Hamburger, Milkshake and a Side of Shame
By: Yael R. Ayli
Tags: Parenting, Teens, Shame, Body Image

Photo by Oliver Sjöström on Unsplash

My teenage son is overweight. There, I’ve said it.

It’s not like I haven’t acknowledged it. I’ve talked with my husband about it, my mom, and, of course, my son himself. The important thing, I’ve learned, is to take shame out of the equation when I talk with my son about it.

Yet, I feel ashamed. I feel scared. I feel I have failed my child.

The shame-free talks my husband and I occasionally have with our son, focusing on health, sports, and making better food choices for his brain (he has ADHD), typically result in my son changing his eating habits for a day or so, then returning to his old ways. I think my son wants to change, and I know it’s one of the hardest things he will ever do.

I know because I grew up chubby. Chunky. Overweight. My mother tried to explain this away by telling me that I was “big-boned”. That may have been partially true, but there was not a single bone to be found in my jiggly tummy and stocky thighs.

My parents were busy with full-time jobs, and had a penchant for stocking the pantry with junk food (canned squirt cheese, anyone?) and procuring take-out for most of our dinners. I drank regular Coke regularly, was encouraged to bake brownies and cookies, and fruit was a virtual unknown in our house (save for canned fruit cocktail).

Many of the memories I have from my childhood involve large amounts of (mostly unhealthy) foods. Greasy latkes at Chanukah, sour cream based Jell-o molds and cheese blintze casseroles at Yom Kippur, and mashed potatoes with 2 sticks (!) of butter at Thanksgiving. Every winter, on our family drive to Florida, we would stop at the Shoney’s buffet for breakfast, where we would load up on bacon, pancakes, and the most delicious tiny blueberry muffins. Before Olive Gardens cropped up everywhere, it was a huge treat for us to eat there in Florida. Those meals involved virgin strawberry daiquiris, fettuccine alfredo, and piles and piles of breadsticks. I can even recall the time I got shampoo in my eyes, and the babysitter charged with my care offering me three Hostess cupcakes to stop crying.

Food was a soother, a celebrant, a mourner. It was love from a grandparent, a care package from an aunt and the center of any family get together. Most of my relatives were overweight. My grandmothers, my aunt, my uncle, my mom, my dad. Even the four goldfish I had as pets were chubby and food-obsessed, apparently needing to eat one another in their quest to satisfy their hunger.

Most of these calories were packed onto my “big-boned” frame without care or thought. I could demolish half a bag of chips, half a pan of brownies, or half a liter of Coke without any thought of consequences. I had no reason to think that eating a large movie theater popcorn (with butter, please and thank you) was not one of my better choices. My go-to dinner when dining out with friends? Fried chicken fingers and french fries, of course.

When I look back at pictures of myself in childhood, it’s around 4th or 5th grade that the “chubby me” begins to emerge. It is around that same time that I began to hear the whispers and taunts from other students, pointing out my expanding tummy and round face. It is around this time that I become acquainted with body shame.

It is this teasing and hurt that I want to protect my son from. It is the horrible feeling of being different and the deep shame that accompanies that feeling that I don’t want him to have to deal with. My worry about his weight has some of its roots in health, but for the most part, I do not want my boy to suffer the indignity and humiliation that is being flung at him by fellow students.

For some reason, the town in which we live has an abundance of what I have termed “stick children”. These are scrawny specimens of children who are so thin, their elbows and knees look like giant knobby protuberances on their limbs. These wisps of children look as though they might break in half, should an errant soccer ball come their way. They play multiple sports with ease, flitting about baseball and soccer fields like gangly, lithe sprites.

These stick children are a stark contradiction to the one or two “huskier” kids on their teams — my son being one of them. While the knobby-kneed boys seem to be swimming in their jerseys, my son’s uniform molds somewhat tightly to his body. It is harder for my son to run as fast, to get down to the other side of the court to guard his opponent, to slide into home plate. There is one sport where his size seems to be an asset — football. It is here, in his pads and helmet, that he doesn’t stand out nearly as much. There are no stick children on the football team; they would surely snap if tackled.

