Dilema

Ok.....it IS fun to share clothes with Olivia, but......... She is just about my height and weighs 120 pounds, which is "normal" BMI. My "dream goal" is 125, but I will be happy at 130-140, which is in the average range for my height. The problem is that I can see that she already has the bad habits that got me to be morbidly obese in the first place and her older sister is also obese. How can I get her to stop before it is too late? She already comes home from school upset that kids call her "fat" (which she is not----yet). When reading blogs here on OH---I see so many women that had issues growing up with parents that always seemed critical of their eating habits, but that made them eat all the more. It seems that if I say too much I lose, and if I don't say enough, I lose. (or should I say she loses?) Some background....... With my oldest (Amber--now 29) I tried not to say anything in order for her not to have image problems and always showered her with love. She always ate whatever she wanted and has grown to be obese and she now wishes I had done more. With the "little ones" (Olivia, 11 and David 14) I was the "food police" when they were small......no candy, very little sugar, soda and not a lot of junk food. I always gave them healthy snacks, carrots, raisins, rice cakes.....and they love that stuff too. They both now have much more freedom to chose their own food, and I catch them both hiding and eating garbage. David was chubby a few years ago, but has grown to be 6 feet tall and thinned out after marching band and football. Olivia plays softball and basketball, but if she does not stop eating all the wrong things (which I seem to find more and more of)......and I'm not even sure where it all comes from. I have tried to talk to her about it, and we speak a lot about serving sizes, but she will sit in front of the TV and eat (which is forbidden) a whole large bag of cheese popcorn or 4-6 popscicles, or 2 candy bars in a sitting. If there is ice cream in the house, she would eat half of a half gallon container easily. I have talked to her about my surgery, letting her know that it is not the easy way out. She looks at me as if she does not believe me. She has seen that it has been "easy" for me in her eyes......no sickness, no pain, and the pounds look to her like they've just melted away. I have not had many problems, but even if I did, I would try not to let her see that as she is my child, and I would not complain to her anyway. Sorry for the long post, but does anyone have any suggestions, or do I just have to continue what I am doing and hope for the best? Thanks for sticking with me......... Dawn

Ok going to give you my 2 cents in the form of a story. ( I saw that eye roll LOL ) Growing up my Mom was very over weight ( I didn't realize this till later lol cuz well shes my Mom and no kid *see's* their Mom as fat). Looking back I am actually surprised at a lot of the things she did being as over weight as she was ( I would say at her highest 250-260ish). My Mom never told us to eat or not eat something. She always wanted to "be our friend" and not have to tell us something we didn't want to hear ( consequences to this bad behavior were paid later by her kids on several different levels in life). We grew up eating junk basically. YES it was all *homemade* but it was tacos and pizza. My brother was very picky there for anything "green" was out. I can not remember a day (till after I had moved out) that my Mom ever commented on my weight growing up. Of course I was never heavy growing up but I believed I was. Looking back I see now that was my Mom not me that was heavy and it was imprinting on me about how SHE felt about herself. I never was fat but felt fat. Where did I learn this? Not at school. I don't remember ever hearing the kids tease me about my weight. I showed horses, lettered in Volley ball was very active. But I lived with a morbidly obese woman with EXTREMELY low self esteem. This imprinted on her kids stronger then any "words" could have. We learned to deal with the bad things in life by eating. We learned to deal with the GOOD things in life by eating. We learned that if we had nothing to do we could eat. Happy, sad, good, bad we were visually trained to eat. So jump ahead years and years later... Nothing my Mom ever "said" helped me get to 427lbs or for that matter helped me NOT get there. I don't believe that good or bad there was anything she could have said that would have effected me as much as her actions did. I never saw my Mom working out. I never saw my Mom trying to eat healthy ( or my Dad either for that matter). What I saw was her comforting herself with food. Celebrating with food. Focusing our lives around what was to eat. It was very damaging. My brother is now easily 400lbs. How did he get there? Every thing he does in a day is around food. It "makes him feel better". I was 427lbs. How did I get there? Everything I did was around food. It "made me feel better". I had NO background experience to fall back on when life got hard other then "eat you will feel better". There was no thought to go out and run my stress off. Or to find another way to deal with boredom or depression. I was trained from a very early age to "eat to comfort" and so I did. My Mom is no longer obese. She is not even over weight. The day my brother ( he is a year younger then I am ) moved out my Mom changed her whole live and went on a strict diet. My Mom lost over 160lbs in a year ON HER OWN, and as far as I know to this day has kept it off. She also works out a LOT now. When she finally did get to a point to help her kids change... it was to late. We had moved out and were on our own as adults. Now it just came across as nagging. To little to late. The more she would nag me about my weight the heavier I got... It was to late for her to help me now. Her chance to change my behavior had long come and gone. Ok why am I telling you all this? Whats the point? lol The point is no matter what you say it probably wont matter and will probably do more harm then good. I DO think you should tell your daughter flat out how you feel. BUT then you need to provide an environment to help her learn "on her own" how to live healthy. This does NOT mean she needs to learn to eat carrot sticks lol. I am a firm believer it wont be the food that causes her the problems and helps her to gain weight. It will be W H Y she is eating the food and most important is her ability to stop the behavior and find a different outlet. I didn't get to 427lbs because I was starving and need to eat huge quantities of food. I got there because I had no background to fall back on when life got hard except the example that was set for me to eat my problems away... Now I have an almost 7 year old son. I want to provide him with a good foundation. Not because I am worried he will become overweight WHILE he is growing up... but that once he is out on his own he wont have any experiences to fall back on, with how to deal with life. I hope he will learn that if he is bored to go play, if he is mad or stressed to go run around and burn it off. I hope he will learn to hear the "I am hungry voice" and know the difference between that and "I am bored I am going to go eat" voice. Lets face it.. there comes a time when no matter what we say "they wont want to hear it". But they cant escape what they see around them every day. Show them how important YOU are to YOU and they WILL remember it. Hopefully when they need it most. That's my plan with Joshua anyways. Ok so I have rambled on and on and not sure if that really helps you out or not. This is a subject that has caused me a lot of thought over the last couple of years. In the end we can only do the best we can do. But we have to make sure its the best we can do FOR them AND ourselves other wise the lessons learned not be the ones we had hoped to teach. *HUGGLES* Good luck to you! Felicia =0)

