This is the speech that one of my students, Okuda Kento (age 14), submitted for the speech contest. You might wonder, at first reading, why Kento was so insensitive as to say this speech in front of so many people so many times; how would his mother feel?? But in fact this speech is written with good humour, and is actually very unique among student speeches because of its funniness and drama. Most students write about lessons learned from baseball, or music, or how to better improve the natural environment around us…which are all very excellent topics, but there are so many of them, its quite exciting when you get a truly original speech like this one. Enjoy!

OKUDA KENTO's SPEECH:

Are you really so fat?

My mother is an ordinary housewife. But I think she is a little strange and unique. I want to tell you why.

One day, my mother said to me suddenly, “I am putting on weight so I have decided to diet from now on!”. She started her diet from that night. She started to exercise with dumbbells and a walking machine. But I found my chocolate cake disappearing from the refrigerator. I shouted, “What happened?! What happened to my chocolate cake?!” I asked my mother about the cake the next day. I wanted to believe that she didn't eat my cake. So I asked her, “You are on your diet now, so you didn’t eat my cake, right?” She replied casually, “I was very hungry at midnight, so I ate your cake.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I was very surprised at her words and repeated them in my mind again and again. But my mother didn't care about breaking her diet.

She continued to buy many things from TV shopping programs that advertised, “Lose weight quickly!” and now there are too many weight-loss products in my house. Her current favourite is her ab-belt, but some just end up in the closet. She believes that she is losing weight, but I know she still eats takoyaki at night. She is fighting a losing battle against herself. She says, “I want to lose weight,” but she still eats late at night.

After hearing all this, you may think my mother is a very large woman. But on the contrary, she is not. She only wants to lose two or three kilograms and this is why she is trying these diet fads. Honestly, there really isn’t any difference between two or three kilograms. Many people, especially men, don’t worry about losing a few kilograms and would find her efforts to be meaningless. I also began to ask myself, “Is being fat really so bad?” “Should people judge each other solely on looks?” My mother is my mother whether she is fat or not. I will always love my mother no matter how she looks. I love her because of her personality, the way she thinks, and her other good attributes. I just want her to love herself because I love her even if she is a little big.

She is still on her diet now. I would like to see her succeed in her diet, but I think her goals will never come true. I hope she will accept herself for who she is. If anyone is thinking about dieting in the future, please think about whether it is for yourself or for others. And remember this question: “Are you really so fat?”.