a child, I believed that the more food my parents bought and prepared for me the more they loved me. As I grew older and moved from the haven of family to the bigger world of the classroom, eating became a way of coping with the pain I experienced as the fattest child in elementary school. And though I didn’t know it at the time, I was setting myself up for a lifetime of emotional eating that would eventually result in my reaching a top weight of 328 pounds. Growing up in a time when treatment for eating disorders and individual counseling were looked at as stigmatizing a family’s reputation, I never imagined that there was any other way to deal with my emotions.
On television, I saw mothers who regularly baked cookies to show love for their children. I studied the way these families gathered at the dinner table to discuss the events of the day, all while enjoying a mouthwatering meal lovingly prepared by Mom. And during the commercial breaks, I saw toys intertwined with food, too—my favorite being a real, working oven whose heat supply was a light bulb. With this little jewel, I could actually bake and frost a real cake. Then, there were the cereal boxes, each containing a prize. I could barely contain myself, finishing the sugary flakes in record time to reach the plastic treasure.
In books, I read about Nancy Drew and the delectable meals she and her father shared, oftentimes inviting her boyfriend Ned and best friends George and Bess. To me, this was the ultimate in true friendship—being able to eat in front of friends without worrying about what they would think.
In real life, I knew that if I went to the dentist, the doctor, or even the bank, the receptionists or tellers there would have candy or a lollipop for me if the experience was stressful or there was a long wait. They all did their best to make my visit more pleasant. This was great—but holidays were the best. For weeks before these special days, my mother and grandmothers would bake cookies and cakes that I only got to eat once or twice a year. Christmas was my favorite because there was even more food around than during any of the other holidays, and my grandmother baked a particular Italian delicacy—something she only did once a year.
DID I HIDE THE PAIN AND SHAME of the teasing I endured because I didn’t trust my parents? No. In fact, it was nearly the opposite—I didn’t want to worry them. I grew up knowing that my parents were desperately concerned about the size of my body. They always did whatever they could to try to encourage me to lose weight. I truly believe that either one of them would have given a limb if it would have solved my problem.
I approach this book with the knowledge that whether or not you are a parent of an overweight child, a stepparent, a grandparent, a guardian, an aunt or uncle, or a close friend, you share the same concern for the child in your life that my parents had for me. You are probably willing to do whatever you have to in order to help your child become healthier, yet it is my guess that you have been bombarded with so much information that you are uncertain about how to proceed. I know this because as a twenty-three-year-old adult, I was faced with the same situation. I had tried just about every diet program out there and had failed. I didn’t know what was missing in my efforts and was completely overwhelmed by the amount of weight-loss information available.
Through intensive individual and group counseling and even by spending six weeks of my life in inpatient psychiatric treatment, I eventually discovered that I had, and have, a physical addiction to sugar, flour, and caffeine—a concept that was quite unknown during the late 1980s. With a lot of hard work, I was able to turn my life around but at a very severe cost. Choosing good health for myself today, one day at a time, means accepting I cannot eat items that contain large amounts of sugar, flour, or caffeine.
To maintain my recovery, I weigh and measure my food and plan each and every bite that goes into my mouth. Though extreme, this is the only thing that has ever worked in my life. For the past twenty-three years, I have enjoyed a 150-pound weight loss and lived a relatively normal life which is not adversely affected by food and eating. I choose to live this way, one day at a time, in order to maintain my hard-won health.
What does all of this have to do with you, the child in your life, and this book? For starters, this book is an attempt to save your child from experiencing the intense pain of recovery from a full-fledged addiction. As a child, I was unaware of the ways that I used food to deal with my emotions. For me, food was comfort. It was my friend, my lover, and even my confidante. No matter what was happening in my life, I felt that I would get through it—as long as I had my food. Overeating was as natural to me as breathing.
At the time, I didn’t realize that I was planting the seeds of addiction by using food to deal with my emotions. The concept of emotional eating, though gaining more popularity today, was never even a consideration when I was a child. My parents simply did what they had learned from their parents, who did what they had learned from their parents, and so on. No one had the knowledge to realize that emotional eating could be dangerous to children and to society as a whole.
Today, though the concept of emotional eating is gaining more attention—as evidenced by appearances like the one I made on the FOX Cable News show The O’Reilly Factor, during which I discussed the topic—there is little, if any, information about specifically helping your child to overcome his or her emotional eating. Similarly, although there are several well-written and respected books about the societal attitudes that contribute to overeating (Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health by Marion Nestle, and Food Fight: The Inside Story of the Food Industry, America’s Obesity Crisis, and What We Can Do About It by Kelly D. Brownell and Katherine Battle Horgen are two good examples), there is little information about changing emotional eating patterns in children. This book aims to change that.
In these pages, you will not find a recommended food plan for your son or daughter, nor will you find growth charts telling you what your child should weigh. Bookstore shelves and pediatricians’ offices are filled with this information, so it can be easily obtained. Rather, this book will concentrate on addressing the emotional issues that are tied to eating and food. While most of us know what constitutes a healthy meal, how many of us are aware of the emotions behind the food that we present to children on a regular basis?
Societal solutions, though alluded to in these pages, are not the focus of this book. You, the reader, whether as an individual family member or friend of an overweight child, will find here specific suggestions that you can take to improve the quality of that child’s life by severing the link between emotional connection and food.
Because this information may be new to you, and may at times seem radical or unusual, it’s important that you prepare yourself before you read on. First, please know that the single most important thing you can do while reading this is to stop blaming yourself for your child’s situation. It’s vital that you are aware of this tendency right up front. As you will discover, there are many societal attitudes that contribute to emotional eating. You did not invent these, nor are you responsible for them. Once you’ve read the information in this book, you can make a decision about what you will change; but it is never okay to punish yourself for things you think you’ve done wrong. As a parent, you did the very best you could with what you knew. Once you know more, you can change your patterns.
Second—please keep an open mind. Some of the concepts you will read will be unfamiliar to you and may seem extreme. Try to remain open to the suggestions. Remember, you are questioning societal attitudes that have been pervasive for decades. These attitudes are ingrained in our culture—they have in some instances become part of the traditions and observances we celebrate and enjoy as Americans. This being said, keep in mind that serious problems require serious solutions. If you have truly tried everything you can think of to help your child with little success, then you owe it to yourself and your child to open your mind to the information presented here. It may be the only chance you have to save your child from the life I described above.
In
