Body image & your experience growing up

[nycfem]

This morning BB sent me a short article called:

"When your mother says she's fat"

http://www.rolereboot.org/life/detai...fEUQV5tQ.email

It's a woman writing of her experience as a young child hearing her mother describe herself as fat and consequently unworthy and how each generation of parents in her family impacts the next one in regard to beauty and body image.

It made me think about my own experiences growing up and also want to hear other people's experiences on this topic. Thus this thread is for one to share one's own story and memories about growing up and how your family and those around you taught you about beauty and body image.

(I'll write of my own experience too in a separate post from this one)

[Miss Scarlett]

Wow, great thread Jennifer! I'll be writing of my own experiences in another post as well...

[nycfem]

Here are some memories from my growing up years in relation to beauty and body image:

1) I was very young, maybe 6, and eating some peanut butter crackers (the little packaged kind), and my mom tried to stop me from eating them but I ignored it because I was hungry, and they tasted good so why not. My mom, becoming irritated, said, "If you want to be fat, keep eating them." I remember it froze me. I could tell she was threatening me with some ominous mother wisdom, and it scared me. I put down the crackers.

2) I was a little older (still a child), and my mom and I were in her bedroom talking about how we were too fat and how flawed each of our body parts looked. My brother, Dave, was sitting there too, bored and unable to change the conversation. He left, and when we came out I saw he had put a sign on the door that said, "Women complaining about their bodies. Enter at your own risk." Ha! I always appreciated his snark. I think it also points out how the boy in the family was not as concerned about his body and was not made to feel as concerned.

3) Some of the more disturbing memories: I was in junior high, and my dad took me out and bought me an expensive sexy dress that he told me not to tell my mom about. He said, "My buying this for you is a promise from you that you will make sure that you always stay a size 3." I stayed silent because it was all so weird, and it was clear a response was not wanted, that a strange directive was being issued. What a horrible thing he did! It stayed with me.

4) I remember my mom and I dressed up going out for dinner with my dad and my brother when I was in high school. My mom and I appeared at the same time in our dresses, and my dad looked only at me telling me how beautiful and thin I looked. My mom said sadly, like a small child, "What about me?" He just ignored it, as if she hadn't spoken. That panicky feeling that I always felt in my home growing up came on full force.

5) When I was high school age, my mom approached me on a weekend and told me angrily that one of her friends, H., saw me at the shopping center and could tell I wasn't wearing a bra. Oh, that burned me (bra burning pun intended). This same friend of my mom's at one point, when I was about 8 years old, saw me eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and let me know that I should never ever eat peanut butter because it is too high in fat. What is it with everyone torturing me about my love for peanut butter before I was even ten-years-old!

6) Teen years: My father always telling me I look like a slut; a night on the street a drunk man yelling out that I looked like a whore and my father yelling back that he agreed instead of protecting me. This instead became a funny story in our family.

7) In college I was borderline anorexic. I loved the care in my mother's voice when she'd say, "I'm worried about you. You're too thin." My father would yell at her for saying that, stating instead that I could never be too thin.

8) Then there was my mid-twenties when I moved to NYC, when my father left my mother for another woman and I was in the middle of an ugly divorce battle, when I suffered a brutal sexual assault, when I joined FLAB (Fat Lesbian Action Brigade), all while at the same time focusing on completing my master's degree and working as a social worker. That's when I ate whatever I wanted whenever I wanted, as much comfort food as I wanted, and became fat. My family backed away in shock, horrified. It was kind of satisfying. Since then I've gone up and down over the years and can't stand when people comment about it. I always feel, "My body, my business!"

9) For awhile all my mom could talk to me about was how fat I was and how awful that was. Finally, I confronted her about it in a real way, about feeling like all that mattered to her was my "flawed" body and not me. Our relationship had improved tons since she and my dad were no longer together, and she was able to hear it. To show me she heard me, she mailed me a very caring letter with a necklace with my birthstone. She wrote (paraphrasing), "This necklace is a symbol of a new beginning of accepting you as you are." Does she stick to that entirely? No, things are too ingrained, but the necklace and the care behind it means the world to me.

Nice to end on a positive note

[Hollylane]

nycfembbw, thank you for sharing your experiences. They really struck a cord with me. I know I will eventually share my story too, but right now I'm just going to chew on it for awhile. Thank you for creating this wonderful thread.

[Vivacious1]

nycfem, thanks for being so open about your struggles. I am sure while freeing, there is still a sting. thanks.

