Diets And The Impact On Our Children

All of us want the best for our children. We try and make healthy meals, provide healthy snacks and encourage them to try new things. However, children learn from observation. Are we teaching them to hate their bodies from a young age? Are we creating fussy eaters?

As a child I watched my mum go from diet to diet, hating the way she looked. I would watch her looking at herself in the mirror and feeling depressed at her size. I can clearly remember feeling ‘fat’ when I was 8. I would look at myself in the mirror, the same way I had seen my mum do, and hate my body.

I grew up on a diet of fish fingers, chips and beans (my mum will have you believe otherwise!) and was always on the chubby side. At that young age I didn’t see the connection between weight and food so I continued to eat junk and get bigger and bigger.

It became an obsession, I would look at myself in the mirror over and over again and learnt to hold my stomach in to look thinner. I was 11!

As a young teenager I really hated my body and food became the enemy. I became a vegetarian and decided I was going to live off nothing more than potato and gravy for dinner, eating nothing in the day. I am not really sure how my parents didn’t pick up on it. I think maybe as they knew nothing of vegetarianism they just let me get on with it. I lost loads of weight, although of course I was still convinced I was fat. I can look back at photos now and see that I was as thin as a stick! Thankfully I came out the other side but I continued to struggle with body image. I looked at all of my friends and wished that I could be petite like them.

At University

At 18 I moved out and off I went to University. At last I was able to buy the food I wanted and be the size I wanted. I went to uni in North Wales, the hilliest place EVER! My bum has never been so toned! 🙂 I squandered my student loan on new clothes and finally felt happy with myself. I met my best friend and husband there, he lived down the corridor from me in halls and we hit it off on the very first day. Within a few months I knew he was the one for me. Poor thing never stood a chance! We have now been together for just over 11 years, not sure where the time has gone!

This photo made me feel sick!

Once we had been together a while complacency set in. It always happens doesn’t it? I had found someone to love me and he loved me the way I was. I felt like I could be who I wanted to be- and that so happened to be someone who loved huge portions and junk food!! I ate and ate but it didn’t matter ‘he loved me!’.

One day I woke up, looked in the mirror and for the first time in a long time I looked in the mirror. I had gone from a UK size 10 to a 14 and I couldn’t have been more disgusted. Cue the next 5 years of diets! I tried them all! Starving myself, restricting food groups, detox, soups, you name it, I tried it. I was the ultimate yo-yo dieter! At my biggest I was a large 16, I was desperately unhappy.

In 2008 we got engaged! I was so excited! But in the back of my mind I knew I would be a fat bride if I didn’t do something about it. I joined the gym and tried to eat as healthily as a I could. I found it really hard. I would sit there with my pigeon sized portion while everyone around me (stick thin people I might add!) would stuff their faces! So unfair! I did manage to lose some weight and thankfully my wedding dress hid my thighs haha but I still wasn’t happy.

In 2011 I fell pregnant with Little G. For the first time in my life I was fat for another reason other than just eating too much! It was the happiest 9 months of my life. I had an excuse to eat what I wanted because ‘baby wanted it’. I gained about 3 stone but I truly didn’t care. Towards the end of the pregnancy I made a promise to my unborn baby. I vowed never to be a dieting mummy. I grew up watching my mum battle with her weight- she still does! I didn’t want my perfect baby ever to think about food the way I did. I never wanted her to hate her body. I remember one of my friends telling me her little girl had said she felt fat- aged 8!

From the moment she was born I finally took control. I home-cooked everything from scratch and I embraced my size. Don’t get me wrong, I still look in the mirror some days and think ‘uh oh, too many cakes!’ but I never let it get me down. My body has grown two babies! How amazing is that?!

The funny thing is, the day I stopped worrying about my size was the day I started to lose weight. I don’t think I will ever be a size 10 again- at 5ft 9in it is too thin anyway. I am a healthy 12-14 and I am happy. I eat when I am hungry and I make healthy meals. We bake cakes and scoff the lot and of course have a cheeky McDonald’s every now and then, but all in all we are a healthy household. No more ‘diets’, just simple home cooking. We sit at the table together as a family for meals and food is now something to be enjoyed. I wear what I like and enjoy being me for the first time in my life.

I tell Little G and Baby L everyday how beautiful they are. I hope that they will grow up to always believe it.