She faced 'constant harassment' over her weight in high school — until a comment by lunch lady 'literally' saved her
It is easy to be the one making careless remarks about someone's looks and appearance. However, if you stop to think and put yourself in their shoes, the pain and hurt will feel like a deep wound. Body shaming does not only cause physical embarrassment. It affects the very being of a person and has the power to destroy their self-image. A woman named Lexi Dowdy faced a similar horrible reality during her teenage years, per TODAY. She came across the most unruly "fat" comments in her school that broke her heart.
When she lost all hope and was on the verge of giving up, a random message from the lunch lady at her school cafeteria changed everything. “A big group of guys would moo at me in the hallways and everybody would just stare. Being fat was the worst thing you could be when I was growing up. It was constant harassment,” Dowdy recalled. She explained that she began hating the idea of looking at mirrors because she no longer liked what she saw. “I’d go to bed at night and pray that I wouldn’t wake up. My self-esteem was nonexistent. I hated everything about myself,” she remarked.
In her video on TikTok, she shared, “I felt like the ugliest f**king person alive. I couldn’t see anything beautiful about me.” Dowdy then spoke about the lunch lady at her school and mentioned that she would never forget her “till the day I die.” “She made my day so many times, but I will never forget the first time she made my day,” she said. Dowdy recalled, “I was getting in line to have my wrap made and she looked at me and exclaimed loudly, ‘Oh my God, you have the most beautiful skin! Are you Scandinavian?’” She noted that it was the first time she ever “felt beautiful."
"I remember looking at myself in the mirror later and going, ‘Wow, do I have beautiful skin?’” For Dowdy, at that moment, that one comment changed everything. Her weight didn't define her anymore. “Just the thought that I had one feature that somebody perceived as beautiful was life-changing for me,” she remarked. Dowdy mentioned that she walked around the rest of the day with a different kind of confidence. “A kind lunch lady can literally save a kid’s life,” she said. Now, as a 29-year-old, she remembers the lunch lady every now and then as her biggest supporter. Through the years, the words stuck to her heart, and she was so inspired by the impact it had that she was determined to do the same for others.
She explained that no matter the job, there is always an opportunity to make a difference. “Every job is important. That lunch lady planted the first seed that made me think, ‘Hey, maybe I’m not an ugly monster. Maybe I am pretty.’ And I carry that with me,’” she recounted. “You never know what someone is going through and it might be that one thing that turns their week around. Complimenting someone’s nails, complimenting their outfit — it just makes them feel seen and reminds them that they matter,” Dowdy mentioned.
You can follow Lexi Dowdy (@moon_beams_) on TikTok for more content on body positivity.