me want COOKIE!

Food issues much? We do. Both of us! I was a competitive softball player and ballet dancer once. I exercised 5 days a week. I ate like two teenage boys. I stopped playing sports in college and still ate like a fool. So now at 28 -i am a "big" girl. Which I am sure you will know is a nice way of saying I am overweight. A lot. One of the factors that contributed- though certainly not solely or with any blame- is the food environment in which I was raised. My dad is an extremely picky eater- nothing green. Fried ruled and convenience was queen. Sugary drinks were a staple, water was yucky. I make better choices now- I like gourmet food. My town is a food town. Famous chefs open restaurants regularly, classic haunts in my town are regularly featured on food channels. Its not helping the battle of the bulge. Fortunately, I am not diabetic. But I know that is certainly possible in the future. Thinking long and hard about my own relationship with food and exercise- and how that affects mu relationship to my dds food/starvation issues is deep stuff. Here's the truth- I wish my mother or father had the insight to help me make health conscious decisions when I was younger. In stead my mother is a hippie/feminist who told me things like "makeup is what slutty girls wear to attract stupid men". "Beauty doesn't mean anything- dumb girls worry about being pretty". She never wears make up. She is all intellect. She gets a lot of self esteem and self worth from her cognitive pursuits. That's wonderful. As an adult I totally understand that she was working hard to buck the cinderellla princessy trends as well as her own debutante expectant upbringing. But as a child who was exposed frequently to mainstream messages via tv and radio and public school etc- what I heard was "you are ugly- but your brains make up for it.". Typing that I feel like "maybe that's true." But I do believe that I have some internal stuff about it that continues today and effected me choices as a teen and young woman greatly. With my own child I strive for a balance...both brains, fun, beauty (through health/dress up/ self care etc) are valuable. Physical confidence, cognitive confidence and social confidence are all integral pieces of the sense of self.

Point please? The point of this rambling self examining diatribe is this: my shizzznit plays into her shizzzznit. When she came to me she was on a fairly typical moltov cocktail of meds given in foster care. At 7 she was 80 lbs. Also playing into her poor health was her complete lack of food awareness- jam.ie oliver would have been shocked. She could identify chicken nuggets and mac and cheese. That's it. She had eaten two free meals a day at school since she was 3... No one taught her how to eat or what she was eating. Her own fear of starvations return made her eat with wolf like speed and little care for what went in. I think she ate three cupcake wrappers before I realized she did not know how to eat a cupcake and was eating the whole thing. She often could be found sleeping by the fridge guarding the food in the early days. She eats like crazy when anxious- too much and with wild abandon. As I weaned her off the meds to try to find out who she was under all that haze...she also dropped weight. And before long was at a much much healthier weight of about 55 to 60 lbs. I see now she is naturally lean and long. Tall and elegant in stature. (Which may be a nice way of saying gangly and clumsy lol) slowly as I have known her she has begun to trust that I will feed her. With in that framework I have established that I will feed her healthy options. She loves asparagus, spinach, and other veggies- she likes sweets but doesn't go so far as to sneak them. I have never told her no to a food. Instead I began giving her options that were acceptable to me. "Yes you can have a popsicle- right after dinner- do you want red or green?" After months of working that "yes-man" stand point- her ability to self regulate went up one tiny notch. Then I introduced the question "ids that a healthy choice?" If she can't make a healthyt choice at any given time- I let that go. Then I sit down later and process- what was going on, what was the food, who was there, what was she feeling, what happened before, what was the sensory setting, and any other contributing factors. Then I figure out how I can change. I know. You heard me. I adapt to her current needs. Those needs aren't forever. I can help her by adapting and introducing triggers in tiny doses until she can self regulate in the presence of those triggers. Sometimes that's hard. Sometimes all I can offer her is the gift of time. Time to walk away. Time to try again, time to fail. Time to be successful. It might take 10 attempts at....eating at the mall say...before she can smell the food court and not go into panic mode. "MUST CONQUER ALL FOOD IN ROOM" eventually has become "whoa! There are ice skaters in here while I am eating my lunch!" But at 10 tries later I still wouldn't expect her to self regulate during peak mall hours, if we brought anyone along, or if she were already tired/hungry/over stimulated. the other hard thing I do is I don't keep anything in the house that I am not 200 percent happy with her eating. I eat better-she eats good things- its good. The easiest quick snack in our house is probably raw broccoli or fruit right now. The only drink available to her on a regular basis is water. This means after she is asleep....I can't pig out either. There is no salty stash or sugary sweet I can indulge in either. That's hard for me- but good for us both!

So maybe...maybe we are reaching a good middle ground on this whole food/body image/trauma thing for now. I am sure it will be ever evolving as she grows and her young body changes. But I hope to approach this with a few key points in view:
1. She is beautiful-inside AND outside.
2. Healthy choices are made by me- she can only eat junk if I provide/allow it.
3. Healthy never means deprivation. Ever.
4. I make activity a priority for her/us. Sports, dance, yoga whatever- parents lead those choices for their 3-4 year old. just because she got to me at 7 does it become less important that she find an activity she loves and gets her moving.
5. I can help her do better for herself than I have. I can lead by example AND I can show her paths that I missed out on.
6. I can help her form a positive body image- by surrounding her with positive healthy role models of all shapes and sizes, colors and creeds. Her messages won't only come from tv and magazines- but from real women who rock. :)