Don't pass it along

My 7-year old daughter and I stopped by Target to buy some playing cards for soldiers, our contribution to boxes our church is sending to our military members in Afghanistan.  I had a cold and wanted to pick up something I could easily cook for dinner for my family, so we detoured into the food section. 

I steered my cart toward the frozen foods but my daughter stopped by the refrigerated food. 

"Mom!  Can I buy some yogurt?"  

"I don't care."

I grabbed a pan of frozen lasagna and placed it in the cart just as she arrived with two containers of Yoplait Light yogurt. 

"That's the kind you want?"  I was surprised.  I'd thought she'd pick out some yogurt marketed toward kids, like Trix yogurt. 

"Yes," she said, "Because I want to lose some weight."

"You want to lose weight?"

"Yes, I weigh sixty and I want to weight fifty."

So, that sound you heard late Monday afternoon?  That was my scream coming from the food aisle in Target.  

My beautiful, perfectly proportioned, athletic, lean daughter has received the message that she needs to lose weight and that the way to do so is to eat this particular brand of "diet" yogurt. 

I'm going to have to blame the media for this one, though I am responsible for what happened the other day in our kitchen. 

I have to weigh myself in the kitchen because my bathroom is carpeted.  It's dumb and turns weighing myself into something of a production.  Usually, I have privacy, but the other day, my daughter was lingering around, so I had to weigh myself while she was in the room.

"How much do you weigh?" she said.  "I want to see." 

"No!  Don't look," I told her.  I don't really care if she knows my actual weight, but she's at that stage where she announces everything she knows about me to random strangers and all the people she knows at school.  She loves to discuss my age (45!) with everyone.  I couldn't care less if anyone knows my age, but I really do not want the other kids at school to go home asking their mothers, "How much do you weight?  Grace's mom weighs 216." 

So, fine. 

Then, Grace got on the scale.  I was curious and leaned over to see what the scale said and she said, "No!  You can't look!  I don't want you to know how much I weigh!" 

Sigh. 

So, I have given her the message that the numbers on the scale should be kept secret, that they are somehow shameful. 

And the yogurt people told her she should lose weight by eating their yogurt.

And the television tells her that "thin" is better than "fat".  (She says "fin" instead of "thin", though, which makes me smile.  I haven't the heart to correct her when she says, "finner" when she means "thinner.")

I have made a point of not saying out loud, "Oh, I'm so fat!" and "I need to diet" and "I can't eat that because I am fat."  I do not want to pass along my so-called "food issues" to my daughter.  I want her to be healthy and to regard food without the emotions that I've attached to it.

So, in the store, when she said she wants to weigh fifty instead of sixty, I said, "Grace, you are perfect just the way you are."

She is.

I turned the cart and we headed to the check-out area.  On the way, we passed boxes of donuts. 

"Oh!" she said, "Can I get some donuts?  Please?  Please?"

And I said, "Yes."  

Maybe things aren't as bad as I fear.

Comments

[carrie]

Good for you on saying yes to the doughnuts!

IT started to rain and rain and rain and my seven yr. old and I stopped our Couch to 5k walks. Now I am having such a hard time deciding to get up in the a.m. in time to walk. Every night I think that tomorrow will be a good day to do it, and then somehow I succumb to the idea of just snuggling in the a.m instead of walking.

Now it is raining again...and I am having Vertigo attacks...what is that about...just another peri-menopausal treat I guess.

I'll let you know if we ever start exercising again.

Carrie

[Melodee]

Thats when I stopped doing Couch to 5K . . . I couldnt take the rain.  I know they say there is no bad weather, only bad clothing, but . . . I apparently dont have the right clothing.  I could not take that!

My foot is healed, though, and my cold is getting better and Im going to start walking again outside (on the loopy, hilly trail).  Cant wait!

Hope you get back into the groove somehow.  Sometime.

Take care!

Melodee

[sybil]

I'm really trying hard to understand why it was a good thing to buy the donuts.....seriously? I'm not trying to be difficult or judgmental. What am I missing here?

[Melodee]

I dont want her to think of food as good or bad.  I dont want her to think of being on a diet at her age.

Thats all. 

Melodee

[MissKris]

Like I said on my comment I wrote 10 seconds ago on your other blog: Size 0 Media-blitz. It's scary what thoughts it's putting into pint-sized petunias like little Grace. My d-i-l's 9-year-old niece has been purging...can you imagine?!

[Shannon Timothy]

Wow, what an amazing story. Yes, society has a way of sending the message to our young ones that fat is no good and thin is. I have 4 girls and it is a hard thing to keep them on track with understanding that they are beautiful no matter what. I have managed to do a great job so far with the 16 and 11 year old! Thanks for sharing!

Shannon Timothy
http://www.freedigitalrealestate.com

[Biz]

This post almost made me tear up - having daughters is a tough one, especially when we are struggling to lose weight.

Hannah was 8 when I lost my 70 pounds, and she said she never remembered me fat, which is good!

Now that the pounds have started creeping back on, she still tells me I look great, and while hard, I accept the compliment.

Hugs!

[Laura]

Oh these girls are gonna kill us.

[breckgirl]

Hi Mel - What a great story about the kid. OMG that would freak me out, too. I have a little boy, so I don't stress too much about that stuff but I do make an effort to not criticize myself or my weight in front of him, like you try to do. In fact, he is only 4 but he often watches The Biggest Loser with me and knows that those people are "unhelfy" and they cry because they are just trying to get "helfy." So when he tries to shove animal crackers in my mouth and I have to say no, I just try to keep it to "mama is working on getting healthier so she doesn't want a cookie today." (Even though she desperately DOES want the f-ing cookie, of course).

Well, I've gained all my weight back (miscarriage woes, depression, addiction - do I need to say more?) so I am starting Medifast soon. I just saw that Lyn over at Escape From Obesity is doing the same thing so - I am kind of excited to have another blogger doing it at the same time. Maybe it will encourage me to blog more!!

Have a good weekend. And skip that diet yogurt!! :-)

[Derek]

I love watching my nieces eat, because they eat just want, and that's all. They're 4, 6 and 8, and it's amazing how they listen to their bodies and stop eating.

I think that is the natural mechanism that needs to be preserved, and, hopefully, it will not be altered by outside influences as long as possible.

I'm glad your daughter got the doughnuts. Chances are, she'll take two bites and be done with the whole box.

[All Women Stalker]

I wouldn't know what to do if that happens to me when my daughter grows up one day...

[carrie]

Okay Melodee, this is a really long web address but it leads to an excellent blog entry entitled "Mermaid or Whale" and has some great things to say about women, culture and body image...I think you will find some of it resonant..

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://altopower.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/killer-whale.jpg&imgrefurl=http://altopower.wordpress.com/2009/08/15/do-you-want-to-be-a-mermaid-or-a-whale/&h=356&w=420&sz=46&tbnid=3fydu8qTB2eMsM:&tbnh=106&tbnw=125&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dkiller%2Bwhales&usg=__ikZEmXe4Fr0ZHVX7i4sy1xt9h2Y=&ei=BEONS42YA5O2swOW2YDAAw&sa=X&oi=image_result&resnum=4&ct=image&ved=0CBQQ9QEwAw

[Kathryn]

I still live with my mom and there are times where I wish she'd be more motivating and would just tell me I'm fine the way I am. I really see family support as the first step in being confident...if you can't feel good about yourself around the ones you love, how can you love yourself outside of that? I'm glad you love your daughter and you tell her how much you love her, it's all a little girl really needs to build self-esteem.