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Through Thick and Thin #18 (April 10, 2003)
The Origins of My Obesity
or
It's A Shame That Shame Is Counterproductive
I read today that the Journal of the American Medical Association has published yet another report documenting the scary dimensions of America's childhood obesity epidemic. We all know most of the reasons underlying this health catastrophe. I know that one of the primary reasons for my obesity was my unhealthy reaction as a child to the “blame and shame” approach that my parents used in their desperate attempts to fix “my problem.” I suspect that this same dynamic is at work for many obese children.
As I approach my six month anniversary of my Weight Loss Surgery, and begin working to lose my second hundred of pounds, I've taken a second look at pictures from my childhood, adolescence and young adulthood. These pictures provide a startling and disturbing revelation for me. They testify to the reality that I was NEVER truly obese until my hurt, pain, anger and resentment about the way that my parents reacted to my body conspired to push me into active and defiant rebellion. Every judgmental word, look or action prompted me to stuff food down my throat as a political act — an act that, at the time, made the statement: “This is my body and, damn the consequences, I'll do whatever I want with it!” Night after night, I would sneak down to the refrigerator to exercise the only power I felt — the power to make myself sick to prove that I could.
These pictures from my youth now show a good looking guy who was a “husky”, with a large frame and the beginnings of a tummy swell. I really looked good and felt well, with great mobility and I was active and in reasonably good shape. How I FELT inside was an altogether different story. I felt huge, fat, bloated, clumsy, unwieldy and ugly. My image of my body was grossly distorted and exaggerated.
It's clear to me now, with the benefits of 20-20 hindsight, that I had a tendency toward being chunky and that my appetite regulator was less than fully operational. But my passage to compulsive overeating and morbid obesity began when I felt so assaulted and humiliated by my parents' blaming and shaming that I determined to eat myself into autonomy and oblivion. And then my eating disorder became a habit, which became a lifestyle that eventually threatened both my life and my style. I have to wonder if I could have avoided 35 years of pain, poor health, discrimination, humiliation, ridicule and discomfort if only, back then, my parents had known other ways to express their concern and to exercise positive, constructive influence to improve the situation. Education, acceptance, compassion, understanding, love, respect, sports, camps and collaborative problem-solving can accomplish what blame and shame cannot.
There are other, better, more productive ways than blaming and shaming that a parent concerned about their child's weight can intervene. Here's what philosopher Thich Nhat Hahn observed on this issue: “When you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well, you don't blame the lettuce. You look for reasons it is not doing well. It may need fertilizer, or more water, or less sun. You never blame the lettuce. Yet if we have problems with our friends or our family, we blame them. But if we know how to take care of them, they will grow well, like the lettuce. Blaming has no positive effect at all. That is my experience. If you understand, and you show that you understand, you can love, and the situation will change.”
What I want for all of these obese children is for them, and their families, to find other ways to deal with their weight issues. What I want for all of us is to find ways in our lives to teach others what we know. After all, we're the experts. Who knows better than we do that judgments, blaming and shaming will not prevent or heal obesity?
Glenn
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Click here if you have a “fruit and vegetable problem” to see if my solution (see Through Thick and Thin #19) will work for you.
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