I watch my eldest daughter, Amelia, and delight in how comfortable she is in
her 14-year-old skin. I applaud her appetite. “God, I've put on sooo much
weight,” she exclaims in mock horror, then, laughing, fixes herself a peanut
butter and jam sandwich of doorstep proportions. “Too bad I like my food so
much.”
Weight? Where? She isn't thin. But she isn't fat either. She's just right.
Which is what my mother used to call me: just right.
But just right wasn't good enough. I wanted to be thinner than that. Where did
the fanatical determination with size begin? I don't remember. Anorexia
nervosa means “loss of appetite”. I never lost my appetite. I controlled,
suppressed and ignored it, even though it complained loudly from the pit of
an increasingly sunken stomach.
Throughout my teens I was fixated with what I ate and what I managed to avoid
eating. By the time I was 14 my days were about weighing myself: when I
rose, light-headed from lack of sustenance, and before I went to bed, hunger
gnawing at my empty, drum-tight tummy. My teens were about not knowing
whether it was worse to run out of laxatives or for the pharmacist to
question me about why I bought them; about conjuring endless excuses to
avoid supper at boarding school.
I was 17 before I realised that I didn't want to squander the rest of my teens
counting calories. And that is why I delight in my eldest daughter's
apparent ease with her “just right” body. I could not bear for her teenage
years to be lost in the barren wastelands of an eating disorder.
Harriet, her younger sister, concerns me more. She is 11, the age when my
obsession manifested itself. She looks more like I did, less long-limbed
than her sister, who towers above me. She has been teased, as I was, for
being “chubby”.
Mostly she ignores reference to her shape. But there have been fleeting
moments of horribly familiar vulnerability. “Oh Mummy, look at my fat
tummy,” she has wailed, tugging at a T-shirt in an effort to pull it over
her waistband. Shopping for a swimming costume is angst-ridden. “Not a
bikini,” she stresses, “one that covers this up,” pointing to her stomach.
Her sensitivity is born of comments from her peers. “A friend told me,” she
confides, “to stop pushing my tummy out. I wasn't.”
Her friends' views count more than mine
I worry that soon my reassurances that she is perfect won't be enough; the
opinion of her contemporaries will count more than mine. I don't want
Harriet to perceive herself as I did; the heavyweight on the seesaw. I don't
want her to be the biggest in the class, miserably comparing her vital
statistics with those of leaner friends.
Then I wonder if I ought to be paying attention to her size. I wonder if
because I paid too much to my own, I am - perversely, perhaps - ignoring my
daughter's. I ask our doctor if she is too heavy. And I feel ghastly,
disloyal, like a vain, competitive designer mummy who wants her daughter to
appear as perfect maternal accessory. He regards me as if that's precisely
what I am. No, he says sharply, calculating her body mass index (BMI); she's
fine. I cannot explain that I am asking so that I can reassure my little
girl the next time she worries about the way she looks.
Not that a measurement of BMI, I discover, should be encouraged when
determining ideal body weights for children. “We don't advocate BMI for
children because they are still growing and because it is based on adult
height charts,” says Susan Ringwood, the executive director of Beating
Eating Disorders (Beat). Nor does Beat recommend low-fat food for children
as they need a greater percentage of fat than adults. “Low-fat foods should
only be given to children under medical supervision,” Ringwood says.
But she understands my concerns. Given the statistics on childhood obesity and
eating disorders (about one young woman in 100 is thought to suffer from
anorexia nervosa), she says it is no wonder that parents worry. “But our
messages are the same whether your child is overweight or underweight.”
One of those messages promotes family meals as a way to help children to
develop a positive and healthy approach to eating. Another focuses on
parental - and especially maternal - attitudes to food. “If you make
negative or disparaging comments about your own or others' shape, size and
eating habits, children, even very young ones, will take that on board,”
says Ringwood. She also encourages parents to compliment their children on a
range of attributes - being kind, helpful, generous, funny - not just on
their appearance or shape.
Denise Thomas, the head of nutrition and dietetics at the Portsmouth Hospitals
Trust and a mother of two daughters, agrees that the value of eating en
famille cannot be underestimated. She thinks it imperative that parents
remember that family meals are a time to interact, not to argue, criticise
or focus on what is on their plates. While she encourages healthy eating,
she cautions that the diets of growing children and teens must allow for a
generous intake of carbohydrates and some fatty and sugary foods. “A good
rule is one high-fat or high-sugar snack a day.” And if children suddenly
eat more than usual, you should consider whether it is coinciding with
greater activity or growth, or, if you have a daughter, her period. Balance,
she says, is always the key.
“If you do have concerns that your child is plump, ask yourself ‘how did we
look at the same age?' Is your child following a similar development
pathway? And remember that young girls have a growth spurt pre-puberty and
will gain weight and alter shape then.”
No need to waste time worrying
I hope that if Harriet's body awareness does begin to overwhelm her, I can
persuade her that I looked like she did when I was 11. And that had I known
it was a normal part of my development, had I known I was going to end up a
reasonably proportioned adult, I mightn't have lost the time fretfully
watching the shivering needle of the bathroom scales. And I might have been
a less anxious, more confident, teenager as a result.
For more information contact Beat, the UK charity for people with eating
disorders, www.b-eat.co.uk ;
0845 6341414
A GOOD DAY'S MENU BY AMANDA URSELL, TIMES NUTRITIONIST
By 11, girls need almost the same calories a day as an average woman (1,845
for 11-14 year olds compared with 1,940 for adult women) and virtually the
same amount of protein and iron. One notable exception is the need for more
calcium.
Breakfast Bowl of fruit and fibre cereal with milk and a banana. The cereal is
well fortified with iron meeting almost half the 14.8mg needed a day; milk
gives protein and calcium. The banana provides one serving of fruit.
Snack mid-am Slice of malt loaf and a peach. Boosts fruit intake and gives
slowish release of energy when eaten together.
Lunch A tuna sandwich with salad cream and sweetcorn, served with cherry
tomatoes. A yoghurt and packet of baked crisps. Tuna and bread give a little
more iron, plus another vegetable with the sweetcorn and tomatoes combined.
The yoghurt supplies more calcium, and baked crisps provide a treat minus
excess fat.
Snack mid-pm Peanut butter on toast with a glass of fruit juice or two
satsumas. Good for slow-release energy and minerals, plus another serving of
fruit.
Dinner Shepherd's pie with peas, followed by rice pudding. A filling supper
providing protein and iron plus many other minerals.
