I recently reconnected with a long lost relative. This person was as close as a sister to me at times in my life (I am an only child) but our mothers (who are indeed sisters)couldn't be more different except I notice one glaring similarity, their hang ups about their own and their daughters weight.
My mother is a big woman with a big presence. She is German in every way you can imagine from the broad shoulders to the love of baking. Even though she was a size 16-18 (she was 5'9")for most of my childhood, she acted at times like she was much bigger. We did live in California so while being a size 16 doesn't sound too big in
certain parts of the country, in California it is still considered huge.
Maybe my mother thought she could save me from having weight issues if she started watching my weight while I was still young. All I know is my mother started talking about diets and dieting when I was 8 years old. We had cool aid made with liquid sweet and low, we had Tab and were one of the test households for NutraSweet. I didn't even know that our house was the exception till I went to a sleep over and tasted their kool aid. I remember thinking it tasted like pancake syrup.
My relative on the other hand was verbally harassed by her mother about her weight. I remember her being called names (Miss Piggy was the one I remember most) and on more than one occasion being physically punished for eating something her mother thought was inappropriate. Her mother starved herself to maintain what she thought was an acceptable size.
Both of us developed weight problems as adults. I actually was anorexic during high school. She had her first child at age 16 and whether it was depression or taking the eating for two thing a little too literally, she gained quite a bit and never was able to loose it.
Now, I have to ask myself, if our mothers hadn't made us so aware of weight and size would we still have developed food issues?
This relative uploaded a photo of us and I couldn't believe it. My relative is a healthy weight in it and I am chubby but not huge like I always remember myself being. Already our perceptions were so distorted (me by age 8 and her by age 12).
With childhood obesity becoming a national epidemic I have to wonder, how do you encourage a child to make healthy choices and be active without making them have a hang up about it?
Obviously, putting them on a diet at 8 years old doesn't work, or at least it didn't work for me. I certainly wouldn't physically or verbally harass or abuse my daughter about her size either.
I will try not to make it a contest either. My mother and her sisters always ask about each others sizes, their daughters sizes, etc. It is sometimes the second or third question they ask about someone, before asking about their jobs, marriages, etc. It is very sad.
I am hoping that my husband and I will be good examples for our daughter and that that will help but I also worry that the fact that we are both post wls patients will make her home different from everyone else's. Like my experience with the Kool aid. We don't have bread, potatoes, pasta, rice, soda or any carbonated or sugary drinks, almost every sweet item is sugar free or low sugar (we do allow her some regular things like a few pieces of Halloween candy). What is she going to think when she goes to a "normal" household and sees just how different her home is.
I buy her her shells and cheese, rice and noodle based soups so she is exposed to them but sooner or later, she is going to notice that Mommy and Daddy aren't eating them. The same thing is bound to happen when she figures out that we don't drink with our meals (okay husband breaks this rule sometimes).
I looked at that picture of myself and my relative for a long time. I wonder just how I would react if my daughter became chubby. I don't want her to have the distorted self image that I had and still have. I don't want her to look back at a photo of herself 20 years later and realize she thought she looked so horrible and was so fat for so many years and she didn't look nearly as bad as she thought she did. I don't want her to waste 20 years of her life worrying about her weight first and foremost before everything else. I don't want her to label foods as bad or forbidden. I don't want her to have days where nothing goes right just because the number on the scale wasn't what she thought it should be that morning. I don't want her to feel like an outcast because her family eats so different from everyone else either but I also want her to understand that not every ones diet is healthy.
As,if parenting doesn't come with enough worries already now I have to worry that my eating habits and my own body image might hurt my daughters.
I read a book not to long ago called "The Serial Killers Club". I didn't care for the book much but one of the repeated themes in it stuck with me. In it almost all of the serial killers in it blamed their mothers for their deviant behavior. There was even a line at the end when the identity of the mystery serial killer is revealed and that person says, "It's always the mothers fault".
Is it?
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