an incubator. That was probably the last time in my life I was small; she put me on my first diet when I was about 4 years old. Needless to say, that toddler diet didn’t exactly work — here I am, four decades later, obese in the eyes of the medical establishment.

The health care system is not easy on fat people. Anyone who is even a little bit overweight has surely had the experience of seeing a doctor for something completely unrelated — such as a pap smear or, in my experience, a broken ankle — and gotten a lecture about how they should really lose 20 or 50 or 100 pounds, as if dieting were a suggestion no fat person had ever before considered. It came as a complete surprise that the medical system that had shamed me for so many years was allowing me to get an early vaccine, in effect jumping the line. I flashed back to a day in middle school where a popular girl whose locker was next to mine was suspiciously nice to me. I basked in the attention until I realized she just wanted me to do her math homework.

I texted my mom back that I’d look into the vaccines and took the conversation to a more friendly venue: a Zoom coffee date with two plus-size friends. “Are you going to get the fatccine?” I asked. They were, at least as soon as they could find an available opening. If I got an early vaccine appointment, I thought, excited but cautious, maybe this would be the first time that being obese would actually work in my favor.

A few days later, the clinic where my primary care doctor practices emailed that they were offering the Moderna vaccine to current patients. I lucked out with an appointment for the following week. When I came for my shot, I was prepared to step on a scale and prove my weight, or show the history of asthma that would also qualify me. I didn’t have to do any of that. Maybe it’s because my chart was on file, maybe because I had signed vaccine paperwork attesting my eligibility, or maybe it’s just that obvious I’m obese.

I got my first dose and waited the requisite 15 minutes to make sure I didn’t have any immediate reactions. There were about half a dozen people in the room with me. Some were seniors. Others could have been health care workers, or maybe they were immunocompromised, I thought. I wondered if they didn’t have to ask themselves how I qualified for the vaccine.

“It’s worth checking out to see if you’re eligible,” I say, and leave it at that.

Obesity has always felt like my body betraying me. It got in the way of my desire to be a normal size, and of my parents’ expectations for what a healthy daughter should look like. But even when I tried to dabble in a more self-accepting and positive outlook — telling myself I had a sexy, womanly body, or venting about the stringent standards of beauty — I blamed my failure to love how I looked on my obesity, too. The tragic part of this struggle is that it’s all out in the open. I can’t hide it even if I wanted it to. For me to be at the highest possible “normal” weight — BMI 25 or below — I would have to weigh 158 pounds at 5-foot-7. I’ve weighed that before, when I had an eating disorder through high school and college. I wore a size 6.

Getting that first shot of the vaccine didn’t radically alter how I felt about myself — how could it? — but it was a moment of joy and relief. For the first time in a year, I didn’t worry about the possibility of contracting the virus and dying from it. This time, my size worked in my favor. Still, when I told a couple friends I got the vaccine, I downplayed the weight part and mentioned my asthma. I didn’t post it on social media because I didn’t want to highlight my weight. Nor did I want to deal with people thinking I had gotten to jump the line because of it. Either way, I felt sheepish.

But I also want everyone I care about to get the vaccine as soon as they can. So I’ve been attempting to gently tell friends who I think might qualify without telling them they’re obese, taking a different tack than my mother’s. Usually I start by saying that I got the vaccine because I have a BMI of over 30, and that while BMI is a poor measure of health, that a lot of people might be surprised to find out they qualify. “It’s worth checking out to see if you’re eligible,” I say, and leave it at that.

Instead of talking a lot about weight, I tell people about the overwhelming relief I finally felt when I had gotten my shot. Getting vaccinated has made me feel like a real sense of normalcy is imminent. Indoor dining. Movie theaters. Maybe even a trip somewhere warm? I am spending the next three weeks until my second shot dreaming about palm trees, gulping glasses of white wine by a pool, art deco hotels, swimsuit shopping, and ordering at least one Cuban sandwich every day. It’s a fantasy that felt completely off-limits for the last year. Now, it feels so very nearly within reach.