[Vivacious1]

10 years ago, I would have never considered sharing anything personal about myself with anyone, let alone in a forum like this.

My experience with body-image growing up was a little twisted.

From the time I can remember food was a big deal in my family. Everything revolved around it. I am from the south, not saying everyone in the south is like this but my family is. Every holiday was over-indulgence, food pushers and shame if you did not partake in the tradition. "well gramma cut that pie just for you".

Now, the interesting part is that on one hand it was all about the food, on the other hand it was about those horrible noises from mom's bathroom after her indulgence. For years, I wondered why she was always ill, until I learned that what she was doing kept things "under control for her".

From that point on, I learned how to "keep things under control" for myself. The lines of healthy and unhealthy became insanely blurred. I could no longer look into a mirror and see what I really looked like, distortion was all I knew. It took many years to be able to learn to control things in a more healthy way. I still have my moments, but am thankful for the people and myself for giving me a chance and inspiring me to see things differently.

[little_ms_sunshyne]

Wow Nycfem! Thank you so much for creating this thread! Reading your experiences really hit home. I have so many moments in my life that have impacted my body image today.

1) My mother has always been very concerned with her weight. As a small child, I remember her following all the fad diets. One involved diet pills that led to my mother being hospitalized. At that time the doctor put it quite simply, he told her "Eat or die. You decide but you have 2 kids waiting at home."

2) I was in the sixth grade and was a size 9. My sister was in the 11th grade and a size 12. My father believed we were too over weight and he would tell us we would never be part of "the ball game" if we lose weight. One morning he told us to get dressed to run an errand with him. That day, he drove us to a workout gym (we had no idea) and left us there for the day This proceeded for the rest of the summer.

3) We grew up poor. My mother showed us she loved us through food. We didn't have much, but food was abundant. Emotional eating was the result.

[Gemme]

Food was everything growing up.

Friendship.
Entertainment.
Fuel.
Love.
Comfort.
Rage.

I ate to fill the holes that the people in my life created. Holes from abuse. Holes from emotion distance. Holes from being smothered. Holes from being forced to be the adult from age 5. Holes from being bounced around. Holes from public baths of sexism and misogyny.

I ate because I subconsciously thought that I would be unattractive and that unattractive would be good. I had no idea that proximity, circumstance and my age had everything to do with it and not my actual physical self.

Forced to view myself in others' eyes, the picture got distorted. My self worth and identity got snarled up in emotional knots that I covered with junk food and tears.

I think it's great that kids growing up have public figures like Meghan Trainor and Destiny's Child and Christina Aguilera and Mary Lambert and see programs like the Dove Self Esteem Project and umpteen others because it's damn hard being a human being nowadays, much less a female human being. The box we're put into gets smaller and smaller with every passing moment.

[girl_dee]

i had not thought about this!

My mother was always a small petite woman, but always thought she was overweight. i don't ever remember a time where she was not talking about it.

Once she was on some diet pills, and was so doped up she was scrubbing the bathroom tile with a toothbrush in the middle of the night.

She always said she " needed to lose weight" She would fast all week and binge on the weekends.

Today she is nearly 80 and talks about her extra weight...

i never thought about the fact that i may have inherited some body shaming issues from some of this.

[cathexis]

Childhood was hell for body image. Began to develop secondary sex characteristics when I was 8. My brother embarrassed me when in the den with all family present by pointing out and teasing me for wearing my first training bra.

Felt mortified when starting menses at age 9.
Was fully developed by 11 with a high sex drive for grown men (18-25).
Most of my peers were way behind.

[Gemme]

I found this article this morning.

A series of photos of a woman in her workout wear is inspiring men and women across the internet to remember 'We aren't Barbies.'

Q13 Fox reports, The photos, which can be seen here, were posted on IMGUR and Reddit under the name SomewhereUnderWater and titled 'reality check.'

The four photos show the woman in different poses highlighting certain areas of her body.

"We aren't Barbies. We are made of flesh and blood," said the user. "These are all the same body - my body. I have worked hard for this body and I am proud of this body."

She referenced how people are constantly surrounded by images of their "friends highlight reel" that doesn't always show reality. In her photos, she says it's good to see a little reality to keep realistic expectations.

"No matter where you are on your body's journey, be proud and love yourself. Make goals because you love your body not because you hate it," she wrote.

After the photo went viral, she returned to the post to write an update after all of the positive messages it received. She said she was inspired to do the photo set after seeing an article on a blog that changed her "unrealistic expectations" of her own body. The post helped her realize that even fit and healthy people struggle with body image.

