Well HELLO everyone. It appears you’ve found me — even though I haven’t “officially” launched this site yet (meaning, I have been too afraid to actually mention it by name on my old blog.) But some of the posts I stuck in the archives appeared on the Fatosphere feed. And more will soon, as I add other relevant old posts from my other blog. Just until I get fully into the swing of things.
It’s going to take me a little while to get caught up on responding to comments, but thank you so much for the enthusiastic response and encouragement. It means a hell of a lot to someone as petrified as I have been lately.
I’ve just had a letter from a dear reader who shall remain anonymous.
Dear Fat Nutritionist,
I am fat and short — just over five feet and around 225 pounds, to be exact. My husband is medium height, muscular, and not fat, around five feet and eight inches, and around 155 pounds. My question is about our daughter.
She appears to take after my husband in body shape and eating patterns. She is around the 50th percentile for height and the 25th percentile for weight at four years old. Right now, she looks healthy, muscular and lean, with a little bit of a tummy (very kissable).
She loves to eat a variety of things, usually not a whole lot at once, but more in the form of snacks and small meals. We offer her a variety of foods and she eats a good diet, overall, but she also loves ice cream and cake. Aside from the ice cream and goldfish crackers, most of what she eats is homemade.
My question is this (and it feels so neurotic to ask it): Is it possible that I could make her fat, when she doesn’t seem to be destined to be?I worry about giving in to her desires for a serving or two of ice cream each day, or homemade unfrosted cake. I don’t want to create power struggles over food. I try to have things around that she likes, or we make them for her from scratch, so that they don’t become “forbidden foods.” Thanks mostly to her dad, she does associate some foods with feeling better if she is upset, but generally, I’ve tried to set the example that food is mostly for helping us to have energy, to grow, to thrive, and sometimes also to have fun or celebrate, or enjoy time together.
I let her know all of the time how beautiful she is. How amazing her body and her mind and her whole self are. I do not put myself down in front of her. If she is predisposed to be fat, I think I can be a good role model for her, overall, of good body image and health at every size, but if she has a chance to avoid becoming fat, I want that for her. Oh, this just sounds so neurotic.
So, is there something I need to be doing differently? I am working on my own issues of being a fat kid and fat adult, and try my absolute best not to project this on to her. If I feed her well, teach her to honor her body’s hunger and drive for movement, model showing respect to my own body, provide her with opportunties for creativity and tons and tons of parental love, will she turn out okay on the body image and health front? I thought I had rejected the obesity crisis crap — but when it comes to her, it goes right to my guilt center.
Signed,
Am I Making Her Fat?
Before I begin, let me say, wow. You obviously — and pardon the expression, please — love the shit out of your daughter. What an incredibly lucky girl she is to have someone like you looking out for her.
Now, I think you know all of the things I am about to say. Nevertheless, I think it will do you good to hear them anyway. If only for your own peace of mind.
First, you can’t make someone fat against their body’s will.
And even if you could, as soon as they were removed from your fatty influence, they wouldn’t stay fat. If everything in their genetic makeup resisted fatness, there is nothing you or I could do — short of strapping a person down and giving them a 24/7 IV drip of whipping cream and Hershey’s syrup, and probably not even then — to make them permanently, irrevocably fat.
The rub is, a hell of a lot of us seem to have a genotype that supports weight gain, even if not all of us actively express it. And that, of course, is where things get tricky. But this is an important philosophical point to make, especially if you believe in natural selection — if there were not a decided survival advantage to having the potential to gain weight and become fat, balanced against comparatively minimal risk, then that genotype wouldn’t exist, except as a rare medical anomaly. It certainly wouldn’t be as prominent as it appears to be currently. As things are, most of us seem to have the ability, even the propensity, to gain weight in an abundant environment.
Like many people, your daughter very well might have a genotype that supports weight gain, given the right environment.
Which brings us to our second point: why the hell shouldn’t she?
From her body’s point of view, the trendy moral panic of the day doesn’t matter. What matters are the odds of survival and reproduction. If you’re a betting woman, I’d advise you to go with Mother Nature on this one. You obviously love and want to protect your daughter — luckily, so does her body. You’re on the same team. Go team.
