“What we should fear”
It is scary to think about the fact that you cannot control your child’s weight. Scary to think that the body has a natural place it likes to be and does a great job at managing weight. But Is that the real fear though? That we cannot control their weight?
My partner and I acknowledged that before we could dig into modalities to support our children’s eating competence we first had to accept their current fat bodies. This is where we started to feel uneasy and frankly, scared.
As my partner and I sat down to discuss our real fears around our children living in fat bodies, some things were made clearer about the fears. We spoke about these fears with two different lenses; our fears and our children’s fears. Quickly, what we realized is that we were broadcasting fears on them. It would be like my child saying, “Well, my best friend is afraid of snakes, so I should be too“, when literally we know (and our child knows) they are not afraid of snakes.
There was no reason that we could come up with that made us feel validated to make our children be afraid to be in the body they are in. Listed below are some of the points my partner and I visited in the conversation about accepting our children’s bodies as they were.
Afraid our children will not feel a sense of acceptance and approval in our society.This is a harsh reality of the current state of fatphobia and fat acceptance in our society. One thing that I can validate, is how my children will not correlate their acceptance and/or approval with the size of their container. Society will not change the extreme body shaming and weight stigma fast enough for my children to not be affected by it, but the impact to them may be less because of our acceptance for their bodies and our own fat bodies.
Afraid that when our children are confronted with the difficult emotions from body shaming, that they will experience deep, hurtful emotions. As we spoke through this, we realized how we are doing work to break generational cycles of parenting which will (and does) leave them more equipped than we were to feel and process big emotions. We are a home that welcomes feeling the feelings and trying to stay regulated with our children as they feel them.
Afraid they will not find clothes that meet their needs and style. This seems to be shifting but not fast enough. Also, their identity as related to clothing is much less than our learned identity related to coping tools of conformity. We were told, or it was implied, we had to dress more flattering and not “stick out” if we were also going to be fat.
Afraid they will struggle with their relationship with food and movement. As an RD in this field, I was once told that although given support, encouragement with intuitive eating and movement, we cannot control another human’s growth and insight. Our children will do what they want to do with their body. How wonderful that they get to decide how they will interact with their body, it’s needs, it’s wants and having curiosity on how they will respond. Our job as parents shifts with age but is grounded in supporting them with insight and ways to support their language of the body. For ex: Our child may have a belly ache. We would explore with them about the ache and what they could do to support it. Do we need to eat? Move? Deep Breathe? Heating pad?
Afraid they will not find partnership in a world obsessed with the foundation that attraction is only related to outside appearance. This one was an easy answer… they get the privilege of finding true connection. What another person was taught about attraction is theirs to hold and figure out. Our children do not have to hold this as theirs. This is a lie we were told to “protect” us but this is not something they have to carry.
Afraid that they will not be able to enjoy activities like zip lining, flying in an airplane, kayaking, or riding a roller coaster. As my daughter and I sat compacted together like sardines watching the finale season of a traveling production of RENT, this was a reality. I whispered to her, “Next time we get those seats in the boxes so we can be more comfortable.” I acknowledge my privilege saying that we can purchase those expensive box tickets, but I also acknowledge that my (our) children will learn ways to support their enjoyment of life in more comfortable ways through our actions in supporting our bodies.
Afraid that they will have medical complications that are related to “o**sity.” This one is a hard one to type because as my partner and I spoke about this, we had to acknowledge what we currently know as “evidence-based medicine.” I (we) both acknowledge that we have this deep seeded fear because we do not have thin privilege. We literally do not know what it will ever be like to not have that part inside us. The fear is rooted in our own learned body phobia and learned disgust. “O**sity” research is flawed, biased and all “treatments” are harmful both emotionally and physically. “O**sity” has been medicalized by a community that fed into our collective trauma and fed a system of oppression. We want our children to be able to go to the doctor without shame, advocate for themselves, and have providers that provide options for management that are free from judgment and diet culture. By believing the “fear of obesity”, we are feeding our own trauma and dysregulation which has been shown to increase blood pressure, heart rate, risks of cardiovascular disease, autoimmune disease, glucose disturbances... the list goes on. By “fighting” our bodies for years we may have just surrendered to the diseases that “evidence-based medicine” states are correlated (not caused) by those in larger bodies. Buzz word here: allostatic load of oppression, will be discussed in future posts.
These fears will always be a part of our life as individuals who are in larger bodies. The activation and dysregulation that comes with fear and how it stunts our ability to see the world for what it is and see our children for who they really are… IS WHAT WE SHOULD FEAR.
