I never wanted to be obese. Actually, I felt quite the opposite about gaining weight as my mother, and most of my mother’s side of my family are obese, some extremely so. And knowing what being so over weight meant for them, I really wanted to avoid becoming the same. I watched as my mom wheezed after traversing only a single flight of stairs, and my grandmother not able to keep up while walking around the store due to knee trouble related in a large part to her weight, and I told myself, I would never let myself gain so much weight.
As a child, I wasn’t all that active. My brother, who always has been, kept me from staying inside all the time, and I think that helped me manage my weight as a child, but as I got older, and more interested in reading, writing, computers, and other activities that required little to no movement, I started packing on the pounds. There are pictures of me as a portly child, and I really hate to look at them. I didn’t notice it at the time, but I should have realized then I was going to have to fight to not become obese.
Getting fat as a young teenager was mostly averted by the scarcity of what I liked to call “good food” at home. My mother and father were both very invested in their careers, leaving my brother and I to mostly fend for ourselves when it came to food. This meant very few “home cooked” meals. For lunches at school, I would sometimes bring only a package of saltines, plain crackers. I didn’t eat much because there wasn’t really much to eat.
My mom would bring home groceries once every two weeks, and in the first two or three days, everyone would eat their favourite things, and then we would go back into surviving on whatever we could swallow. We weren’t a very well off family, but we managed.
Then I went off to College, and lived with my grandmother. I got a job working at S&R, a local independent department store and started binge eating junk food here and there. I didn’t think too much of it at the time, but I was probably compensating for the lack of such things at home. It is safe to say, I over compensated by a long shot.
Over the course of two years I put on around thirty pounds, and this kept climbing as I went to live on my own, and even still when I moved in with my girlfriend at the time, who is now my wife.
It has always been easier for me to enjoy the foods that are bad for me, and easier to shop for them as well. I can buy vegetables that will last a few days in the refrigerator or I can buy a bag of chips that will last months in the cupboard. I can buy fruit that will last days on the counter, or fruit snacks that will last forever. I told myself that when I had more money, I wouldn’t eat like this anymore, but the habit was easier to get into, than out of.
Now, I am starting to get that drooping belly that most overweight people eventually get, where your gut has stuck out so far, for so long that gravity is taking hold and moving it slowly southward, and no belt on earth can hold back the advancing wave of blubber. It is not a pretty picture, and I want it to stop.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I read what you wrote here and at first I was a little upset - felt like you were blaming me for your weight problem.
I will agree somewhat with my responsibility for the problem considering that part of my duty as your mother was to teach you good eating habits, however, I believe the bigger problem was that you (and your brother) were not taught how to positively and effectively deal with stress (and I believe boredom is a type of stress). Instead of finding and/or helping you find positive relief strategies, you were taught to self-medicate by the actions of your father and I.
I have come to learn that if exercise and activity is not supported and encouraged while children are growing up they look for something to make themselves feel better when they are stressed or bored and end up “falling into their parents footsteps”.
So, if a parent/s choose alcohol, food, drugs (including cigarettes), etc to deal with stress the child/ren tend to copy one or more of those coping skills to self-medicate. Food tends to be one of the easiest things for children to abuse and many who have felt “deprived” as children abuse food to feel better.
Unfortunately, unlike other “coping skills” that are used, food must be constantly in our lives so the abuse of it is very, very difficult to stop.
One who is abusing alcohol or drugs can make the choice to stop abusing and abstain from using but a “food-addict” has a much harder time since they must eat to survive.
One thing I’m learning is that there is a very strong connection to using food to “soothe” emotions and boredom, hence, self-medicating to relieve stress.
I believe that the main focus to stop abusing food is to deal with emotions and boredom in a different, consciously-chosen way.
Unfortunately for most food-abusers, exercise is the best replacement for food-abuse because it allows more leeway in food choices and consumption and deals with the side-affect of food abuse - weight gain.
I agree that a lot of what we do we learned from our parents but at some point we must take responsibility for our choices and perceptions and find a way to be healthier; mentally, emotionally, spiritually and most importantly, physically.
I love you and wish you the best of luck in reaching your goal.
One more thing I should mention about the picture posted on this topic -
You were 12 years old and were going through a very normal process of weight gain before height-growth. Pre-pubescent children tend to gain some weight just before “spiking” up in height. Do you remember the time you slept for 16 hours and we thought you grew 2 inches? If a child is teased or no one explains this to them then they tend to have a negative perception of themselves.
Just wanted to encourage you to be kind to yourself because that’s how positive changes get made.