Comments on: The Big Question: Fun in Dysfunction Edition

By: Babs

Babs — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 21:38:38 +0000

I grew up with a bulimic Mom who (as I recently found out) would frequently forget to feed me as a very young child – like 2 -3 years old. My one Aunt had to call her every day to make sure she hadn’t forgotten to feed me lunch. My other Aunt has stories about how “cute” I was at four and five making my own sandwiches and breakfasts. I realize now that when I say I’ve been cooking my whole life, I’m not actually exaggerating by much.

I constantly got told that I would look better if I “just lost five pounds”. I wore a size six at the time and was 123lbs on the scale at 5’2″. I never ever thought I looked thin in my life – a fact that makes me jaw droppingly shocked when I see photos of myself from that time now.

I’ve been on every diet and it was routine in my house to have to get up during commercials and jog in place or do sit ups in front of the t.v. Food was routinely taken away from me and so I had to start binge eating late at night to get dinner sometimes.

All of this stems from my Mom watching a few of HER Aunts get very VERY large and have major health issues. Pretty much, one of her Aunts just….gave up….and sat around the house, rarely ever leaving. The issue clearly wasn’t being fat – that was a symptom. But my Mom, being young and being in a time when stuff like that wasn’t really discussed, didn’t see it that way. She was trying to save me from that ever happening.

Right now, I weigh the most I ever have. I’m attempting to eat healthy (its hard when one is ripping out the kitchen and redoing it) and to just friggin’ ENJOY my food. I love to cook and to make wonderful, tasty, amazing things to eat. I love to share my food with my friends and family. But, it can be hard because I am the odd one out now because I am fat and they aren’t. And so they think that I eat crazy amounts of food or don’t exercise at all, which is untrue. I’m active and I eat a pretty good, fairly balanced diet. Plus, any time that I lose weight it’s like headline news for my family so I can’t do anything without feeling like I’m scrutinized. It’s annoying as hell. LOL!

I guess I’m still in process with figuring this all out.

By: Sarahbyrdd

Sarahbyrdd — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 19:09:51 +0000

It’s a process. I’ve recognized self-soothing with food, secret eating, and the “fantasy of being thin” as things I’ve learned from my mother. I’ve kicked the good and bad food idea to the curb, and dissallowed the idea of “diets”, and I feel pretty good about that. I am much less likely to binge, though a bit of rewarding with food still goes on, but a pint is no longer a single serving of ice cream. The unfortunate thing is that my schedule and stress levels became overwhelming at about the same time as I gave up restricting my eating, and the walking and yoga I was doing regularly also got put on hold. As a result I’ve been gaining an uncomfortable amount of weight, and now match my pre-divorce highest weight ever.

Right now I’m fighting the urge to beat myself up with a diet, because I know it will 1) just make me cranky and insecure, 2) won’t work, and 3) will probably result in my gaining even more weight in the long run.

By: Rosemary

Rosemary — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 23:56:21 +0000

My mother has always struggled with her weight. She’s always been a big woman (even in younger pictures I’ve seen of her). My father comes from a tall, slender family. I haven’t really even seen pictures of my mother’s family, so I can’t exactly say where her genes came from.
I’ve always been chubby/fat/heavy/whatever euphemism is being tossed around today. I remember my mother going on and off diets and my father just eating everything. My father exercised a lot though (and still does) so I quickly learned that was okay. I remember starting to play volleyball when I was in 5th grade. I was one of the heaviest girls on the team (but not the heaviest). I remember my father telling me that I should lose weight if I wanted to be faster and jump higher.
And thus, this started the whole issue, which is something still being argued over today. Pops had me exercising at least an hour a day, even on days when I had volleyball practice. (In HS, this amounted to 2 hours of school practice 5x a week, 2 2-hour practices with my club team, plus his hour of crapping around.) I didn’t lose much weight from this, even when I decided that if I only ate dinner, I could somehow be better (since this is what I had seen other girls do and talk about). I dropped to all of 171 pounds one summer. (I’m 5’7″ and weighed about 184 during that time frame. Consistently.)
I eventually realized that this sort of starvation wasn’t healthy when I got to college. Of course, by then, my body as all fucked up and I wound up sleeping most of my freshman year. I quit volleyball sophomore year after an injury during a morning practice that was never treated properly. And of course, I gained weight. I remember hearing all the comments from my mother ‘you’ve really let yourself go’ and all that sort of crap.
She would tell me about some amazing diet she was on, and I would try, I really would. I would try to be supportive and only drink water and have a Lean Cuisine with a piece of bread (if I had been good that day). I eventually realized that this just was not going to work.
So I started hiding food. I would eat string cheese and dry cereal. I would squirrel away all these things and eat at night, when no one else was awake to watch me. I still have a problem with that now. I don’t like it when people watch me eat. I can feel them judging me in their head, which of course, turns into being out loud if I’m ever with my family.
Just the other day, I Was eating homemade macaroni and cheese and my mother came by my house (I’ve only moved out a few months ago, so it’s all still shiny and new) and proceeded to harass me about eating macaroni and cheese and how it’s soooo unhealthy and fattening and everything else. (Of course, I have been trying to cut her some slack since she’s recently developed diverticulitis and now has all sorts of gasto-intenstinal issues, but my patience wasn’t very thick to begin with.) I told her to leave and she did, even though she’s been harassing me about my weight and the foods I make since then.
I still struggle with good foods versus bad foods, but I’ve been learning that I can make damn near anything I want in my kitchen. I make veggies quite often. I have fruit just about every day with breakfast and lunch. I have veggies everyday with lunch and dinner. I cook with real food, like real butter and broccoli and goddamnit–food is tasty. Food isn’t supposed to be some sort of reward for being a good person. Little by little, I’m starting to agree with that. (Even if my mother can’t seem to get her mouth of my goddamn plate.)

