WORST DAY YET
My husband recently returned home from three straight weeks of business travel. He had a reprieve from the Fruit Loops and the ice cream, so he shuddered at the circus cupboard, and was scared by the fat.
While I have not weighed anyone, it is obvious that two of the girls have gained weight. Hirschmann and Zaphiropoulos predict this in their book, and I also gained weight initially when I began eating this way, but it does not make the reality any less frightening. He looked at me, with tears in his eyes and said, “I just don’t want them to get hurt.”
Ouch.
This, from a man who was completely on board with this idea. It cannot be overstated that your spouse, partner, or whoever regularly feeds your children be behind self-demand feeding. Because at some point, the fear will be overwhelming. You will believe that your children are going to eat only sweets forever and gain at least 100 pounds and develop diabetes and die by the age of 20, all because of your crazy idea.
We, as a culture, fear fat for lots of reasons. Some are based in the scientific research linking extra body fat to a myriad of scary diseases. Most are entrenched from the culture around us, which links a thin body to everything from an expensive car to a happy marriage. It’s no wonder that we realize quickly that having a thin child somehow reflects better on us as parents.
I have lived the experience of having a large child. At birth my youngest was 10 pounds, 4 ounces, or about 4.6 kilos.
Just writing that I feel the need to add disclaimers! I did not have gestational diabetes, nor did I gain 100 pounds during my pregnancy. Both her dad and I are larger than average, which is the explanation that our pediatrician gave us for her size.
From the moment she was born, people have looked at me, wide eyed, and said, “She’s so big!”. Sometimes it was a compliment, sometimes a criticism, always in disbelief. Regardless, it is true. She is tall, large, strong, loud, independent and opinionated. There is nothing small about her.
In response, I have tried to laugh lightly, to agree and not make too much of it. I know how hard it can be to grow up in a world surrounded by images of tiny women, while fielding regular comments on your large stature. Until recently, I have not worried much about her size because she is an active kid who eats a wide variety of foods. Then about 15 months ago, for the first time, a doctor gave her a diagnosis of overweight because of a borderline BMI number.
That’s when she started to gain weight more quickly.
I don’t know why. I don’t know how the doctor communicated with her. I was not present for the appointment, it was a routine check up done in school. It could be the way that she grows, it could be that she used food to cope with our recent move. Or some combination.
It seems that having more strict rules about sweets and portions did not keep her from becoming overweight. If this is the way that her body grows then she needs to learn the difference between a healthy and unhealthy weight from the inside out. Because most everything and everyone around her is going to tell her that she is too big.
More importantly, if she is eating in reaction to shame from a doctor or sadness from a move, then portion control is not the remedy. Indeed, the only way to help is to move beyond the conversations about food to get to the ones that may hurt more.