8-years old, chubby and starving!
Have you heard about Momlogic.com? It is a great resource for Mom’s and anybody interested in making life better and easier for familias. I am not a Mom but felt compelled to comment on a post that I found particularly narrow minded called, “Fat Kids: Are Parents to Blame?http://www.momlogic.com/2008/10/are_parents_of_obese_children.php
Here’s my first post:
| I was a chubby kid, a fat teen and an obese young woman. At the age of 8 when my friends weighed anywhere between 50-70 lbs, I weighed 110 lbs. I, like other fat kids didn’t “choose” to be fat. Point #1: an 8-year old is not grocery shopping or making “lifestyle” decisions about what/when to eat, for themselves. I was an active child. I played sports; soccer, gymnastics, swam almost daily and danced from age 4-18. Contrary to the popular opinion and hurtful stereotypes of fat kids, I did not sit around playing video games or watching tv while stuffing my face with candy and potato chips. Point #2: Neither of my parents are or ever have been obese. My mother was the eldest of 6 and my father is the middle child of 7. Most of their siblings are morbidly obese. Both my brother and I. We ate breakfast every morning as a family, my mother packed our lunches everyday and we ate dinner every night as a family. My parents did EVERYTHING THEY KNEW HOW TO DO Like many my parents saw the commercials and the shows and read the books and watched the shows that touted this diet and that diet. The diet industry is massive and has a very well-funded public relations/media machine designed to convince us that their product is the answer to our problems. My mom put me on my first diet at 8 years old. I was given “diet shots” by a Doctor at 11 and was taking my daily weight-loss pills every morning before school before I ever had my first kiss or began menstruating. I was always deprived and made to feel like I was lying about what I ate and I was bad. That is a TERRIBLE thing to do to a child. I was on every diet known to man for 25 years. By the time I was 34 I weighed 320 lbs. And that’s, bad. Point #3: We now know that in fact there is an obesity gene. Some people are predisposed to obesity just as some people are predisposed to skin cancer. In both cases we know what triggers the disease so personal responsibility is very important. Certainly there are behaviors that contribute to whether or not the disease is triggered. My brother and I, like many of our ancestors, carry the gene along with millions of others. We have seen a dramatic rise in childhood obesity especially in communities of color and lower income communities. There can be NO DENYING that obesity is also directly linked to your economic status. You can buy a lot from the $1.00 menu at any fast food restaurant and feed a family of 4 for less than $10.00 but to buy fish and vegetables to steam for a family of 4 will cost a minimum of $20.00. For many Americans it is a question of economics. So who is responsible? In my opinion, we all are! We are all responsible for allowing fast-food chains and corporations to market calorie filled/nutritionally void foods to our kids. Remember, we not only vote on election day (and PLEASE DON’T FORGET TO VOTE ON TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 4) but we also vote every single day with our dollars. Every time we spend money we are saying, I like your product and I agree with what you. It’s not complicated. It’s very easy. Just like a person campaigning for elected office in the end only has a job if you vote for them and they are elected, grocery stores, fast-food chains, restaurants, companies who manufacture inexpensive food; they only profit if we elect them by spending our HARD EARNED money on their product(s). DON’T SPEND YOUR HARD EARNED MONEY ON SOMETHING THAT IS MAKING YOU AND YOUR KIDS FAT AND UNHEALTHY – OR WORSE! If skin cancer ran in your family you wouldn’t send your kids out to bake in the sun without protection. So how do we protect ourselves? By getting active and empowered. It is very simple and it begins as the late great Cesar Chavez said, “We can change the world the same way we eat tortillas; one at a time.” Change begins with you and me believing that we deserve better and committing to doing something about it; that’s change. That creates a movement. Personally I think that it is criminal the way that large profitable companies continue to load their product with the very things that they/we KNOW is killing us; high fructose corn syrup, refined sugar, hormones, etc. It infuriates me to make my way through our nation’s airports only to see fast-food after fattening after disgusting and all ridiculously overpriced foods that are making every one of us unhealthy not to mention, broke. And we allow it because our tax money subsidizes the businesses in our airports. Also why do we allow such unhealthy food to continue to be served in our public schools? That’s OUR TAX MONEY paying for it. Ever wonder why it is as gross today as it was when you were in elementary school? Because for the most part the same companies have had the same contracts for generations. They are also by the way, the same companies hired by our federal and state governments to feed our inmates. It is a business and the last thing they are concerned with is the health of your child. But they do get paid by your tax dollars which are distributed by people that you elect. So we vote on election day and every day with our dollars. Let’s get heard! Guess what happens when you get out and vote and elect someone? YOU are their boss. YOU hired them! So YOU need to hold them accountable. In my book, UNDER CONSTRUCTION: How I’ve Gained and Lost Millions of Dollars and Hundreds of Pounds (Penguin/NAL), I wrote a chapter called “Think Globally, Act Locally“. I am a BIG BELIEVER in the great Ghandi quote, “Be the CHANGE you want to see in the world“. A 5-minute phone call to your local School Board Member that you are angry about the food your child is served – on your dime – at school. A quick call to your City Councilperson telling them that you don’t appreciate the amount of fast food and unhealthy food available at your local mall is okay and that until they insist that the mall management