(I will acknowledge that my father has since stopped harping on me about weight/food. He will discuss it if it is brought up by me first, but otherwise, he keeps his mouth shut.)

Sorry for the book, heh. This is just something that’s been on my mind recently.

By: JenniferP

JenniferP — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 20:40:32 +0000

Recently I was in France, in a nice restaurant, eating a tomato and mushroom risotto and grilled lamb and creme brulee so amazing I almost wanted to cry, and there was wine and also coffee and I ate slowly and enjoyed it all very, very much.

However, at the next table, my fellow Americans were not so lucky. Two couples ate dinner together, and all they talked about the entire time was fat, calories, guilt, self-denial, heart disease: “No, I shouldn’t have dessert.” “Oh, all right, if you’re having it.” “I can feel my arteries clogging.” “Do you have sweet & low for the coffee?” And seriously, it was like sharing a meal with my mom and my grandma even though mom was across the Atlantic and Grandma is in her grave and I am not a little kid anymore so I could think “Shut the Front Door” at them instead of wondering what’s wrong with me.

My (adoptive) family: Tall slim amazons. Me: A short round hobbit.
My family: Sweets & fats are guilty pleasures, self-indulgences, eaten sneakily, “No whipped cream…okay, maybe a little….no, that’s too much!”
Dieting is what women do to bond. When I was 17 years old, dancing and playing three sports, my mom decided that we should go on the 1,000 calorie/day “Gloria Stevens” diet together. It was a living nightmare. I thought about food all the time – 24 hours/day – and of course wondered what was wrong with me for wanting, I dunno, to be fed enough calories to get through the day without passing out.

My dad’s family are feeders – big food pushers, “Eat, eat, eat, eat more, what, you don’t like it? You should eat. Want seconds?” – but will shame you for being fat or eating too much. If you eat the food they push on you, they might call you a “piggy.”

So yes, I have a therapist, and will save the rest of this for him. I love France.

By: Meg

Meg — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 03:47:27 +0000

I grew up with my mother putting my sister and I on whatever diet she was on at the time (lunch in 7th grade was slimfast and an apple — I wasn’t actually that big at that point, maybe a size 12, but I’m pretty sure all that yo-yo dieting from a young age has made it as difficult as it is to lose weight now. Not that I’m actively trying. I have more issues with my shape having changed from how I’m used to it being post pregnancy.). My grandmother passed her issues with food onto my mother (grandmother was pretty much birdlike, Mom took after her dad’s side, I take after my dad’s side – big german women — I’ve got size 10 feet and an 8.5″ wrist).

It was constantly counting the calories in things and hiding food because it was denied to me. And then we’d go to either grandma’s house and it was clean your plate and have all the sweets you want. And if we had a bad day at school at home, it was “have a cookie, you’ll feel better.” It’s no wonder I was disordered for years. Now I try to practice intuitive eating. Doesn’t stop me from having those days where I have a milkshake for lunch because it’s been that kind of morning at work, but they’re few and far between.

