History Main / FormerlyFat

[[quoteright:350:[[WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/amy_formerly_fat.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:"Not a real sport? Spleh!"]]

* ''VideoGame/GenshinImpact'' has Ganyu, who at least according to [[AmazinglyEmbarrassingParents Cloud Retainer]] was so pudgy as a child that if she tripped while climbing the mountain she would roll right down like a ball. She was inspired to lose weight after a monster swallowed her, and choked on her bulk.

* ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'': Though Heidi Turner becomes FormerlyFit after being converted into Eric Cartman's DistaffCounterpart, she looses her obese form and returns to being a healthy and skinny girl in Season 22 after breaking up with Cartman in the previous season's finale.

* In flashbacks, Ryan Weston from ''WebAnimation/{{Anon}}'' is shown to have been overweight as a child and as an early teen. By the time the flashback catches up to the present day, Ryan had lost all the weight.

* This happens to the male supporting actors during the course of the music video for Olivia Newton-John's "Physical".

* Creator/AlysonHannigan in ''[[Creator/SeltzerAndFriedberg Date Movie]]'', before her liposuction.

* ''VideoGame/GenshinImpact'' has Ganyu, who at least according to [[AmazinglyEmbarassingParents Cloud Retainer]] was so pudgy as a child that if she tripped while climbing the mountain she would roll right down like a ball. She was inspired to lose weight after a monster swallowed her, and choked on her bulk.

* Otohime Ryugu in ''LightNovel/OkamiSan'' was called "turtle girl" in her youth due to her chubbiness until Taro encouraged her to slim down.

* In ''Animation/PleasantGoatAndBigBigWolf: Dunk for Future'', [[ObsessedWithFood Paddi]] eats so much that he gets a bloated belly and cannot properly play basketball due to his weight making it hard to run. By the time the training montage is done, he has exercised enough to be able to play again.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'': In season 4 Bumi has lost a lot of weight going back to his appearance in season 1.

%%* Annie from ''Series/{{Community}}''.

*** Innocent Sin'' reveals this to the be past of Eikichi Mishina, who completely changed his image after frequent bullying culminated in a thug pulling his pants down in front of the girl he liked. He is now extremely attractive and popular and nobody at his current school realizes his past.

* The page quote comes from the season 6 premiere of ''Series/ParksAndRecreation'', in which Andy explains to Ben the reason behind his sudden weight loss. In real life, it was because Andy's actor, Creator/ChrisPratt, had lost 60 pounds[[note]]which took him ''six'' months to do, in sharp contrast to the one month Andy lost his weight in[[/note]] in preparation to play Star-Lord in ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy'' (to be fair, cutting out beer was one of the ''many'' things Pratt did to lose weight).

* Duncan from ''[[VideoGame/ShadowrunReturns Shadowrun Hong Kong]]'' was always the muscle of your outfit, but in his teens, he was decidedly pudgy (to the point that people referred to him as [[IncrediblyLamePun Duncan]] [[EmbarrassingNickname Donut]]). That quickly vanished when he joined [[PrivateMilitaryContractor Lone Star]].

* Emil from ''WebComic/StandStillStaySilent'', [[http://www.sssscomic.com/comic.php?page=134 before joining the military.]]

Sometimes, part of a character's personality is driven by the fact that they were once overweight. Having a thin character revealed to have once been fat can tell you plenty about them. It can tell you that they have a past they aren't proud of and that they eventually decided to care enough about their health and appearance to do something about it. It also shows that the character developed the strength and will power to take control of their life and get what they want, that they have self-discipline and motivation.

Be that as it may, a formerly fat background is not always all sunshine and rainbows. It can also imply a lot of self loathing and damaged self esteem, too. Many times, their slim-down can be a symptom of a desperate need to be accepted by society and an unhealthy dependence on what others think of them. The positive and negative attitudes are not mutually exclusive either, leading to many Formerly Fat individuals to have complicated self-images.

* Momoko from ''Manga/InuBaka'' claims that she used to be chubbier during her high school days, and they boy who helped her lose weight is her [[DomesticAbuser boyfriend]]. This is one of the main reasons why she is reluctant to leave him, despite knowing how bad he is to her.

* Hinata Shintani from ''Manga/MaidSama'' was really fat when he was a kid and [[AllOfTheOtherReindeer was bullied]] because of that. His feelings for Misaki stems from her protecting him from these bullies and he moved to his grandparents' in the country and he slims down by eating their vegetables.
* The male protagonist of ''Manga/MasamuneKunsRevenge'' was once mocked and nicknamed "Piggy" for his weight by the girl he confessed to. Out of revenge, he eventually got himself thinner, a new surname and, taking advantage of the fact she doesn't recognize him, tried to get her to fall in love with him just to dump her.

