Authors: Dara-Lynn Weiss
I think the disconnect comes from the ever-uncomfortable issue of weight. In the Park Slope ice-cream truck story, none of the kids involved was identified as being overweight. So their parents could feel free to give them ice cream, to say no, or even to go to the extreme of wanting a ban on ice-cream trucks. None was called abusive. If only these parents understood the daily strain of saying no and no and no again while one’s adorable, sweet child keeps saying, “Why not?” Of trying to convince one’s heavy child that she wasn’t really as hungry as she constantly announced, of wanting a daughter to be and
feel
healthy when she wasn’t old enough to remember what being lighter and healthier felt like.
I admit that I cannot predict what will happen to Bea in the future. I live with the worry that this experience will somehow hurt her later in life. I of course fear the possibility that she may develop an eating disorder, though it’s impossible to predict. Food was not a fraught issue in my household, yet I developed problems with it. My two sisters, who grew up in the same environment, did not. Bea and her brother, just one year apart in age and raised in the same home, have vastly differing approaches to food. How do we make sense of that? There is no blueprint for neurosis.
Parental pressure is frequently faulted by people suffering from eating disorders, but so is parental failure to intervene with weight and food issues. It’s a lose-lose proposition for parents. But maybe a parent’s attitude toward food and weight is not as central to the issue as we think. In 2002, a genetic link was found to eating disorders.
One of the researchers stated that as far as the onset of eating
disorders goes, “sociocultural factors are only important in that they might elicit an expression of someone’s preexisting genetic predisposition.”
So we’re back to what I asserted at the start: there are some issues that kids are just born with. I didn’t make Bea obese. I don’t blame sugary drinks, processed foods, trans fat, or gargantuan portion sizes. She didn’t become overweight because she gorged on junk food or played video games all day. She was simply and indisputably born with the unfortunate tendency to overeat and a congenital preference for foods that are conducive to weight gain. And she was going to be overweight unless she changed her behavior to run contrary to her natural inclinations.
As for the risk of an eating disorder? There, too, I think that’s either in Bea’s DNA or not. I hope like crazy that it’s not, but only time will tell.
Frankly, I’m far more concerned about the far greater likelihood that Bea will suffer the kinds of nagging concerns about her weight that most girls and women do in our society. I am hopeful that the practical and emotional tools we have helped her develop—not the least of which is a comfort level in discussing weight and food, and knowing what is healthy and appropriate—will be useful to Bea in that area. So my choice to take decisive and dogged action with Bea was fairly easy. I had a chance to make her more healthy and happy. How could I not take it?
I don’t pretend that I have figured out the best way to fight childhood obesity. I only did what I thought was best in our specific situation. Even though I stand by the path I took and the map I designed, I believe Bea deserves most of the credit for what she accomplished. At age seven, she accepted an eating regimen that most other kids would have roundly rejected. She had the maturity and foresight to understand that the sacrifices she has to make
now have a long-term payoff, and that’s not something a parent can take for granted in a child so young. Given that I had to deal with this problem, I’m lucky that I did so with a kid as intelligent and understanding as Bea.
Ultimately, parents of obese children need to make their own decisions about how to approach the issue. When my kids were in preschool, two of their classmates had difficulty with some developmental, cognitive, or behavioral issues, and the school recommended that the parents engage the services of a Special Education Itinerant Teacher (SEIT). Each set of parents struggled with the decision. While both agreed with the school’s assessment that there was an issue, only one set of parents agreed that intervention was warranted. The other kid’s parents felt the school was overreacting. Maybe the child would just grow out of his problems. Why stigmatize him so early as having special needs?
And while, ideally, the SEIT would help the child progress to classroom independence, there would be a permanent record of the services that would follow the child when he or she applied to kindergarten. The parents noted that it would be considered a strike against him in a competitive admissions environment. They also worried that the other families would view the child differently if his need for extra help was displayed so publicly.
