I’ve been reading Teenage Waistland, which is part memoir and part a guide for parents of fat kids on what not to do. Except it seems anything a parent does is a don’t when it comes to a child’s weight. The author, who doesn’t have kids of her own, isn’t very gracious when she comes to analyzing the role parents have in a child’s weight.

Still the issues addressed in this book are part of what started me writing about weight and being a fat man’s daughter in the first place.  How do I talk to my children about weight? How can I teach them about healthy portions without knowing healthy portions? How can I discuss being concerned about weight without making them overly concerned about weight?

Is my obsession with exploring this issue going to drive my own children into anorexia, bulimia or obesity?

Or will someone else’s thoughtless comment going to do it for me?

I’m 36 years old, and I still remember a trip to Houston to visit my sister and her husband. My sister had cable and more importantly she had MTV. I was a teenager surrounded by toddlers and adults and a television that offered music videos and more channels than I had seen in my life. I spent some quality time sitting on their couch watching my very first videos. This prompted her husband to make a comment about my weight. It was probably 20 years ago, and I still remember how embarrassed I felt. It was the first time someone had ever commented on my weight. And I was not fat. I wasn’t even close, but I remember the hot cheeks and shame that I felt with his words.

Last Sunday was Easter, and we were all sitting around the table. Dinner was over, and we were playing cards. My oldest daughter was sitting across from me, next to her aunt. Her aunt is obese. She is almost as wide as she is tall. She needs surgery on her knee, but she can’t have it until she loses weight. She doesn’t look like she’s lost any weight lately.

Sitting next to me is my father-in-law. My daughter grabs something to snack on, and my father-in-law made a comment. I don’t remember what my daughter was eating or father-in-law said. I just know it was a comment about my daughter’s weight, as if her weight was a problem.  I think the same thing prompted my father-in-law that prompted my brother-in-law so many years before — someone very obese was in the house and the comment was meant as a preventative measure. But 20 years have gone by, and I didn’t hesitate as I smacked my father-in-law on the arm and let him know that his comment was not appropriate. I’m not sure if my daughter heard him, a comment my mother-in-law made, and I’m not completely sure my father-in-law understood my objection. I’m not sure I did either.

I was horrified his comment was heard by my daughter and would be internalized when it shouldn’t be. I was horrified his comment was heard by my sister-in-law and would sting with pain and truth. I was hurt that people’s words can be so painful.

The other day my daughter was ill, and I picked her up from school. I was on my way to a job, and she came with me. While she waited for me, she bought four candy bars from the vending machine. Two for her and two for me. I didn’t know about the third and fourth one. I ate part of the first candy bar she offered me. I declined the second one. IN less than two hours, my daughter had eaten all of the candy.

As we drove home, I talked about it. I didn’t say it was wrong. I talked about it in terms of calories and portions and eating habits. I noted it wasn’t something you should do frequently. And I had her read the calories on the wrapper, and I mentioned how many calories a typical day should include. I tried not to make her feel bad. I emphasized she isn’t overweight. I don’t want to make her obsessed, but I do want her to know things I didn’t know about portions and exercise.

I was not an overweight child. I was thin most of my life. I didn’t have a weight problem until I became pregnant. I was pregnant and/or breastfeeding for seven years. I lost the weight, and I took a job that left me little time to exercise. I gained weight. I gained the most weight in 2006. I’ve since lost it, but I am still overweight/obese.

Monday, my husband and I talked to an insurance guy about life insurance. The insurance guy didn’t hesitate to ask my husband his weight. He hesitated before he asked me, but I didn’t hesitate to answer. “I’m obese,” I said. And here I fudged my height, saying, “I’m 5′8 and 211.” I actually hover somewhere between 5′7 and 5′8, but I hadn’t fudged on saying I was obese or my weight, so I will let the fraction of an inch slide for the moment.

The next day, my husband and I were talking about the insurance. He shakes his head as he recalls my response. “Obese,” he said. His head shaking from side to side in denial. I’m not obese, he thinks.

I am. I want my children to know what a healthy weight is and what a normal weight body looks like. My children are in the normal range. The oldest weighs more than her great-grandma did at the great-grandma’s wedding. I know this because the great-grandma told me so when she learned how much my daughter weighs. My daughter is also several inches taller than hr great-grandma, and her weight and height fall in the middle of the “normal” range on the BMI scale – 21.6.

What does it say about me that I’ve checked?

It was on an envelope. A few quick lines. I wrote it while stopped at a traffic light, and I used my steering wheel as a table. I didn’t want to forget. It was an entire passage of thoughts, a new room, that I wanted to explore as I continue to write my memoir. I needed to record it, so I wouldn’t forget. I remember writing on the envelope. I remember recording an important thought.

