Fat Tuesday: NYT- Growing up with a fat dad

[Deleted]

There's a blog post in Well about growing up with a fat dad. I didn't post it b/c I used up my free articles this month However, this is something I have thought about since DD was born. I am still overweight, and even at my "happy weight", have an overweight BMI (but still wear a 6-8, maybe that'll be different post-preg). H is most definitely overweight. DD has been in the 75th percentile for weight and 95th for length since she was born, and our immediate families are not fat. One of the reasons I am finally taking a serious look at how I am eating is because she just started solids and I want to model good eating habits for her. I know she may just be prone to being overweight (there were definitely fat people on my dad's side of the family, even in a rural village eighty years ago, and I have that type of body), and if she is, I need to accept that and model healthy choices anyway. However, I can't help but worry that seeing our bodies will somehow "make her fat". Being a fat girl sucks. There's really no other way to say it, and I just hope she avoids that altogether.

Anyway, sorry for the ramble, but this is what I can do on broken sleep and two cups of coffee

[cookiemdough]

..Voices June 15, 2012, 10:47 am 354 Comments
Growing Up With a Fat Dad
By DAWN LERMAN

well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/15/growing-up-with-a-fat-dad/?hpw

I grew up with a fat dad — 450 pounds at his heaviest. Every week he would rotate to a new fad diet, and my family ended up eating whatever freeze-dried, saccharin-loaded concoction he was trying at that moment. By the time I was 9, I was an expert on Atkins, Pritikin and Weight Watchers, just to name a few. Did I mention spending four weeks at Duke University’s “fat farm” consuming only minuscule bowls of white rice, while my 10-year-old peers were home eating ice cream cones?

In spite of being shorter and scrawnier than my classmates, I was eating calorie-free astronaut mystery powders and drinking diet sodas, which were the only staples in our kitchen. My dad was obsessed with his career in advertising and his fluctuating weight, which was fluctuating mostly in the wrong direction. Every new diet, no matter how stringent or odd, was the potential solution for his expanding waistline.

My mother, on the other hand, never understood what the big deal with food was and ate only one small meal a day while standing up and chatting on the phone. She had no interest in preparing food. Most of our meals consisted of my dad’s diet foods, a meal replacement shake, a frozen dinner, or a bagel or pizza in the car. We never had meals together as a family; in fact, we never ate sitting down. At home, we never used silverware or dishes, only plastic forks and paper plates. My mom loved the fact that in India they never used silverware at all. Of course, she missed the part that Indian families actually ate together and sat down while eating.

What I remember most about those years is that I was always hungry — hungry for food, hungry for nice clean clothes, hungry for someone to notice when I ran away from home or hid in the closet for hours. I was just hungry — hungry for someone to care for me because I was a child and I yearned to be cared for.

But on Friday nights, I was never hungry. My maternal grandfather would pick me up for the weekend, and when we arrived at my grandparents’ home, the table was always set with beautiful china. There was always a pot of something cooking on the stove, a freshly drawn bath, and a fluffy, lavender-smelling nightgown waiting for me. It was at my grandmother’s house where I learned what true nourishment was. It is where my tears were dried.

When I walked into her kitchen, life transformed from processed packages of salty MSG instant soup to the delicious warm, fragrant smell of homemade chicken soup. Giant salads, fresh fruits and the aroma of just-baked muffins filled the air and my world. It was the only place I can remember feeling happy, safe and nourished. It was what I craved.

My grandmother, who was nicknamed Beauty, taught me how good it felt to be cared for, and how to care for myself and others through cooking. It was always about the ingredients for her. If I asked her how much celery to chop for a soup, she’d wave off the question. “Just use your creativity,” she’d say. “You can’t go wrong when you use fresh ingredients.” She’d throw a few carrots, sweet potatoes, a few veal bones — whatever looked best at the market that day — into a pot, and two hours later, it was the most delicious thing I’d ever tasted.

