Am I fat?’ My nine-year-old daughter asks me one morning as I stand in front of my bedroom mirror.
‘What? Do not be crazy!’ I say nervously. ‘Why do you say that?’
“Because one of the girls in third grade told me I had a big, fat belly,” she says.
‘What a rude comment! There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re sweet,’ I tell her. She shrugs and looks back at her profile in the mirror.
The problem is that my daughter, although sweet, also has a very ‘healthy appetite’ and has even developed a big belly over the past year. She has always loved food, but it seems she has been gaining weight over the past few months.
Carrying around extra weight as a child puts you directly on the path to conditions like diabetes and heart disease, while losing it dramatically reduces the risk
I found this both confusing and disturbing. We don’t consume junk food at home. I like to think we eat well – the usual stuff: spaghetti bolognese, homemade chicken curry, roast dinners.
I do wonder if I overload her plate sometimes, but when I cut back on the portions or replace the potatoes with salad, she says she’s still hungry.
And I don’t want my daughter to think that going hungry – as so many girls and women do in their quest for a smaller belly – is normal or right.
The truth is, I think her young body image and diet are a very sensitive topic, which makes it difficult to broach the subject of her widening midriff.
I formulate my disapproval of her snacking habit in terms of health.
Oatcakes are a better alternative to bagels; Yogurt is healthier than chips. But she still eats a lot.
Yet I can’t bring myself to talk directly about reducing food intake.
We’re so aware of the epidemic of eating disorders these days that it feels like any conversation about dieting is like playing with fire.
With the current epidemic of eating disorders, the last thing a child needs is a parent questioning their eating habits
Girls are now bombarded from all sides with images of perfect, slim bodies and are constantly invited to compare themselves. The last thing they need is for a parent to question their eating habits too. I have a friend whose 12 year old daughter is currently in the hell of anorexia and I can see how terribly damaging this is.
At the same time, however, I know that obesity in childhood poses serious health risks.
Last month, a terrifying study from researchers in Germany said that being ‘severely obese’ as a child could halve life expectancy. This means that a four-year-old weighing 8 pounds, who does not lose the extra pounds and continues into adulthood with the same obesity rate, can expect to live to only 39 years.
Even being overweight at the age of four – which is classified as weighing 3.5kg – reduces life expectancy from 80 to 65 years. Carrying around extra weight as a child puts you on a direct path to conditions like diabetes and heart disease, while losing it reduces your risk. dramatic.
The question is: how do I put my daughter on a diet without also causing her lifelong problems with food?
Unfortunately, she is not the only one of my children with whom I have this dilemma.
My youngest son, who is twelve and blessed with his father’s metabolism, is as thin as a rake. But at the age of 14, my eldest son has also become quite fat. Recently I even had to buy him a pair of large school pants.
Last month, a terrifying study from researchers in Germany said that being ‘severely obese’ as a child could halve life expectancy
So now two of my three children are overweight. When I see them together, it’s very hard not to feel like a failure as a mother.
Can I blame genetics? Personally, I have never been particularly thin, but I have never been fat either. I was a size 10 until I had kids in my early 30s, but now I’m more of a size 12 to 14.
Certainly, I’ve found it harder to maintain my weight now that I’m in the perimenopausal phase of mid-life, where even daily exercises like dog walking, pilates or swimming won’t make a dent in the little muffin top that has appeared around my waist . . But I don’t consider myself big.
No, the problem with my son is restlessness. I swore I would never be the mom who would prepare multiple meals at dinner time to cater to everyone’s hard-to-satisfy tastes, but that’s exactly what I’ve become.
Even now, my 14 year old still eats mostly “beige” toddler food. It’s that or nothing, and again, I don’t want him to go hungry, although on occasion I have indeed sent him to bed without food rather than capitulate to the demand for fish fingers or chicken nuggets.
I have also bribed and bribed, but to no avail, and when I am very busy with my work, I often choose the path of least resistance. I don’t have the energy to sit with my teenager and make him eat green beans. I don’t have time to stand behind an oven and make endlessly varied plates full of ready-made meals, in the vain hope that one of them would tempt him.
To ease the guilt, I buy multivitamins and probiotics. But there’s no escaping the fact that his relatively poor diet is starting to show.
And I feel guilty; it’s made worse by the fact that none of this would have happened at my mother’s table. She cooked everything from raw ingredients. We ate it all and didn’t eat. No one had ever dreamed of commandeering their own menu or raiding the pantry between meals.
But food and family culture has changed. We encourage our children today to be more autonomous; to get more in touch with their feelings. To help themselves when they are hungry.
And so I’ve started hiding the granola bars I put in my kids’ lunch boxes to make sure they stick to their allotted portion per day. This makes me ashamed and angry.
It doesn’t help that some healthy foods have increased in price lately.
Weight loss experts tell kids to eat nuts or dried fruit, but a single bag of mixed nuts can easily cost $5 these days. You can get 20 packs of chips for that (I don’t, but a lot of them do).
I refuse to go low fat or sugar free when those types of foods are even more ultra-processed and chemically enhanced than a full sugar bar.
Still, I’m disappointed that we are apparently becoming a ‘big family’. My still slim husband says it’s probably just a phase and hopefully the kids will bulk up soon and lose all the puppy fat. But I must admit that there are times when worry keeps me awake at night.
I also fear that my friends will judge me. I know I used to secretly roll my eyes at a friend who handed out the snacks with deliberate abandon to her then-chubby daughter. How mean and ashamed I feel now.
I have another friend whose son seems to live on absolute crap – mainly pepperami and pizza – and is still as thin as a beanstalk. The metabolism problem seems to be the key, and also total happiness.
And yet, even as I look anxiously at my son’s expanding belly and my daughter’s tightening jeans, I know I can’t say anything about it.
I don’t want to add to their list of concerns by making their weight an issue.
After many hours of anxiety, I’ve come to the conclusion that all I can do is sit there, try to sneak a few more vegetables in where I can and offer them healthier snacks when they’re hungry.
Most importantly, I must try to lead by example. And that means you can never mention the “D” word (for diet) in this house.
I just hope that the next time someone has the insensitivity to comment on my daughter’s weight, it will be to compliment her on it. The thought of her looking in the mirror and being ashamed of her body breaks my heart.