"We all struggle with body image, we are all in this together!" she wrote.

The woman says the most important thing is we that we love our bodies by taking care of them. "We won't always like everything that they do, or the path they have gone down or everything that happens to them but we do have to love them (like family)," she said.

Since it was posted, the photo has been viewed nearly a million times and has received praise from hundreds of commenters.

"Thank you! As someone who has lost a ton of weight, it's hard to be happy with the new me when I see my belly not super flat all the time," said KittyLaStrange.

"Thanks for this, especially the photos on the right," said Hanakimi. "People never show those angles, and it's just very...real. And Awesome. You're awesome."

As she says, we aren't Barbies. We're flesh and blood and we're not perfect. I think this is so important for folks to see. Even those that have bodies that we might covet aren't perfect in every position or light. Our perceived flaws make us human.

[Gemme]

"Perfect Body"

Youtube fitness star takes critics advice and shows what her 'perfect' body would look like. This didn't change anything. People praised her for her dedication (even though it was obviously an unhealthy ideal) and others still criticized her saying she was still 'too fat'. Sad. We can't win.

[Orema]

[Orema]

NYT slammed for Serena 'body image' story

Melissa Harris Perry, Kavitha Davidson, Jason Page and Donna de Varona discuss the New York Times profile on Serena Williams which focuses on her body rather than professional career. Duration: 10:10

[akiza]

In our family many women are voluptious to say not fat of course some are diffent thiner or taller so i don't like to make fun of overweighed person.But for me i don't know why or when i pay attention to my weigh and do take mesure to rectify the little fat who comes i don't want to have a top model body but i like to be happy when i see myself in the mirror or when i'm trying clothes for now i'm in phase with my body

[Femmewench]

My mom ate celery and carrots and some form of protein for lunch every damn day - for my entire life. I never recall her gaining weight or losing. She was 5'4" and around 128 pounds - always.

I grew up drinking skim milk which my mom and dad both drank when they got me. My brother (younger) got whole milk. Anyone else seeing the first lesson?

We had Diet Rite in the house, nothing with sugar in it. On the rare occasions she'd make cookies, she noticed how many I took.

My parents had ice cream for dessert every night. After age 11, I'd get a disapproving look from my mother when I requested dessert.

"You'd be so attrative if you'd lose some weight." Words my mom spoke to me frequently.

And if you need a reason to be unattractive to men (because you don't know there are women to love,) being fat is perfect.

What I really want to know, is with all of this knowledge, will I ever decide to lose weight? My knees say they hope so.

[cathexis]

Ever since the age of 8, I was forced to wear a bra, resulting in more teasing, aside from weight and a bright carrot-top! Add to all these starting menstruation at the beginning of 3rd grade. Anyone reading wonder why I had/have gender dysphoria?

[dark_crystal]

My mom constantly talked about how fat she was and watched our eating like a hawk, frequently refusing to give us snacks when we complained of hunger because the snack we wanted would make us fat.

My weight was policed and commented on by both parents starting in middle school, especially my stomach. There is a photo of my on the last day of 8th grade and i look like a rail but i was already convinced i was fat.

I am 5'8" and never weighed above 150 until age 40, i went up over 150 at age 40 during weight restoration, after i had been diagnosed with anorexia at a weight of 113. I relapsed in 2013 and now my weight is usually unknown but hovers at 5-10 pounds above the relapse zone.

During the period that i looked my most skeletal my sister, my grandmaw, and two of my aunts took me aside and expressed concern, but neither of my parents ever said a word.

The comment that really sticks with me these days was not about me, though, but about my niece, at age TWO.

It was our first day even meeting my niece, who had been brought home the day before from a Russian orphanage, where she slept sideways with two other babies in her crib, and ate every meal sitting in a semicircle of six highchairs with one caregiver shoveling one bite of cereal into each mouth, over and over in rotation.

She was more than a little bit feral at this point, and my sister was keeping her calm-- for her first introduction to three tall strangers-- by feeding her Teddy Grahams. She would have one in her mouth and one in her hand and hold out her other hand so she could keep a steady supply. My sister remarked on this and my mom said "Be careful. You don't want her to end up obese."

My sister explained that she was prioritizing keeping the baby calm for the moment and promised that she would not let her get fat.

I just-- after what that baby had been through? After eating every meal on an assembly line, having to wait in line for each single bite? The ability to hoard an extra cookie in each hand all to herself would have been amazing. And my mom was policing that, and on such a special day