By: Kimks

Kimks — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 19:42:24 +0000

I grew up in the try it, you might like it camp- I think it was a realitively healthy way to grow up- if we didn’t like something we didn’t have to eat more of if that serving. We did have to try a bit of it every time it was served- which was good- I might still think Peas were gross if my Mom had not made me try them every time she served them. Mom also let us each eat as much of what was served as we wanted- for example, my little brother could eat plain pasta till he was full, but did not like sauce, so he filled up on pasta and salad and his little taste of sauce. I think she was pretty smart by doing this- we did not have to choke down more thna a taste of what we did not like, and we learned to listen to our bodies as to what we needed- more protein- go for it, more veggies- More Carbs (we were all athletes during the carb loading 80′s) OK.

My mom also baked most of our food from scratch- bread, cookies, cakes, crackers- she made them from scratch. Most everything we ate came from scratch- which I think gave me a deep understanding and respect for the work it takes to make a meal. Looking back I think it was from necessity- not a lot of money- but I greatly appreciate her taking the time and teaching us what it took to feed us.

One thing I learned from my mom that makes my husband a bit nuts. I tend to make way more than we need and I can’t just show up at a pot luck or a party with just one thing- I need to bring a cake, and an appetizer, and a bottle of wine. Its a crazy food hang up-.

By: Leigh Ann

Leigh Ann — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 17:54:45 +0000

I’ve been lucky in the sense that I didn’t get these kinds of messages from my family. My mom’s mom was artistic, and not a very good cook. When my mom was growing up, her family had a maid/cook, but then by the time I was born they didn’t have that anymore and my grandmother struggled with what to cook. (Mostly, it was Patio Mexican TV dinners, hamburger steak, and fried potatoes, as I recall.) But none of them really had a weight problem. My dad’s mom was raised on a farm, and gardened well into her 80s. So from her, I learned an appreciation for vegetables and fresh foods. She always canned and froze vegetables and fruit. Growing up, I was a stocky but athletic tomboy kid, always climbing trees and playing football with the boys. I was always fit then, and it never occurred to me that I was “too heavy.” But I finally got the idea that I didn’t fit the ideal. I remember being weighed in elementary school, and the lady doing it (the school nurse?) making a really mean remark to me, a really nasty thing to say to a kid, about me being too big and I should stop eating so much. I was about ten at the time, and my reaction was “?”. But it hurt. A few years later, my mom’s cousin offered to give me some hand me down clothes from her daughter. Her daughter was older than me, and a beauty queen (literally). She was tall and slender, and her clothes were lovely! But nothing fit. I still remember trying on one outfit after another, to murmurings of disappointment from the women. “It’s a shame she’s so broad-shouldered, ” my mom’s cousin said. I was only 11 or 12, but I felt like a failure. Obviously, pretty clothes wouldn’t fit ME. And then of course, there was the teasing in high school, because by then I really was overweight, by about 30 pounds. Compared to what some of you went through, this is mild, I know. But I get angry when I think about what this kind of thing does to girls. I grew up and married a man who met me thin, during a time when I was working out 3 hours a day to maintain it. Unfortunately, he dislikes it when I gain weight, and says so. I know he loves me, but he’s very vocal about wanting me thinner. Luckily, I have a pretty strong sense of self-esteem, and my focus is on being as healthy as I can be. I really value balance, and refuse to go back to crazy extremes. And I love healthy food and dislike junk, so that’s good.

By: Meg

Meg — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 17:52:09 +0000

I grew up as the only girl with lots of brothers. It was a ‘compteitive eating’ situation.

I’ve recently begun therapy due to an abusive marriage, but the therapist is helping me get to the root of some of my food issues, as well. I started a food blog, which helps me to keep accountable for what I eat. It’s stopped me from bingeing countless times, because I know I’d have to own up to it.

I’ve learned that food will always be available. I don’t have to worry about ‘missing out’ on something, because there will certainly be another opportunity to eat it.

By: Twistie

Twistie — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 16:40:28 +0000

Eliane, one trick I’ve heard of for overcoming that sense of the desperate need to eat the treat is to get several packages of cookies, or bags of chips or whatever it is you feel you never have enough of. A lot of people find that if they have a clear excess of the item, then it’s easier to feel like it will always be available when they actually want it, removing the urgency of the situation. Then they can eat a cookie now and again, or a handful of chips and be satisfied. You might give that a try and see what happens.

By: barbara

barbara — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 16:23:43 +0000

We have food issues up the whazoo in my family. My mother has 7 sisters; all of whom have battled weight gain their entire lives. Family gatherings require absurd amounts of food, but food is the enemy. In my family if I say “I’ve been good today” I’m not making an ethical statement, I’m saying “I haven’t eaten much today”. We all understand this.

You’ll be *shocked* to learn that had a serious eating disorder as a teen/ young adult.