The third thing is, I can totally understand why you’d worry about this.
No one in this culture wants their kid to be the potential victim of fat-bashing. Just as no parent wants their kid to be the potential victim of gay-bashing. Parents have a visceral urge to protect their children from a cruel culture by helping them fly under the radar. It’s understandable.
The problem with this is — what if your kid is destined, against all contrary efforts, to be fat? Or gay?
Trying to cloak them from the radar denies the basic fact of who they are. It tells them, in no uncertain terms, that they are not okay. And the problem is, a kid might not be able to parse the distinction between you trying to protect them from a culture that finds them not okay, and you, yourself, thinking they are not okay.
That’s exactly what you don’t want. Fat or thin, you’ve got to love them anyway.
To get to some of the more practical parts of your letter, AIMHF, do you need to do anything different with regard to feeding her? I don’t know. It sounds like you’re doing pretty well, actually.
My own tendency is to suggest people have regular, sit-down mealtimes and snacks.
And to practice the division of responsibility, meaning — the parent decides what food gets served, where, and when, but then leaves it entirely up to the kid to decide how much to eat.
The dessert question can be a tricky one. And, given that I don’t have children myself, I can’t give full credit to the intricacies of dealing with this in real life. But, theoretically, the idea is to serve dessert as part of the main meal.
Set a serving of dessert at everyone’s plate along with the meal, and don’t give “seconds.”
But don’t take this as a license to get too restrictive — I don’t mean, give her a teaspoon of ice cream once a day and then say “NO MORE FOR YOU, FATTY!” when she asks. I mean, give her a little bowl of it. Depending on how old she is, and how much capacity her stomach has, I’m sure you can trust yourself to pick out what you think of as a “normal” amount.
Another thing about sweets and desserts — there’s a reason she likes them so much, and it has nothing, necessarily, to do with her future as a Confirmed Fatty. You already know this, AIMHF, but I’m going to say it for the sake of my readers: little kids are metabolically active. Meaning, their energy requirements, per unit body mass, are huge. Meaning, they naturally seek out energy-dense foods — like concentrated sugars and fats. Meaning candy, cake, and ice cream.
Meaning, kids are perfectly normal for liking, even for obsessing a little, about these things.
The way to deal with it, in my opinion, is not to make it a big deal. It’s part of a stage they’re going through physically, as well as mentally. Their bodies want the stuff, badly, and their mind is learning what their physical limits are, what makes them feel good, and what makes them sick. This is a valuable learning process — one that I don’t think any child should be denied.
My thought, then, is this: on a daily basis, give your kid dessert in the way I’ve described. Maybe give a dessert at BOTH lunch and dinner, if you like. But feed it along with the meal, like it’s no big deal, it’s no different from other foods. If asked, the only reason seconds aren’t given is because desserts are really filling, and you’ve got to save room for the other foods that give you other nutrients you need. And we’ll have dessert again at dinner. And tomorrow. And the next day.
But, periodically (Ellyn Satter suggests at some snack times), perhaps on holidays that feature sweets as a centrepiece, give your kid the opportunity to eat more liberally. Not because WOOHOO WE HAVE TO CELEBRATE HOLIDAYS BY MAKING OURSELVES SICK, but because I strongly believe that many kids will learn about how to balance their eating by, occasionally, totally messing up. Just like part of learning to ride a bike is, occasionally, totally falling off.
Plan for these occasions, if you can. And make them time-limited. Don’t encourage bingeing, God forbid — in fact, don’t say anything about the food, unless asked. And then just say, “Yes, you may.” And let her test the waters on her own. Be sympathetic if she gets a tummyache. Don’t be overbearing. Let her figure it out — she will, I promise.
I was a kid myself, not so very long ago. It only took once or twice for me to figure this one out.
If she’s anywhere near as smart and wonderful as you are, AIMHF, she will figure it out too. And you’re not neurotic for worrying about this — you live in a messed up culture, and you’re swimming against the current to do everything you can for your daughter.
Keep swimming, and you’ll both be fine.
Much love,
Michelle
Please feel free to send in letters and questions either in comments, or by emailing michelle at fatnutritionist dot com.
