I've lost an average 2 year old, an automobile tire, and a 5-gallon bottle of water or an average human leg! WOW! That was fun! Allison

*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)

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.

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

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)