I can’t find the envelope. I don’t remember what I wrote. I just remember writing….

I have not yet given up hope the envelope is gone. There is a pile of paper I brought in from my car Saturday, and the envelope is probably in the pile.

I just wrote it Friday morning. It can’t be lost yet. Can it?

***

I was reading the memoir, Three Dog Life, and there was a passage about memory that I really liked. I want to record it, so I remember. This passage has nothing to do with the envelope, other than both have to do with memory….

And this passage struck me because it addresses something I’ve wondered about — how my memories in written form impact other people.

“Six months ago a friend was angry with me and I with her. I had written something someone said years ago, but it was she who heard the words, not me, a fact I had completely forgotten. Her experience was precious, and she accused me of stealing her memory. Not only that, but what she remembered with grief I had somehow transmuted to gratitude, so besides stealing her memory, I also got it wrong. We argued, but there was no meeting place. For days the same questions went through my head. Is memory property? If two people remember something differently is one of them wrong? Wasn’t my memory of a memory also real? There were no solid answers, just winding paths I went round and round on. I thought of nothing else; a chasm had opened between me and my friend.

“When I went to see Rich that Thursday, the first thing he said was, “Please forgive the selfishness of an old man who seizes the past for his own.” He paused, but I was already listening closely. This sounded oddly like what I’d been thinking about” (Thomas 129-130).

There’s more, but I have class.

Thomas, Abigail. Three Dog Life. New York: Harcourt, Inc., 2007.

That is a great number, and it is not because I am going to be 37 this year.

That is the number of pounds I have lost since January 2007, which is when I weighed my highest ever (except pregnancy).

To meet my goal weight, I still have to lose another 53 pounds.

However, I must say that the 37 pounds I have lost so far are the ones that seem to make me feel less like a fat person and more like me.

I have my face back with my own cheekbones. My thighs and waist are inches smaller. I had to buy a new belt because my old belt was too big even at the smallest notch. Prior to the weight loss, I used the belt at the largest notch. That is a difference of about four inches or more. With my new belt, I am still using the smallest notch. I thought when I bought it, I would have a few notches to go, but I was wrong.

I now have to wear a belt because my pants are too big and show off too much of my lower back/butt if I fail to wear one. My children thank me for this.

I am also happy because I have noticed weight loss in my hands, face, thighs and butt, but I have not yet noticed anything missing where women normally lose weight first — their breasts. I’d like to keep what I have there thank-you-very-much.

I think I gained about 40 pounds when I was attending grad school in 2006. I know I now weigh less than I did in March 2006.

Although the weight guidelines indicate I should lose another 53 pounds, I am focused now on losing 14 pounds. And then maybe another 10. At that point, I will be thrilled, and I think I won’t claim to be fat anymore.

This is a huge thing. To emphasize how big of a thing this is, I have to let you know where I was in September 2007.

I signed up in September to attend an informational seminar about weight-loss surgery. It would cost $25 just to listen, and I was considering getting a lapband surgery. I felt like that was my only option. To even be considered for weight-loss surgery, you have to weigh about 100 pounds over your normal weight and have a BMI of 40 or more.

In September, my BMI was 38.7, and I was thinking it would be easier to gain 20 pounds to qualify than lose the weight on my own. I know this is NOT the way to think about weight loss, but I was frustrated. I had been trying to lose weight for most of 2007. I had initial success and then nothing, and I was very discouraged.

Right now, my BMI is still in the obese range, but I am so much better. It is currently 33.4 based on a height of 5′7. (You can do the math and figure out I currently weigh 213.)
For a woman who is 5′7 (I am slightly taller but not quite 5′8), the high of a normal BMI is 24.9 means weighing no more than 159 pounds. At 5′8, a BMI of 24.9 means a weight of 164 maximum.

My goal right now? I want to be under 200 pounds by May/June.

I think I learned how important motivation (or the lack of it) can be in weight loss. It can be horrible to work hard and not see any results. It made me want to give up. The lapband really appealed to me because it could be adjusted in the future.

I read weight loss blogs like Half of Me, and I read about the person not only losing weight but changing their lifestyle so they are competing in marathons. I am not a marathon kind of gal. I do not see the appeal in running. I like walking, but running does not have an appeal and not just because of my lovely right ankle and all of its scarring and issues.

I can do walking. I can even incorporate regular exercise, but I have no interest in marathons and/or classes like aerobics. I can’t imagine that changing. But who knows what I’ll think tomorrow. Just last September I considered (briefly) gaining 20 pounds to take the “easy” way out…. (Obviously, I know weight loss surgery is not an easy decision. I was commenting more on my thought process than the reality of surgery.)