* Fatman's teenaged little sister in the ''Manga/{{Ratman}}'' manga is conventionally slender now, thanks to years of dieting. She does not like it when her big brother shows people pictures of her as a chubby child. (Fatman is the "jolly" type who doesn't understand why she's so ashamed of her past.)

** Surprisingly enough, ''[[PassionateSportsGirl Minako Aino]]'', alias Sailor V was revealed to be this in ''Manga/CodenameSailorV'': one of the plots of the Dark Agency involved getting people fat to lure them into energy draining pods with the excuse of making them slim down, and Minako was one of those who fell for it. Thankfully, [[TricksterMentor Artemis]] noticed before it got out of control and got her to exercise... Also taking advantage of the situation and her HotBlooded personality to make her put up some muscles without her noticing.
* In ''Anime/{{Shirobako}}'', the heavyset production manager Yutaka Honda ends losing a ton of weight after [[spoiler: resigning from Musashino Animation and pursuing a career as a baker.]]
* Sakiko Takashima from ''Manga/SketDance'', who used to be overweight in middle school. [[spoiler:She gets blackmailed into smashing a number of classroom windows by a girl, Saori Yasuda, who holds a grudge on her due to an occurrence in middle school. She complies, as Saori threatens to expose her old pictures of her chubbier self, which would potentially harm her popularity.]]"
* As a middle schooler Mizuki from ''Anime/TribeCoolCrew'' was a shy, glasses wearing girl who dressed in lolita and carried around a teddy bear. As an adult she's considerably more confident and more thinner. She also dresses in an "urban" fashion and has ditched the glasses. It's possible street dancing caused her to lose weight.

* Jughead in ''ComicBook/ArchieComics2015'' was chubby as a ten year old. After his family lost a lot of money, he became thinner but kept his BigEater habits.

* Razzia from ''ComicBook/LesLegendaires'' was fat as a boy and became a mountain of muscles as a grown man. When he is turned back into a child, he regains his former figure, but keeps his incredible strength.

* In ''Fanfic/TheVictorsProject'' Abram Mills, Victor of the 69th Hunger Games, was a bullied fat kid who survived mainly due to generous sponsors (gamblers who'd bet on him at nearly 400-1 odds and stood to rake in huge payoffs if he won) and knowledge of how to find moisture in the desert. After the Games he's so sick of pundits mocking his obesity that he spends the next several months vigorously lifting weights, to the point that by his victory tour he's one of the most muscular victors around.

* In ''Animation/PleasantGoatAndBigBigWolf: Dunk for Future'', [[ObsessedWithFood Paddi]] eats so much that he gets a bloated belly and cannot properly play in basketball due to his weight making it hard to run. By the time the training montage is done, he has exercised enough to be able to play again.

* At the end of ''Film/AustinPowersInGoldmember'', FatBastard isn't fat anymore, because he went on the Subway diet. However he doesn't look that much better since he now has a lot of loose hanging skin.

* Joan Cusack's character in ''Film/InAndOut'' is stated to have lost a ton of weight before the movie started. Former student turned Oscar winning mega-star, Cameron Drake, says that he had a huge crush on her when she was morbidly obese, and doesn't find her as attractive now that she's lost the weight, though he supports her. [[spoiler: The end credits start to roll over the sight of the two of them cuddling in the audience at a wedding, as Cameron handfeeds her a large bag of cheese puffs, with her clearly intending to fatten up again.]]

* ''Literature/SecretSanta2007'': In the second book, ''Be Mine,'' Natalie was a bullied fat girl until she stopped eating most high carb foods, exercised more, and had a growth spurt.

* ''Series/BabylonFive'': Vir Cotto actor Stephen Furst lost a great deal of weight between the third and fourth seasons of Babylon 5 after nearly needing a foot amputated due to diabetes. When he returned for the fourth season all his costumes were way too large for him. It was never explained in universe what lead Vir to loose so much weight or how had lost the weight so quickly.

** Woody. One episode has a former girlfriend (also Formerly Fat) from home showing up to visit. They begin to binge-eat to repress their sexual attraction to each other, but once they figure it out (and sleep together), they go back to eating normally.
** Rebecca used to be the "Fattest Girl in High School", which is another point of contention with her more successful sister Susan. She also implies that she got so overweight she was outright forbidden from riding her favourite pony any more (and that it was sneaking food to feed the pony that helped lead to her weight problem). She's still very sensitive about this.

* In an episode of ''Series/DropDeadDiva''. Jane represents a girl whose family are suing a diet guru; the diet consists of a very unhealthy low-calorie plan. [[spoiler:Jane exposes the guru as having had gastric bypass surgery, so there was no way she could have lost weight on her own plan.]]