Thank you Felicia----it helps a lot. I think this is a big "hot button" for all of us. I have been thinking about it for a long time and just got the courage to post. I grew up without any parents, so I sometimes need to hear about other's experiences to help me decide which way I want to go. Thank s again, Dawn

*HUGS* I think you are doing great! Your one step ahead for just "thinking" about it in the first place. I hope you find something that works for you and your family. *big huggles* Felicia =0)

Hi Dawn, I will be so interested to read the suggestions and ideas that others post. Here is my story with my youngest. He was always a chubby child. He was 10 pounds, 8 ounces at birth and stayed above the curve for weight all of his life. He was obese in 8th grade. All the coaching, information and progrms I provided for him were not helpful. We enrolled in the OPT for fit kids program, exercise programs -- to no avail. One night we were watching Dateline together, and saw a program about a camp for kids who are overweight, Camp La Jolla in San Diego. He asked if he could go. I called the camp, and enrolled him for the summer between 8th grade and high school. That camp changed his life. He went from a fat kid to a normal weight young man, and has stayed there. People who saw him after that summer could not believe the change in him -- almost as striking as the changes we have all seen with our bodies. He is now 6'6" tall, and weighs 215. He is blonde, tanned and happy. Camp La Jolla is very expensive, and I am a single Mom. It is a residential camp, on the campus o****an Diego. When I think about the benefits my son got from that camp, I still get teary eyed. He met people from all over the world. He learned about nutrition, exercise, portion size and reading food labels. Stuff he just wouldn't/couldn't learn from me. I will always be grateful that I found the cash to send him to CLJ. That's my story. MY efforts were not enough, and I needed to get outside help. I will look forward to reading about how each of you helped your children to learn habits to be healthy and fit for a lifetime.

Thank you Evelyn: I think the key to your story is that he ASKED to go. Hopefully, Olivia will reach the conclusion that a change needs to be made too. Dawn

Yes -- I agree that they key is -- he ASKED to go. He got tired of being teased and called the "Fat Kid" We can be so cruel to one another....

Let me add a couple more things to my post. I am a registered nurse. I have taken courses in counseling, nutrition and child development. I cooked nutritious meals, talked to my child, worked with him, taught him -- did all the things that I believed he needed to hear to know how to handle his own weight -- and he could not HEAR it and IMPLEMENT it from me. He needed it from someone else. Maybe it was because I was obese. Maybe it was just because I am his Mom. Maybe I am not that good of a teacher. I felt tremendous guilt from this -- Nothing can break your heart more than an issue with one's child. This is such an emotionally laden topic. Thanks for bringing it up. I really look forward to hearing from others about it.

This is an amazing story! You should be so very proud of yourself and your son. Way to go Mom for not only being there but LISTENING to your son. I am thrilled to see he is doing so well. *HUGGLES* Felicia =0)

My turn to put my 2 cents in! I am overly obsessed with my children and what they eat. Growing up I was the youngest of four. I was the "oops" child and there is a big age difference between me and my siblings. My mother was always heavy and I did see her as fat. She would take diet pills and tell me not to tell anyone. She tried every diet out there and failed every time. My father use to tell me I was going to end up like her. That I could never stick to anything. The more he would tell me these things the more I would eat. I thought I was hurting him more by doing it but in all reality I hurt myself. Let me go off track for a minute....I adore my father. If there is one person in this world I want to make proud of me it is him. I think that is why it hurt so much for him to say these things to me. OK, so he was right. I did get heavy and came to a dead end road. Who do I blame? That's a tough question. I blame myself. Because, if I wasn't so damn stubborn and listened to him I would've never ended up fat and miserable. The more I heard people say you have such a beautiful face "if only" you could lose some weight, the more I ate. I don't harp on my kids about their weight because neither one has an issue with it. However, since I know how stubborn I was instead of preaching I don't provide. In other words, I try and keep it out of the house. Occassionally, I offer a treat like ice cream sandwiches or chips. I have them snacking on sf pudding and jello. They can't tell the difference and to them it's junk food. I limit their intake on sugared beverages. After dinner, they can only have milk or water and they are OK with that. My son can care less about junk food but he does like his soda. My daughter loves junk food. She's the one I worry about. She is built just like me. At the age of 4 I know I need to provide her with alternatives to junk food. What it all comes down to is based on the individual. How do they react to criticism? Do they think your harping on them? Maybe like the other posts have mentioned having them talk to someone else. Sometimes, mom is "perceived" as the enemy. Whatever road you take in handling this is the best you can do. You're a wonderful and caring mother who is looking out for her children. If they don't realize it now they will in the future but lets hope at that time it's not too late. I wish you luck. I didn't mean to go on and on. Allison