Mad with ex husband

dark_lady

My mum would go on about my weight when i was younger and it did cause me to binge eat.
When i was eleven i was found to be short sighted and needed glasses. She told me NOT to wear them because i looked horrible in them. When girls are teens how they look is the be all and end all to some mothers.

jamespir

i think that you posted this thread in the hope that everyone would jump on the band wagon and get the torches and pitchforks out for you ex its backfired

jamespir

dark_lady wrote: »

My mum would go on about my weight when i was younger and it did cause me to binge eat.
When i was eleven i was found to be short sighted and needed glasses. She told me NOT to wear them because i looked horrible in them. When girls are teens how they look is the be all and end all to some mothers.

so why did she not get you glasses that did not make you look horrible and they help you see

dark_lady

she couldnt afford to. At the time i was wearing those National Health specs though i did choose the clear pink ones.

jamespir

dark_lady wrote: »

she couldnt afford to. At the time i was wearing those National Health specs though i did choose the clear pink ones.

i wear glasses and i admit as a child there was no designer pairs like to day and they did make me look like me grandad but my mother would never tell me plus it was wear them or not see

sp1987

I would have been absolutely devastated if my mother had regarded me as the child who did not fit into a bridesmaids dress.

I know for a fact that she tried to shovel feed me calories at any opportunity (I was underweight rather than overweight despite having a very healthy appetite and not really eating low fat foods; thyroid tests came back negative). But she never said 'oh look clothes will fall down'. I would have been truly mortified, hurt and disillusioned.

Your mother is the one person you should be able to 100% rely on to be supportive about your looks and appearance. Even if you look like the back end of a bus covered in soot your mother should be able to stand there and say you look beautiful.

By all means coax her into walking further and eating more veg on the sly, but the way you approach it reminds me of my ex housemate (recovering from eating disorders). She always questioned food choices and saw sin in sugar and fat. A few days of eating the wrong food is of no real concern in life's great scheme. Your approach is to be so critical of food choices over a few days that it could well gnaw away at your daughter in later life. My old housemate did have an impact upon our mutual friends as her approach was so direct about food and it affected the way others saw food and caused them guilt. I think I was just lucky as having always been naturally of small build (pre pregnancy at least!) I was able to regard what she was saying as over the top and carry on eating my carbs. Had I had any small niggle about my figure I would have been drawn into it like a rabbit in the headlights.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

FWIW, my DD is 12, 4 foot 11 and weighs around 6 and a half stone (at a guess, we don't have scales, but I can still pick her up). She wears size 6 adult clothes. She is very lanky and long limbed, with a birdlike bone structure.

Something between the two extremes would seem to be what you are hoping for.



Perhaps if rather than telling her you're going to have to eat less to fit into that dress (and therefore putting her under pressure/making her aware of being deprived), you just don't buy anything that she could graze on other than veggie sticks?

You could 'forget' to put any biscuits or sweetened drinks in the shopping trolley, add more vegetables to her plate in relation to her pasta, increase slightly the amount of protein in her food. Tell her you've got her a treat, and produce her most favourite fruit?

For DD, her favourites are strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, watermelon and orange melon - she has ignored the ice poles in the freezer for over a month in favour of the fruit on the kitchen counter. Rather than packets of crisps, she will have a slice of ham or meat from the fridge instead when she wants something to munch on and she prefers to use just full fat mayonnaise in her sandwiches and cream cheese in her jacket potatoes rather than butter - which is her choice on the grounds of flavour, but also happens to reduce her fat intake slightly compared to someone else.


All of these things, along with her main exercise (which is playing drums - aerobic and strength building - and the use of light weights to help her improve her playing - all by her choice, not mine) mean that the only reason she would ever not fit into something is that she has grown out of it.


Maybe just the odd 'let's walk' would help if she is normally driven everywhere? I tend to catch the bus to reach our town centre shops, but walk back as part of my efforts to stay healthy, which means that we spend time outside in daylight (and away from the flaming Disney Channel) and move a bit, which improves mood as well as health.


These things don't have to be religiously followed in the manner of 'you can't have anything you like ever again' - and if she is like most teenagers, DD included, she will get some snacks and sweets on the way home from school in any case - but as a more subtle way of encouraging healthier choices?



Obviously, you have no influence on the food your ex shoves at her during visits, but you have plenty of days in which to keep her intake at a healthy level to even things out over time.


I have no interest in having a go at you, and remember quite clearly 24 years ago when our school unveiled their new fitness room, equipped with weights machines; we actually turned up to PE lessons religiously from them on. So she could well enjoy herself in the gym, particularly as it doesn't involve the usual school PE style of being open for criticism from all and sundry.


As long as she doesn't feel like she is being punished, I think she will be fine and I believe you have her interests at heart, whatever some other posters have said.


But I don't think she needs to be put on a diet, just refining the menu is all you need to do for her.

lisawood78

My niece is 11, 5ft 4 and a size 10-12 (she wears my clothes, her 33 year old Aunt!) She outgrows stuff all the time, and does eat some crap, as most kids do.

Nobody would dream of forcing her to lose weight to fit into some silly dress, if it doesn't fit then tough, that's life, kids grow! You say that getting chubby around this stage in her teens is normal for your kids, then let her be normal.

AmandaD28

hermoine wrote: »

I was anorexic as a teen and bulimic as a twenty something so I am not likely to project weight problems on to her.

H

Actually, I think that statement is wrong I will say I've only read the first page but as a 14 yr old I developed a bit of puppy fat too my dad as lovely as he is decided he would call me "Miss Piggy" and "Mandy Dingle" he was of course joking, however in my teenage mind I was this big fat blimp and that is exactly how bullimia started for me, I clearly remember thinking it was a fantastic idea to do the binge/purge cycle and would stop my dad calling me those names.

It started a cycle that stayed with me for years and indeed I had 2 years of intensive counselling to break my cycle my teeth are damaged because of it and to this day I can throw up on demand.

My point is be very careful you don't want her to feel as rubbish as I felt or do what I did or indeed what you yourself did ! Weight is a sensitive long term issue in the case of kids my two are like skinned rabbits but my best friends DD2 struggles terribly and is incredibly sensitive about it and my friend just encourages the whole familyto eat healthy her other two kids are also of regular size so it isn't a whole family issue but if she said the things you have said to your DD there would be a major upset.

She may well be hiding her upset please tread carefully

Good Luck

Softstuff

I was a chubby child. Mum had some weight issues, and seeing me getting chubby set off all her alarms. She didn't want me to be as she had been or to suffer as she had, so I remember dieting following her encouragement for many years. I binged and dieted for many years.

Until I moved to Australia and lived with my hubby, that's pretty much how it was for me, with my weight going up and down quite dramatically. Here though we have healthy choices at meals, and I don't have that much temptation to hand in the house, since I still have very little willpower that way. If my weight goes up a little I cut down on the treat things and it's quickly down again. Now I only vary between 2 dress sizes and I'm not long in the larger one. But I still have to be conscious about my decisions where food is concerned.

I recently went through all the family photos, and noticed something quite striking. I was never that big as a child at all. I looked at all my photos and struggled to find one I would have described as having anything other than puppy fat. I saw photos of my mother as a child though, and she was quite large. And yet I remember that as a child I was "fat", that clothes wouldn't fit, that I had to avoid foods and diet.....

It's all about perception really. If you focus on your child being larger and not fitting into a dress it'll be an issue for her when maybe it doesn't really have to be an issue at all, maybe she's just not grown out of the puppy fat yet.