In addition to sports fields, the middle school hallways that immediately invite mocking at the slightest hint of “difference” are another source of hurt for my son. Online video game forums, the nearby park, even Zoom breakout sessions — these all provide places for other teens to tear him down. Most days, my son says it doesn’t bother him. Other days, he is angry or teary at some weight-related torment doled out by a compassionless peer.

From time to time, something will land on him that is particularly cruel and this will cause him to commit to making a change in his eating and exercising habits. Sometimes, after a discussion with my husband and me about food choices, moderation, or working out, he will commit to change his habits. Whatever the impetus for change, it generally only lasts a few hours to a day, as though he’s just not ready to make the changes stick.

We don’t badger him about his choices, we don’t nag him to eat more vegetables, we don’t restrict food by not having ice cream or chips or Frosted Flakes in the house. Our reasoning is that he is at an age where he can easily go to the corner store and buy these things on his own, perhaps in bingeable quantities that would be scarfed down under the shadow of shame. By having all kinds of foods in our house, we are trying to show him that there are no such things as “bad foods” and that he can enjoy anything he likes without having to feel bad about himself.

Is it hard to watch him go back and forth from the couch to the pantry, each time holding a handful of chips? Is it difficult to stay quiet when he helps himself to an oversized bowl of ice cream? Is it maddening to watch as he uses his own money to buy himself Panda Express, Chipotle, or McDonald’s for lunch instead of eating the healthier options we have in the house? What do you think?

Do you know how I silently struggle with his choice to eat Ramen noodles, eschewing the fish, brown rice and vegetables that I have made for dinner? How I cringe when he prefers to eat a Gogurt rather than an apple, because he feels like it’s too hard to cut up an apple? How I bite my tongue when he asks his sister to go with him for ice cream after they’ve just eaten a large pizza and breadsticks?

Perhaps I say all of this because just as my son must feel the stares and hear the comments, I feel them, too. I see how other mothers look at my son and then at me, silently wondering how I’ve allowed my son to gain so much weight. I hear the unspoken disgust and questions: Does she just let him eat whatever he wants? Doesn’t she make him exercise? Why doesn’t she try to help him lose weight?

What those mothers may not understand is that, yes, of course I encourage my son to eat healthy and to exercise. Of course, I want him to be healthy and comfortable in his body. We have hired an exercise coach for him and have talked with him about healthy eating choices.

But, I cannot stand over him at every meal and count the calories that enter his body. I cannot tell him that he’d better eat dessert only every other night. I can’t force him to exercise, no matter how I might want him to do so. All of those actions, those comments, they are all a form of control. Control over what he eats, when he eats, how much he eats. Control over exercising and getting outside and slimming down.

I don’t want my relationship with my son to be one of me trying to control these things. I don’t want to have power struggles over calories in and sweat expended. My attempts to control his eating and exercise will only lead him to feel shame. Ultimately, he’s going to eat the way he wants to and exercise when he wants to. My judgments and cajoling and limiting will only result in him eating the way he wants to, but also feeling shame about it.

Hiding candy bars under my mattress, sneaking down to the kitchen after everyone had gone to bed, going to a drive-through and eating and eating and eating alone in a secluded parking lot. That is what I did when I was ashamed of my eating and weight. There was no nagging, begging or pleading that my parents could have used to make me change my habits. It was only once I decided to change, that I wanted to be healthier, that I was ready to commit to a different way of relating to food — it was only then that I became healthier and leaner.

There’s the familiar phrase about “hitting rock bottom” and not being able to change until you’ve hit hit your own personal rock bottom. I hit mine and changed. My husband hit his and changed. Not overnight and not without struggle and hard work. We hope and silently pray that our son will hit his own rock bottom, and from there, begin to put forth the effort and commitment to a healthier lifestyle. It has to come from inside him.

He knows it. I know it. It is not simple. It is not easy. Perhaps suspend judgment, and instead throw some compassion his way. We are all just doing the best we can.