I’m not sure how my husband and I would have responded had we been in those parents’ shoes. But whatever decision we made, I hope we would have done it with our child’s genuine well-being in mind, without being swayed by the opinions of other parents. Parenting is hard enough without worrying about everyone else’s judgment.
One thing is quite clear to me: had I been any less strident, any more flexible, we would have failed to get Bea healthy. Had I not opened my mouth—loudly, on occasion—to intervene when she
was eating the wrong thing, or when someone was giving her something they shouldn’t, or when she wanted to skip karate, or take a cab when we should walk, I can assure you, Bea would still be overweight. Because, as I’ve said, those little challenges happen every single day, sometimes every hour! If committing to enforcing healthy habits makes me appear humorless and harsh, then so be it. That is what it takes.
It’s not like anyone expects leniency in other areas of children’s health and safety. Most parents I know won’t start their car until their kids’ seatbelts are fastened, period. But somehow, when it comes to eating, our anxiety about our children’s feelings overrides our concern for their health.
Bea did not need to lose weight to earn my love. She did not need to lose weight to be beautiful. But she did need to lose weight to be healthy. Once I understood that her weight problem was a disease, I had no choice but to treat it as such. Bea may get heavy again, especially in the coming years when she gains more independence and the responsibility for her eating and weight shifts more completely from me to her. If that happens, I think she’ll have the tools to decide how she wants to handle it—or not. Whatever she decides, I hope the world will be understanding. I know I’m going to try to be. I know she’ll do her best. But anyone who has battled their weight knows how challenging that can be.
Every time I think our story is done, something new comes along that reminds me it’s not: a surprising lesson, an incident that proves an old theory wrong, an unexpected setback. But a series of events that occurred about half a year after Bea had reached her weight goal made me feel that even though we’ll never be done, we have been successful.
It was the spring, and we were following the diet in the maintenance mode I’ve described, working on helping Bea sustain her healthier habits on her own. One day Bea said something about having gained a couple of pounds, which indeed she had. She didn’t say she was “fat,” just that she was a little heavier than she should be. It was such a different experience to hear her say that than those moments a couple of years ago when she was obese and complained about being fat. The tone of her observation was different. It wasn’t redolent of the pain and hopelessness that had
characterized her earlier comments. Back then, I hadn’t known what to say or do. Now I felt more competent to help.
I asked how the weight gain made her feel.
“I need to lose a couple of pounds,” she observed. “Especially since this summer I’m going to camp, where I’m going to be eating lunch in the cafeteria every day. But I’ll do it.”
“How are you going to do it?” I asked.
“Well, instead of having two meatballs with my pasta at dinner, I can have just one meatball,” she suggested as a cute example.
I was extremely gratified by her attitude. There was no self-hatred, no negative judgments. Just a realistic self-assessment, followed by a healthy and well-considered plan for keeping herself on track. It was the kind of acceptance of responsibility for herself that I’d been working toward.
When camp time rolled around, I helped her prepare to face that cafeteria on her own. I requested the lunch menu from the director before camp started. I looked up the calorie content of each item and sat with Bea as we discussed which choices she might make. Baked beans or french fries with her hot dog, but not both. Rice only if the taco comes with a soft tortilla, not a hard shell. With some dry penne and a half-cup measure, I showed her what an appropriate portion size was for the days they’d be having pasta. She independently typed up her own little reference chart and put it in her pocket to bring to camp.
That summer I was really struck by how well Bea had integrated the principles of weight management into her thinking. When I picked her up one day and offered her a frozen fruit bar as a snack, she declined.
“I can’t,” she said. “We made s’mores at camp.”
How far we had come since the days when she would “forget”
to tell me about a treat at school until after she’d eaten her afternoon snack!
Then at the last minute, she decided to spend a few weeks in August at sleepaway camp. The tour we took before signing up filled Jeff and me with dread. We toured the giant cafeteria with its multiple serving stations offering bottomless trays of food. We walked through the canteen where, we were told, the kids were given pizza and ice cream every night. The guide took us past the snack bar where the campers could get food between activities. Bea was going to be totally on her own there.