company that your elected officials granted the lease to offers delicious, affordable and healthy options, you will not spend $1.00 of your hard earned money there. A 3-minute face-to-face chat with the manager of your local grocery store telling her/him that you don’t appreciate all the sugar-filled/nutritionally void food at your child’s eye level. Suggest that instead of cookie samples that they give fresh food samples and let them know that until they do you will shop at their competitor. I promise, it works! And lastly how many of us suffer silently each month when we pay our ridiculously overpriced insurance premiums. What is insured? I don’t want to invest in a company that if I God forbid need medical care will make it nearly impossible to get all the services and medications and therapies needed to BE HEALTHY. Shouldn’t insurance companies be in the business of preventative care to ensure that we stay healthy, active and productive for as long as possible? Makes a hell of a lot more sense to me for insurance companies to cover the cost of nutritional counseling, and gym memberships so that families can exercise regularly AS A FAMILY. Sadly there are many too many communities in our great country where little kids don’t have yards and there aren’t safe parks for them to play in. Does it make sense to anyone that an insurance company will pay for medication after medication that kids and adults REGULARLY take for 100% preventable illnesses like Type II diabetes, etc., all caused by obesity? I have yet to find anyone who thinks it makes more sense to cut physical education programs from our public schools and keep on serving tater tots. We really have a lot more control over all of this than we act like we do. Every 47 minutes someone DIES from an obesity related complication. We call these complications many things; type II diabetes, hypertension, high blood pressure, gout, joint problems, etc., but they all stem from the same thing; obesity. The things that WE KNOW will prevent many diseases aren’t covered by most insurance company policies and that, in my opinion is criminal! It doesn’t have to be this way. We can change it! FAT KIDS; Are parents to blame? I say, hell no! Parents need help Please, let’s stop persecuting parents. Let’s stop being mean to ourselves to fat kids. Let’s stop teaching our kids that fat is the worse thing you can be. Let’s please stop blaming each other and start helping each other. We can do it, YES WE CAN! Let’s work together to make life healthier, happier and more exciting for everyone! Whaddya think? In good health, mucho love, humility, sisterhood, gratitude and solidarity, JACKIE GUERRA |
3 Comments
I just moved back to the US after five years in the UK, where obesity, especially in children, has become a grave concern in the last couple of years. Well-known chef Jamie Oliver has been campaigning hard to get schools to serve healthier meals (you can read about it here: http://www.channel4.com/life/microsites/J/jamies_school_dinners/), with less success than you would hope. Parents would rather give their kids junk than listen to the kids whine and complain about “gross” vegetables and such. It`s so sad!
I was not a fat child. In fact, I was a childhood beauty queen until I hit puberty. It was then that I started packing on the pounds, eating junk and feeling horrible, though I still was active, even participating in the school track team through high school. But when I went to college, I had no money and no food and lost almost 100 lbs. Though I felt like I looked great, when I see pictures of that time, I see that I was emaciated and malnourished. Once I left school, got a job and had money coming in, I went back to eating junk and put on every pound I`d lost and THEN some.
The sad thing about all of this is that I LOVE vegetables. I love fruit and fish and lean chicken and everything that`s good for me. I`m not a huge fan of sweets or chips. But as you`ve pointed out, I can`t afford nutrition. I can`t pay my rent right now, and I am living on cheesy crackers and ramen noodles, which, for someone who has had weight loss surgery only a few short months ago, is a TERRIBLE diet.
I, too, wish there was help for people to eat right and live healthier without paying through the nose for it. I hope I live long enough to see this country sort itself out in that regard!
You are so right that it can be so easy to blame, rather than talk about solutions. Obesity can be such a dirty word and I think its time to get past the shame of it. Talk about it honestly and also talk about how to move from obesity to health. As you say, it starts with all of us.
I too was on the bigger side though in high school managed a svelt 132 – all boob and butt with the sweetest flat stomach.
Unfortunately, when you’ve got a big chest, everything looks big… I was never happy or satisfied with my body image. I spent years being unhappy with myself, on every fad diet known to man. As a result of many rounds of anorexia and bulimia, I’ve shot my metabolism into a black hole and have hypothyroidism now. IN addition, I’ve got several (read many) major health issues. Fortunately high blood pressure and high cholesterol aren’t one of them. Unfortunately, I don’t have insurance that will kick in for bariatric surgery and financially we’re struggling. I know precisely why poor people are big people. What we can afford to purchase to feed our families is filled with carbs which immediately turn to sugar in our bodies.
I’d give my left arm I think to have the surgery. I KNOW I would be able to alleviate many of the issues that hound me (polyarthtiris, sciatic nerve pain in both legs, fibromyalgia, severe osteoarthritis in my left knee etc). I walk with a cane and some days need a walker. While I’m only 232, and my 5 foot 6 inch frame doesn’t look it, I know it. In my heart that number looms up at me fromt he scale and screams at me.
Thank you for being such a wonderful advocate, but more importantly, thank you for being an advocate for us big beautiful women. Thank you for helping us remember that inside this bigger body is still a beautiful human being. We are worthy, valuable, amazing people.
I applaud you, appreciate you and thank you!
Many blessings,
Lissa Ballard