My grandmother Beauty was always extremely skeptical of my parents’ wacky eating habits and reliance on processed diet foods, and made it her mission to teach me how to feed myself and my sister. My grandmother was my mentor and my savior. She poured love and stability into my life, one recipe at a time.

After my third-grade year, my dad landed a life-changing job in Manhattan. My mom, my little sister and I had to move away from our hometown, Chicago, and leave my grandmother and her beautiful food behind.

Leaving my grandmother was far scarier than the move to New York City. There would be no more special weekends at my grandmother’s house, no more homemade food, no more car rides to school. It was the subway, a latchkey, total independence and self-reliance for survival. In this new city, I felt extremely alone and lost, and I missed my grandmother terribly.

My grandmother knew just how I felt — and she knew the cure. Every week, she would send me a card with a $20 bill, a recipe and a list of what to buy at the market. It kept us bonded, and her recipes filled my body and soul.

Over the years, I have grown to better understand my father’s struggles with weight and the toll it took on him and those who love him. I have come to realize he was driven not by vanity or selfishness as much as by a deep pain. And in spite of growing up in such an unhealthy eating environment (or perhaps because of it), as an adult I found a passion and a career as a nutrition consultant.

Today, my father weighs 220 pounds and is a vegan. How he got there is a story I hope to share in the coming weeks. More important, food is no longer a barrier that keeps us apart, but a bridge that keeps us connected. There is nothing my dad enjoys more than talking with me about dietary theories and his weight-loss victories. And now I am the one regularly sending recipe cards to my father’s house, just as my grandmother did for me.


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[IIOY]

There is more at issue here than an overweight father eating frankenfoods.

[Deleted]

her grandmother sending her money and recipes in new york brought tears to my eyes.

[2curlydogs]

Jun 26, 2012 9:13:36 GMT -5 IIOY said:

There is more at issue here than an overweight father eating frankenfoods.

Yeah, this was my thought as well.

That said, my entire family except myself and one sister is overweight or obese. They eat crappy, overprocessed food. They do the fad diet. I can see it's having an effect on their children, too.

And that sort of fucked up relationship with food can cause serious damage. My one brother and his wife, in an effort to prevent their son from "getting fat" like the rest of my family, gave him skim milk once he was weaned until their pediatrician, when trying to figure out why the child was not growing or developing as he should, found out and tore them both a new one. It has had long-term effects on his development, obviously. And NOW same brother and SIL spend hours every day trying to guilt their "picky eater" into eating food. It's completely fucked up.

My ILs aren't much better. They're all moderately overweight and tend to bounce from fad diets, but not in quite such a manic way as my family and they do include exercise in their routine.

It took me a couple of years to break the crappy habits I learned growing up. When H and I started living together he had to re-learn a lot, too.


Suffice to say, my H and I try to avoid exposing B to that sort of insanity we see in our families. I think we're doing a pretty good job.

[cookiemdough]

Jun 26, 2012 9:24:34 GMT -5 cville said:

her grandmother sending her money and recipes in new york brought tears to my eyes.

me too!

[EloiseWeenie]

Jun 26, 2012 9:28:08 GMT -5 cookiemdough said:

Jun 26, 2012 9:24:34 GMT -5 cville said:

her grandmother sending her money and recipes in new york brought tears to my eyes.

me too!

me three!

[Deleted]

i just don't want to talk about food all the time, especially in terms of "good" and "bad" (yes, i know squash is better for you than a twinkie, but A twinkie isn't going to kill you. i don't like rigidity and doomsday nonsense). every member of my and my husband's extended family, except for my brother, does this. EVERY.LAST.ONE. my parents have laid off significantly (my mom was "let's eat only brown rice!" and my dad was always sneaking treats), but still. my ILs are on a perpetual diet and force us to plan each meal of the entire day at like 8am, if not the day before, so they can plot their WW points.

it's exhausting. it is THE thing i try to shield L from because i know it gave me food issues when i was younger, and i don't want to do that to her. i feel like me and food are in a good place now, and i get ragey mama bear when i hear family members turn food into this win/loss good/bad game in front of her. i'm all "look! over here! something shiny!"