20 Comments
You rock. I’m excited about this blog :)
See? This is the sort of rational, intelligent commentary that has us excited that you’re going to be blogging more regularly.
People tend to make food a much, much bigger issue than it should be. We need more people like you talking about food as fuel rather than meals as minefields.
You do indeed rock. :mrgreen:
Thanks so much you guys. It means a lot to me to get so much encouragement, so early on.
Great advice.
I don’t want to scare AIMHF, but I was just like her daughter as a child, though my mother is actually not fat, my father is quite tall and lanky. All through elementary school, it looked as though I would be built just like him. I was tall and thin, too (75th percentile for height and 50th for weight). Then, at age 11, just as puberty hit, so did depression. I gained 50 lbs in 2 years. Under different circumstances, I might have kept growing, or I might not have gained as much weight as I did. But those circumstances didn’t happen.
The most important thing, from my personal experience, is to make sure she maintains the ability to listen to her body’s needs. That’s a skill I wish I still had.
This was perfect advice, Michelle. Thank you.
The most perfect part, I think, or at least the part that resonated the most, was this:
And the problem is, a kid might not be able to parse the distinction between you trying to protect them from a culture that finds them not okay, and you, yourself, thinking they are not okay.
I know I couldn’t parse that distinction AT ALL.
If my little girl at some point comes to the realization that she is gay, I know that I wouldn’t want her to be dealing with that hatred, but I also would want her to know how much I love her and want her to be happy and have healthy relationships and enjoy life and love herself, and I know I would join PFLAG and become the most annoyingly supportive parent of a gay child, and an even more vocal proponent of gay rights, gay acceptance, gay marriage and just a hugely gay world.
So, I suppose by participating in the fat acceptance movement and just being a radical fat acceptance human being, I am doing something similar. I can say, “I fought for you to have a better life” no matter what size she wears. I am hopefully growing a fat-positive human being, which I hope will pay off in either her own view of herself and/or her being an awesome friend and/or ally and/or partner.
Her issues on the couch will be something other than body image and food, I think.
The most important thing, from my personal experience, is to make sure she maintains the ability to listen to her body’s needs. That’s a skill I wish I still had.
Quoted for truth, Meems. And I’m sorry you feel like it’s a skill you no longer possess. That sucks. I hope my blog can help.
AIMHF- thanks so much, again, for your letter.
And, if my kid were gay, I know I’d want the whole damn world to be gay, too. In fact, I’d be pretty okay with a big gay world right now.
At any rate, I think you’re doing fabulously with your daughter.
If you, or anyone else, has questions about feeding kids, Ellyn Satter’s website and books are the best places to go.
She is, to me, the absolute authority on all things related to child nutrition, and she’s very HAES-oriented and fat-friendly. In short, my hero.
Thanks, Michelle. I’ll definitely continue to read your blog.
I’m also seeing a nutritionist. A good one, who believes in HAES, and is trying to help me learn how to eat intuitively again. At 25, and after 10+ years of diet mentality when it comes to food (those 50 lbs. were pretty killer for a middle schooler, though I luckily avoided the worst of the teasing), I’m having trouble with it. At the very least, I’m eating enough, and have started to be ok with leaving food on my plate if that means stopping when I’m no longer hungry.
I’m glad you’re seeing someone, Meems. I actually did the very same thing myself, in 2005, and it was REALLY difficult. But ultimately worth it. It does take a while, though, and I had to sort of scissor-step my way to actual intuitive eating by using structure along the way (planned my meals for certain times, made sure they all included multiple food groups rather than just eating whatever sounded good.) But after doing that for a while, I now actually just eat what I want, when I want, and it’s no biggie. I somehow balance it out automatically, without thinking much about it.
Best wishes to you — I know it’s rough. But you’re doing a great thing for yourself.
On a forum I post on regularly, there are a number of women seeking advice on how to put their ‘obese’ daughters on diets (these children being between 8-15 years of age)
It’s incredible the amount of people, women in particular, who have an urge to control their daughter’s weight (and it’s always daughters, strangely, never sons) in order for their daughters to be popular, successful, etc. It’s a bizarre anti-feminist fat-hatred paired with motherly love and concern gone completely arse-up. I know because my own mother did this to me, sent me to Gloria Marshall at the tender age of 14 because I was ‘fat and unpopular’. She on the other hand hated her body and used cigarettes as a food replacement.