It seemed too big a jump in responsibility level. I trusted her to handle herself at lunch at a day camp cafeteria when we’d discussed what the choices would be. This sleepaway camp deal was ridiculous. There was a limit to what I could expect. I mean, honestly, if
I
went to this camp for three weeks, I’d come back at least five pounds heavier. Bea was still only eight years old.
But we decided to let her go. Jeff had a recurring nightmare in which Bea returned home ten pounds heavier, and he expressed more concern about what that would mean for me than about how Bea would react.
My initial strategy was every bit as neurotic and control-freakish as you have probably come to expect. Before Bea left home, I spoke with the camp director on the phone, making him unequivocally aware of Bea’s situation and of the importance of seeing to it that her nutritional needs were acknowledged and supported while she was at camp. I requested the kitchen send me menus for all meals prior to Bea’s arrival so I could look up the calorie information for each dish and recommend correct portion sizes.
I talked to her head counselor in advance and explained that it would be best for a grown-up to accompany Bea on the food line
in the cafeteria, to help her make the appropriate choices, based on guidelines I’d email before she got there. I suggested someone keep an eye on her between activities and at canteen, to make sure she didn’t exceed the appropriate number of snacks and treats. A counselor should be enlisted to oversee her activity choices, making sure she enrolled in at least one physically active class every day and that she didn’t take cooking class too often. I also asked that someone take Bea to weigh in once a week and that the results be emailed to me so I could keep abreast of how she was doing.
You know, basic camp stuff.
In retrospect, what strikes me as most amusing about these demands is not how insane I was in making them but how naive I was in thinking I would get the support I sought. If my experience with Bea had taught me anything, it should have been that families helping children with their weight have to rely on themselves to get the job done. Schools, camps, restaurants, and other parents don’t have the time, interest, or motivation to understand and adhere to such carefully outlined plans.
When we arrived at camp to drop Bea off, I was still trying to build the support system that had failed to materialize in advance. I identified a counselor who would be Bea’s nutrition buddy. While the nurse was performing the perfunctory lice check on Bea, I inquired about how I’d go about having her weigh in every week. When no one could produce the cafeteria menu, I paid a friendly visit to the kitchen myself and asked for it. Told it wasn’t yet ready for distribution, I requested a viewing of the document in progress, and photographed it with my cell phone so I could look up nutrition information back at home.
Believe it or not, Bea was not embarrassed by me. Jeff had told her that her ability to attend camp was contingent upon her taking a new level of responsibility for her eating, and upon accepting
whatever help the camp might be able to provide. So she was motivated to be successful. She had decided that should any curious fellow campers inquire why a counselor helped her decide what to eat, she’d tell them that her mom was a little nuts about nutrition. Not that she was on a diet, which was too controversial and emotional a statement to make, or that she had a weight problem, which is something no one would suspect by looking at her. Just that she had a plain old annoying health-conscious mom. Yawn.
We drove home after moving her into her bunk, a lump in my throat. This was the longest period of time we’d ever been apart. I was going to miss that little girl. My daughter. My friend.
That first week, I felt confident that Bea’s eating was being carefully monitored and that her choices were being guided by the suggested meals I’d emailed to the camp. I heard from her counselor via email that she was doing well and making good food decisions. The weight she reported to me after the first week was stable. I was promised the next week’s menu so that I could provide continued guidance.
But the following week’s menu never came. Nor did any subsequent weigh-ins. All communication about her eating ceased. A year earlier, I probably would have called the camp every day to find out what was up, maybe even driven up there to see what was going on. But instead I was relaxed. I had confidence in Bea. I envisioned her walking up to that cafeteria food line and making the right choices. I knew in my mind that she had the tools to eat right, and I felt in my heart that she was using them.