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living with obesity is about 'never giving up' despite the bullying and judgement
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wendy limbertie is now 66, working in the music world in marketing and writing from her toronto home, becoming a voice to help others navigate obesity.
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what is it like to step outside your comfort zone when you’re a teenager?
wendy limbertie grew up with obesity and was bullied in school as the fat girl. she says she got through it by trying to be invisible, unnoticed and “in the shadows.” it worked, for the most part, except for the fact that she was a promising musician.
when her toronto high school hosted an art exhibit in the auditorium, they included a small stage in the middle of the display of paintings and sculptures for live performances. fifteen-year-old wendy was asked to perform a solo on the french horn, an instrument she picked up in junior high in music class and grew to love, accompanied by piano.
performing as ‘the fat girl’
“i was aware of my body in a way most teenagers wouldn’t have to be, stepping on a platform for everyone to see and hear. my knees were shaking, my lips trembled against the mouthpiece,” she says, quoting a passage from her new book, finding wendy: how music carried me through the weight of the world. she remembers exactly how it felt to be front and centre playing the second movement of mozart’s third horn concerto—terrified yet determined.
some students and teachers came up to her with compliments, and she felt seen for something other than her size.
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“when i played, i wasn’t just wendy the fat girl, i was wendy the horn player.”
her dad, however, was a blunt dutchman who told her that he walked out of the auditorium because he was embarrassed that his fat daughter was on stage.
wendy swallowed the shame along with the chocolate peanut butter cups she binged on at night that were stashed under her bed.
despite her dad’s discouragement and all the disparaging looks and comments that followed her, she had carved out a purpose and a path. “musicians like to say that music chose them. i didn’t choose music, music chose me. and it’s really true. my mother’s side of the family is very artistic. my aunts and uncles are all musicians, actors, actresses. so the arts sort of flowed through our family, even though i’m the only musician out of four girls.”
wendy is now 66, working in the music world in marketing and writing from her toronto home, becoming a voice to help others navigate obesity. she’s joined the obesity matters community. and she still has her very first french horn.
when she was 18, she auditioned for the toronto symphony youth orchestra and got in, deciding to study music at the university of toronto. but in her first year, her dad had a stroke and she focused on his care. “i don’t know why, i was just like florence nightingale, and i felt i had to go and help him. i ended up failing my first year at u of t and they kicked me out.”
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one of her mentors suggested applying to study in europe, so she did and moved to amsterdam, where she studied with the principal horn of the royal concertgebouw of amsterdam, a renowned classical symphony orchestra. that was just the beginning of her performing. four months after she landed on dutch soil, she auditioned for the principal horn position of the dutch national opera company and won the job.
recognizing obesity is ‘not my fault’
while her professional career would take her around the world, her weight set her on an endless loop of losing pounds and regaining them, hoping to find something that worked for her. but like for so many people, there’s no simple fix to obesity.
“i have been on a gazillion diets. i have gained and lost over 800 pounds in my lifetime,” she says, recalling an impossible apple diet and the popular weight watchers program. “i tried everything. and i would always regain the weight, always. it would take me a year to lose 100 pounds and then gain it all back within six months.”
she’s read books on weight trials and wins by oprah winfrey, jann arden and others—and she’s come to understand one important lesson: “it’s just not my fault. being obese means that you just don’t have the proper hormones to be able to say you’ve had enough food, you’re full.”
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genetics play a key role in obesity, along with a range of factors including the environment, socioeconomics, upbringing, culture and lifestyle. a special 30th anniversary issue of the journal trends in molecular medicine in april 2025 looked at the progress made in revealing the science of genetic causes of obesity and mapping the way forward. as the authors write, “given that obesity is a heterogeneous disease, research will have to move beyond body mass index (bmi).” they note that discovery efforts for more refined traits of excess body fat are poised to reveal additional genetic information, pointing to new biological mechanisms. “obesity genetics research is reaching unprecedented heights and, along with a renewed interest in the development of weight-loss medication, it holds the potential to identify new drug targets.”
from circus act to professional musician
when wendy moved to amsterdam, she felt like a circus act to the dutch people because they don’t see obesity in their population, she says. part of the equation is food, which is healthier in holland than typical north american food. “all of the food here is chemically designed to make you want to eat more,” she says, adding she grew up on chips, hamburgers and fries, watching a lot of tv. and when you think about the cafeterias in high schools where friday was french fries and gravy day, you know? so it’s the environment, we’re all built to be obese, and if you have the genetics, you’ll even have a bigger chance of being obese.”
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the whole family, except for her dad, struggled with being overweight. after years of night eating and other “atomic habits,” wendy is finally coming to terms with the complexity of her weight. writing her memoir and recording it as an audiobook over a painstaking six months is like sharing all the rawness and hilarity of her life with the world. not easy, but she made a decision to lay it all bare.
she talks about the good habits she’s developed over the years to distract her from eating, like journaling, so her book is a reflection of that private conversation. “i have dyslexia, which is a very unique part of writing a book,” she says of the hours of dictation.
“the judgment of being overweight is you’re lazy. having dyslexia, you’re stupid. so you get labelled. and a big part of this book is about the bullying that i experienced.”
her weight journey brought her to bariatric surgery in 2018 at her highest weight of 450 pounds. “i had a pulmonary embolism just before. and my body was shutting down because it was just ridiculous how much weight i kept on gaining and gaining and gaining.” she had bariatric sleeve surgery to remove three-quarters of her stomach. “my stomach went from the size of a football to the size of a baseball,” she explains of the surgery that limits food intake.
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then she had a setback. the pandemic lockdown took a toll on wendy, as it did on most people, with its sense of loss and isolation. inactivity and snacking saw her weight creep up again. she returned to her doctor for help and started medication in 2024, including a glp-1 drug, which helped her manage her diet with healthier choices and portions. she wants people to know that weight gain is not about willpower or discipline, although the “lazy” stigma is everywhere.
she knows that she’s built for obesity, she says, but she’s also built for curiosity, humour and making music on an instrument as beautiful as the french horn.
she’s also painting and sketching to keep her mind clear and her hands busy (so she won’t need to grab handfuls of chips on a regular basis). another strategy is reducing her phone scrolling in wakeful moments during the night. “i’m reading about weight increase directly related to lack of sleep. my sleeping is not the greatest.”
wendy is also looking ahead, planning to get her weight down to 225 pounds, so she can do more and feel energized.
“as a trained musician, what really helped me with this whole weight loss journey that will never be over is that i never give up because, like being a horn player, i always wanted to get better,” she says of her advice to others: “never give up.”
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