Comfort Cravings

I think I will be sharing this article--role modelling is such a powerful thing. I am the mom of two boys and one girl all under 7. I focus on the goodness of natural foods and not overeating any one thing--moderation. If we've eaten a lot of one kind of food, we try to find something different. Pop is about the most restricted thing in our house.

Our kids love watching Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution and so do we. My daughter and I recently had a talk about Barbie Dolls and real women's bodies (see http://justasiamproject.blogspot.com/2010/03/barbie-doll-teachable-momen... ), as well as looking through her dad's book "Just As I Am". I think one of our challenges will be finding types of exercise that she loves and feels confident in, as her older brother is a sports fanatic and very competitive.

Thanks for the great post!

I'm not sure I entirely agree with the following quote from the post.

" 'At dinner I pointedly enjoy what I eat, whether it's steamed broccoli or pecan pie.' She noted how 'entirely unnatural' this approach feels. So true. "

I don't have any actual evidence on the matter, but my intuition says that my body will tell me exactly what it needs. If I am missing an element from the dairy food group, I will crave some milk. If I am missing vitamin C, I will feel myself wanting to eat some fruit. If I am craving a chocolate cake, I will eat a piece of chocolate cake. I find following my instincts to be a more natural approach than dieting and ignoring what my body is trying to tell me.

I think the trick here is being able to differentiate between listening to your body and listening to the media.

Currently I'm a 21 year old female who went through body image phases a few years back similar to most North American kids. Actually, I had parents who were more concerned about my weight than I was (I use the term 'weight' quite literally as they were not as concerned about my health as they were my weight). I believe many kids are in similar situation and it is a huge contributing factor. Anyway, I struggled through the calorie counting, binge eating, and shame of having a perfectly normal body.

All it really took is being honest with myself. It started with allowing myself to eat whatever I wanted. And I was honest with myself. If I really just wanted the patty from the burger, I just ate the patty. If I really just felt like having some avacado, I just got an avacado and ate it. If was eating a sandwhich and decided I was not hungry half way through, I stopped eating it and put the other half away (again, I use the term 'not hungry' literally as not being hungry doesn't not always mean being full).

After allowing myself the freedom to eat what I truely wanted, I find I naturally fell into a pretty healthy diet. I love veggies and eat them with every single meal. I eat a lot of salmon and chicken breast. I eat steaks every few weeks. I have McDonalds on occaision when I feel like it. I have an incurable sweet tooth and eat candy regularly.

At the end of the day, I find healthy eating to be effortless and actually quite enjoyable. I maintain a steady and healthy weight without any effort at all. And above all, I am happy with who I am and how I look and nobody can convince me otherwise.

I read this with great interest as I have worked diligently on promoting healthy eating to my (now 13) daughter. In no way have I wanted to do to her what my mother did to me. And in that respect, I must respectfully disagree about parents' influences on eating disorders.

My mother is a naturally skinny woman. I take after her mother, rounded and shapely with runners' thighs and large breasts. Once I hit puberty at age 11, she began harping on my weight and what I ate because of my curvy-ness. By the time I was 15, I was actively starving myself and exercising so that I could live up to her expectations of my body. This focus on my weight continued through my 20s and 30s with me yo-yo dieting and exercising (and her still making comments about my weight if it went up). In short, my metabolism is now so screwed up that it is almost non-existent and, with co-morbidities, I am waiting for Y-en-Roux surgery.

My daughter has the same body type as me. It has been a struggle to keep her from thinking she is FAT. She is not skinny, she is still growing taller, and she eats healthily. That is what I focus on; I vowed I would never do to my daughter what my mother did to me.