** In "The One with the Rumor", she invites her old high-school friend Will for Thanksgiving, who used to be so fat that Monica was his "thin friend". In present day, he's played by Creator/BradPitt.

* An episode of ''Series/{{House}}'' has patient who was formerly morbidly obese and had become a highly successful personal trainer. [[spoiler:It turned out that she had had gastric bypass surgery, rather than "losing it the old fashioned way." It also turned out that her weight was a result of her self-medicating her genetic disorder with fatty foods. Reversing the surgery and returning to her old lifestyle would have cured her, but she opts for a lifetime of medication instead.]]
* Amy on the first season of ''Series/InTreatment'', an issue that comes into play in the differences between her and her estranged husband over parenting their son, since she fears the same thing happening to him.

* An episode of ''Series/LawAndOrderSVU'' dealt with a girl who was sodomized and beaten. When they found the motive behind the attack, it turned out she herself had attacked and beaten an obese man (her own attackers being relatives of his taking revenge). She took part in victimizing the man because of her own self loathing and anger at herself for having once been like him.
* ''Series/MalcolmInTheMiddle'': One episode featured the boys getting a beautiful girl as their baby-sitter who had been a classmate of Francis before he was sent away to military school. Due to her weight when they had gone to school together he had been the only person to be kind to her and defend her from bullying, so she had developed a crush on him. When she phoned him trying to score a date, he rejected her, thinking she still was fat.

* Prof. Olgevee on ''Series/TheParkers'' was fat as a kid and this was shown in a flashback. He was teased by the neighborhood kids. He was embarrassed to reveal this to Nikki and her equally-heavy friends.
* Hanna, the "It Girl" from ''Series/PrettyLittleLiars'' who struggles with self-image issues and bulimia. She used to be mocked by [[PosthumousCharacter Alison]] (the AlphaBitch and former "It Girl") for being overweight. Over the summer, after Alison's disappearance, Hanna became gorgeous and skinny.
* In one episode of ''Series/PrivatePractice'', Naomi has an argument with a couple of prospective patients who have dwarfism, and says she understands what they've gone through because as a child she was bullied for obesity. This is the only time it comes up, aside from a few references to her struggles not to overeat.

* Another TLC example involving this trope is the show ''Skin Tight.'' It involves two people per episode who've reached this trope, but now they're left with loose skin as a reminder of their former lifestyle. The subjects go out to surgeons skilled in skin removal surgeries, including Dr. Younan Nowzardan (Dr. Now) and shows the painful recovery needed to finally reach the end of the rainbow.
* ''Series/TheSopranos'': Vito Spatafore loses 160 lbs between season 5 and 6. This was RealLifeWritesThePlot, as actor Joseph R. Gannascoli had lost a similar amount of weight for health reasons.
* Regina and Aisha on ''Series/TheSteveHarveyShow'' were both fat as kids. Aisha's mom sent her to a fat camp to lose the weight while nothing much is said about how Regina lost hers. It's implied that she lost weight between high school and college.

* During her days as a wrestler, Wrestling/BullNakano followed the same diet that sumo wrestlers do and sported a very stout physique. Around the turn of the century she retired, switched over to golf, lost a lot of weight and turned out to be [[SheCleansUpNicely very pretty]] underneath Bull Nakano's punk-inspired outfit and hairstyle. She tried to put the weight back on for a pro wrestling return, failed, then resurfaced in RISE a manager hoping to take a new [[PowerStable Gokumon-to]] made up of gaijin back to Japan.

* "The Punishment" Damian Martinez was supposedly an eight year veteran of the sport, but pretty much went unnoticed until 2012 in Monster Factory Pro Wrestling, where despite losing to eventual winner Marc Cruz in the quarterfinals of the tournament to crown a heavyweight champion, gained a lot of attention for how much weight he had lost.

* Wrestling/JohnnyGargano was quite chubby as a kid. He would even at times refer himself as the "chubby eight year-old kid with a dream."

* Before the empowering incident in ''Roleplay/DawnOfANewAgeOldportBlues'', Emmanuel was overweight due to a lack of self-control around food. The metabolism he gained with his SuperSpeed slimmed him down a huge amount, though he kept his large appetite due to [[CastFromCalories the amount of calories that super speed requires]].

* Prompto Argentum from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXV'' is revealed in prequel/tie-in anime, ''Brotherhood: Final Fantasy XV'' to have been formerly fat, becoming motivated to lose weight to work up the confidence to make friends with Prince Noctis. This is slightly touched upon throughout the game in side-conversations and personal quests, and ''[[DownloadableContent Episode Prompto]]'' has some scenes somewhere between flashback and introspection that show his chubby young self (and a loading screen that appears early on to make sure the players know that's Prompto).