I wish my mother knew about HAES principles, perhaps I wouldn’t be the way I am today?
Thank you for your excellent blog, Michelle.
I don’t believe I just read this!
This poor woman worries that her daughter has inherited her genetic tendency to be fat, so asks advice from a 250 pound nutritionist, who then advises her to feed her daughter dessert every day. Or even twice a day!?!
Then the mother, and everyone else, thanks the fat nutritionist for her wisdom. Something does *not* make sense here.
I can’t help wondering what advice the mother would have received if she’d asked a non-fat nutritionist, but something tells me it wouldn’t be along the lines of “feed your daughter dessert every day, or – heck – even twice a day!
Staci -
Actually, the advice I gave comes almost directly from Ellyn Satter, who is a “non-fat nutritionist.” I would recommend you read her books “How to Get Your Kid to Eat…But Not Too Much” and “Secrets of Feeding a Healthy Family” for more information. She also says that no one should feel obligated to serve dessert if it simply doesn’t interest them. And I agree with that. But the reason I recommended serving dessert here is because AIMHF specifically mentioned that her daughter loves dessert.
Personally, I don’t eat dessert twice a day, or even every day. It was just an idea — the point being that if a child is exposed to something frequently, and it’s presented as a normal part of everyday life, it loses some of its mystique and its “forbidden” appeal.
Ellyn Satter suggests, and so do I, that many desserts include fruit, so that dessert can make a more balanced nutritional contribution to the overall diet. But, even so, there’s room in everyone’s diet for cake and ice cream and other treats.
In fact, I prefer my ice cream with fresh fruit. I think it strikes the perfect balance.
Otherwise, my knowledge, experience and education in nutrition have far more bearing on the advice I give than my weight. And, actually, I think I weigh closer to 260 than 250. Geesh.
Staci, if Michelle wanted the kid to end up fat, she’d recommend dieting. Dieting sets up a cycle where weight is lost, then regained with a slower metabolism. Long term, it causes people to put on weight. Just ask the my family’s older generation. While several of them have put on 100+ pounds by yo-yo dieting, I’ve eaten intuitively – the type of eating that Michelle advocates – and at forty, I still weigh approximately what I did at 18 – a little over 200 pounds. If people who are predisposed to be fat were just allowed to stay at their natural size rather than told to diet then we’d have fewer people who are 100+ pounds heavier than average.
Not sure if you know of it, but there’s a fantastic little book called “Preventing Childhood Eating Problems” that is a great reference guide for working with children on intuitive eating. It’s very size-acceptance focused and I *wish* my mother had read it when I was eight or nine.
Am looking forward to reading more entries here – you’ve made a fantastic start!
I’ll have to check that out, Heidi. Thanks for the recommendation.
Michelle,
I’m a mom who found FA during my first maternity leave, and I now have two beautiful daughters. They are why I have to get my head on straight around food and body issues– they WILL NOT learn from me that any body (even mine!) is unacceptable.
Its hard work to re-frame the clean-your-plate, 5-more-bites relationship with food that I was raised with.
Thanks for this- I’m looking forward to reading more here- a chance to “eddy out” while swimming against the current.
This one made me cry. I feel like I could have written that letter. My daughter is almost 3 and I’m scared to death that she’ll be fat and it’ll be all my fault for not teaching better habits or being a better example.
Thank you for your answer, it was very good. :) I have to just relax and make it not a big deal.. I know that…
Seriously, Lyngay, if you have any big concerns about your daughter, her eating + weight + health, check out Ellyn Satter’s work. Truly amazing, comforting stuff.
The fear you feel for your daughter is totally natural, so I hope you don’t guilt yourself over it. You just want to protect her. Luckily, there are ways of doing that without foisting a lot of weight-related baggage on her.
FANTASTIC advice. Future motherhood is one of my biggest fears with weight. Thank you so much!