Member-only story
Our Bodies/Our Mothers
How they infect us with weight anxiety, and how I found my way out.
I can barely remember a time my mother wasn’t commenting on her body so it shouldn’t have been a surprise when the dialog about mine began.
I remember the sting like it was yesterday. I was thirteen, we were walking somewhere. She informed me now was a good time to start worrying about weight gain. I recoiled. She pressed on.
The warning didn’t come with any useful advice about how I might fend it off. In retrospect, I think she was just telling me to eat less–a diet-culture idea of moderation that never worked out for me.
I’ve come to think of that moment as the end of my girlhood. That glorious time when you get to exist in your body without having to think about it all the time.
My reaction to this and subsequent conversations was to seek out sugar and generally eat more. I scrounged up change for candy, raided the kitchen, and began eating past fullness. I suddenly worried about not having enough.
The sugar I was eating became its own self-perpetuating cycle. I had no idea what to do with my overwhelming cravings and didn’t dare ask. To admit them was inviting judgment, something I desperately avoided. I tried to cope privately, which amounted to seeking it out…