* ''VideoGame/JaggedAlliance:'': Wolf's bio indicates that he took a leave of absence between "Deadly Games" and "2", when he, among other things, went through an intense fitness program, and lost over forty pounds.

* Duncan from ''[[VideoGame/ShadowrunReturns Shadowrun Hong Kong]]'' was always the muscle of your outfit, but in his teens he was decidedly pudgy (to the point that people referred to him as [[IncrediblyLamePun Duncan]] [[EmbarrassingNickname Donut]]). That quickly vanished when he joined [[PrivateMilitaryContractor Lone Star]].

** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aT-bzF7qVeY Hiiragi]] in one story was both fat and an unrepentant BigEater with a bad habit of stealing food from his older brother Tokusa and his wife Yuzuriha, even though they had their own separate kitchen and fridge upstairs from the rest of the family. This didn't change no matter how much Tokusa yelled at him, and their parents were no help. Then one day Hiiragi went too far by eating an entire birthday cake Yuzuriha had baked for her friend Tsutsuji's son. [[spoiler: Yuzuriha responded by pranking him into eating food that she claimed had [[IAteWhat a cockroach in it]]. In reality there was no cockroach, it was just prawn tails, but she didn't tell him that until 4 months later, after he'd lost his gluttonous appetite and shed 38 pounds from the trauma of the incident. Naturally he was angry, but he forgave her after becoming skinny finally led to him getting a girlfriend.]]

* Sharon of ''Webcomic/GeneralProtectionFault'' used to be much heavier than she is. Some harsh comments made to the obese Dexter regarding his weight cause him to nearly turn down a full-time position at GPF, but Sharon was motivated by concern for him and apologizes.
* The demigod Jagganoth of ''Webcomic/KillSixBillionDemons'' used to be a tubby guy in an elephant mask. Now he is described as "his own fortress of blood and horn [...] the greatest warrior creation has ever known, a brutal tyrant-king, unconquerable and unassailable." The guy is a thirty foot tall monolith of muscle and is worshiped by an insane order of knights who try to kill everything they meet because they just couldn't kill him.
* Hanae of ''Webcomic/RedString'' started with a formerly fat background. As the story has progressed, she's put a lot of the weight back on. She puts a lot of her self worth on being pretty in other people's opinions. Her mother's vision of her as a girlie princess takes a huge toll on her.

* On ''WesternAnimation/TheClevelandShow,'' Cleveland feels unappreciated by Donna, and winds up reconnecting to an old high school friend who used to have a crush on him. Donna is more amused than threatened, until she meets old "Fatty Patty" and realizes she now looks like a supermodel. Unfortunately for Cleveland, though, Patty turns out to be a StalkerWithATestTube; Donna eventually gets Patty to relent by convincing her to "stop thinking like a fat girl" and realize she could get a better man for real. (Yeah, Donna isn't very nice in this episode.)

* Connie Benge on ''WesternAnimation/{{Doug}}'' used to be chubby, but in later seasons it's revealed she lost a lot of weight at summer camp. Unusually, the character started out chubby, but was retooled to have lost it in the Disney spin-off.

'''Leo:''' Stay in room? You so fat, you gonna stay all around room!

* Minnie Mouse, of all people, is revealed to be formerly overweight in the Paul Rudish ''WesternAnimation/{{Mickey Mouse|2013}}'' short "[[Recap/MickeyMouseS2E14DoggoneBiscuits Doggone Biscuits]]", when she attempts to slim down an accidentally fattened Pluto by locking him in the steam room, stating that it worked for her while the camera pans out to show a picture of Minnie being morbidly obese.

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Unikitty}}'', flashbacks to Dr. Fox's childhood shows her as chubby with a double chin, in contrast to the standard build she has now.

* [[spoiler:Mizuki Himeji]] from ''LightNovel/BakaAndTestSummonTheBeasts''.

* Otohime Ryugu in ''LightNovel/OkamiSan'' was called "turtle girl" in her youth due to her chubbiness until Taro encouraged her to slim down.

* Sakiko Takashima from ''Manga/SketDance'', who used to be overweight in middle school. [[spoiler:She gets blackmailed into smashing a number of classroom windows by a girl, Saori Yasuda, who holds a grudge on her due to an occurrence in middle school. She complies, as Saori threatens to expose her old pictures of her chubbier self, which would potentially harm her popularity.]]
* In ''LightNovel/SwordArtOnlineAlternativeGunGaleOnline'', Goshi "M" Asougi is this, having ended up losing a lot of weight when Pitohui ran him ragged as her servant in real life, and shows Karen "LLENN" Kohiruimaki and Miyu "Fuka" Shinohara a picture of him in the past. Miyu, amazed, suggests that he could promote the "henchman diet."