(Linking up with PaperMama’s Photo Challenge — this week, the topic is “pink.” This is definitely one of my favorite pink photos. You should go post a photo! Go! What are you waiting for??)
Ugh. I am so fat. So fat fat fat fat fat. I had cake this morning for breakfast (I made myself a Happy Mother’s Day cake — what? SHUT UP), two of the decadent chocolate caramel bars Justin got me for Mother’s Day (the same ones I said “They’re so rich I can’t even eat one!” about when I first got them), a pizza sub from Subway, more cake when I got home, and a third of a bag of puffy cheetos. What. The. Hell. I’m like a 14 year old girl who just got dumped for the first time by the love of her life and can’t stop eating.
I’ve been thinking a lot about weight lately, which I suspect is pretty typical of a woman who had twins 16 months ago and is coming to terms with the fact that her body will NEVER LOOK THE SAME AGAIN. I gained 40 pounds over the pregnancy, dropped the first 30 pretty easily, and am now sitting about five pounds heavier than I was when I got pregnant, but — and any woman who has ever been pregnant before will know what I mean by this — they are not the same five pounds they were before my body got stretched out three ways to Sunday. So even though, on the scale, I look as though I’m pretty much back where I started, that couldn’t be farther from the truth. I’m wearing about a size and a half bigger clothing and I just feel gross. My relationship with food has gotten more and more unhealthy over the last 16 months, until I ended up in that dark place where there are “good” foods and “bad” foods and one bite of “bad” food sends me on a shame spiral because I ATE THAT COOKIE NOW I MIGHT AS WELL HAVE A CHEESEBURGER, FRENCH FRIES, AND THE SHAKE TOO BECAUSE IT’S ALL OVER NOW and that turns into a week of crumpled Little Debbie wrappers and empty Duncan Hines icing containers.
All of this has made me think about my relationship with my body image through the years. I’ve had this on my mind a lot because I’ve been thinking about Emmeline, and how determined I am to raise her so that none of this weight BS even becomes a blip on her radar. I mean, I am besotted by my daughter’s fat little cheeks. Her chubby arms thrill me and I can’t change her diaper without kissing on her chunky thighs and commenting on how cute they are. But is my very vocal appreciation of her baby fat setting her on the road to an eating disorder in her teens?
Before you roll your eyes and think that I’m just freaking out about something that I don’t need to be freaking out about (AGAIN), consider the research on girls and their self images: one study tells us that 81% of all 10-year-old girls have gone on a diet at least once in their lives to change their body shape. That’s repulsive, people.
I was about the most low-maintenance teenager that existed on the planet. I never wore makeup except for very special occasions (still don’t), wasn’t preoccupied with the mirror, and didn’t even consider anything like highlights or brow waxing until I was in my 30s. . I was fairly confident: I didn’t particularly think I was pretty, but I didn’t think I was hideous. I guess I was okay with my appearance growing up. Yet I remember dieting in high school — I pretty much subsisted on these little packages of dehydrated apple chips and diet soda during the day. I thought I was fat and that I needed to lose about ten pounds. I was 5’6 and weighed around 125 pounds. Later, in college, I was constantly trying to stick to a diet, starting and quitting exercise regimens, and was just displeased with my body at all times. I was going through a bunch of old photographs and found this one:
(Pardon the ridiculously 90s hairdo(n’t).) I distinctly remember feeling fat that night. I am wearing the 90s equivalent of Spanx, as a matter of fact, in an attempt to hold in my massive girth. What the hell was wrong with me? (I should have been much more concerned about leaving the house with a run in my oh-so-sexy pantyhose.) Do you know what I would give to look like that right now?
Which is to say that if I could be taken in by this spiral of self loathing, ANYONE could. Meaning, it doesn’t matter how much self confidence Emme has — and, from the looks of it, she’s going to have a surplus — my own experience and the statistics tell me that she’s going to struggle with body image at some point in her life. And the more I read, the more I understand that it all starts with me – her mother.
My mom wasn’t obsessed with appearances — far from it. I remember that she and my father would periodically go on a health kick together (they would do this diet, very similar to this one, only it was named the “St. Something Diet” – can’t remember which saint — and the whole neighborhood was on it. I can still see the crumpled photocopied stuck to the refrigerator) when they were feeling like they were getting too heavy. And I remember her doing exercises in the living room. But I don’t ever remember her talking about her weight, or worrying about it, or talking to me about my weight. She was remarkably hands off when it came to mentioning anything about my appearance. That said, I distinctly remember three things she said to me that were slightly negative about my appearance. Just imagine: in 43 years, this poor woman made three tiny comments about my looks and those are the things that I remember. Just for the record: she told me I had “farmer’s knuckles,” meaning bigger-than-usual knuckles, and that I got them from her family; she told me that if I was going to have bangs I either needed to have thick bangs or not have them at all because wispy bangs did nothing for me; and one time, when we were on vacation, she complimented me on not complaining that I was hungry, which I immediately took to mean that I was a fat pig who never stopped whining about food. Now. Those are pretty tame comments, very mild, constructive, actually (and boy, was she right about the bangs), but I remember them like they were yesterday. So these articles that tell me that what I say to Emmeline about her appearance matters a great deal — those articles are TRUE. My comments about her cute chubby thighs could haunt her until she’s 43, at which point in time she will write about me on her blog and make me feel guilty as hell. A fate worse than death.
Although this gives me one more thing to worry and obsess over, I’m glad I’m thinking about it now. The research tells us that girls as young as five start assessing their appearance in the mirror. Five! It doesn’t seem too early to start plotting a course of action on this topic. I have to stop making comments about my body immediately, which will be good for me and for Emme. I also want to start encouraging more physical activity — perfectly timed, as it’s finally warming up outside. I think starting to emphasize health over size at an early age is key, although there are all kinds of warnings about getting young girls involved in body conscious sports like gymnastics, figure skating, or dancing. And focusing our compliments and praise on inner qualities — such as effort, kindness, and politeness — instead of her outer qualities (“You’re so pretty!”) should probably start immediately. It will be hard.
Because y’all. She’s so pretty.
by Lara Jo
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