Ten years ago I was pregnant and found out I was being blessed with a daughter. My biggest fear was becoming a mother who created body image and food issues in my daughter. I grew up with many concerns about the way I looked and I didn’t want Emily to have the same experience.
When I was 7 or 8 years old, I made the picture shown at the left. At the top of the page, I wrote “I will not eat lots of candy.” A few years later, at what was likely the beginnings of my period of self-doubt and anxiety over my weight issues I added “until my diet is over.” My Mom loved the drawing. In fact, it hung in her house until just a few years ago. Once I had a daughter of my own I knew I didn’t want that message hanging on the wall and so I asked my Mom to take it down. I’m grateful that now she understands how painful that was for me.
I was not a fat child, but I wasn’t thin either. I considered myself to be “normal.” The idea that I was so aware of diets and eating too much candy at such an early age makes me sad. I resolved to do everything I could so that Emily would not have the same struggles with food and eating that I so vividly remember.
Nevertheless, it sometimes has seemed like there is nothing I can do. With every doctor’s appointment I would find my daughter at the “high” end of the growth chart – for height and weight. A couple of years ago, our doctor sent us to a nutritionist and that helped slightly. As a child, I never knew about healthy eating or balanced plates. I didn’t have the knowledge to know how the things I was eating were affecting my body. And so, together we made healthier choices. Around the dinner table, we used words like “healthy” and “strong” as opposed to “diets” and “fat”. I was determined to help my daughter so she would have the support that I never felt I had.
Emily was fully committed to making healthy choices both in what she ate and also in what she did with her time. She responsibly considered the food she was eating and she joined the swim team and swam four times a week. Over the last few years, she has developed amazing form and she is very strong. Her butterfly is awesome! But recently, we went to a family friend’s pool, and we heard concerns from some of my family and friends. A couple of people came over to me and said “How come she still has a gut?” and “How odd that she doesn’t have a swimmers body”.
It cut like a knife. As the Mom, I thought these comments were a reflection on me and my parenting. I was grateful that Emily didn’t hear these things but I couldn’t ignore the obvious. Despite all of our efforts, she did have a gut. I didn’t want her to feel bad about herself because I knew she had been trying her best to be healthy; we all had. Nevertheless, I had to find a way to talk to her about healthier choices again. I never wanted to make her feel bad about what she ate – I just wanted to give her more options. Then I realized that because I am more aware of it and sensitive to it, I changed the pattern. Because I have created a supportive circle around my children, my daughter takes her challenges in stride. She has the self-confidence at 10 that I didn’t find until much later. I have helped give that to her. And because of that, I am hopeful that she won’t grow up to hide food or become bulimic.
I’m sure I will do plenty wrong as a Mom. But I hope that this is one area where I’m on the right track to creating a young woman with self-confidence and the ability to make great choices for herself.
Do you stress about the imprint you may be putting on your kids? Please share with me in the comments below.
😀 Sarah
Sarah is a native Los Angeleno with the heart of a Chicagoan. She loves A Cappella music, cooking, and swing dancing. When she’s not helping raise money for schools, sports teams and clubs, she is hanging out with and loving life with her husband and girls. For more information about what she does professionally, check out www.amomsguidetoschoolfundraising.com