Camden —

The knee jerk reaction of critics worried that Michelle Obama's comment will facilitate eating disorders for her daughters covers up a much deeper issue that demands to be addressed. We are a nation that consumes processed food at alarming rates. Much of the space in a grocery store is dedicated to 'food' so far removed from the source that it's unrecognizable. The issue of obesity in this country is an alarming problem stemming from our hurry up lifestyle and our learned behavior to push for instant gratification at the expense of nutrition. We eat for emotional reasons, and we eat the wrong stuff. How many eating disorders could be avoided if we'd just eat real food? We have far deeper issues to address. Let's work on the issue that affects so much more than our self image through the teen years. Obesity affects our health for LIFE.

Give Michelle a break! I commend her for addressing this issue with candor and grace. Everything the First Family does is under a microscope. Michelle Obama’s willingness to be personally candid about a topic that affects families nationwide is a sign of wisdom. By demonstrating her own mistakes, she reveals how easy it is to overlook the issue when it’s right under our noses. Realizing that a few pounds have crept up is an important step to doing something about it. Our health issues in this country are directly connected to the food we eat. We cannot be healthy if we are obese. It doesn’t work that way.

I speak from personal experience. From the time I was 11 until I was 14, I carried a 20lb pot belly that grew literally from our family’s move to a new house. The pain of not being accepted in our new neighborhood and at the new school was heartbreaking. I went from having lots of friends to having 2 friends. Every day, I got off the school bus and attempted to walk 5 houses down the street, only to get beat up by two boys in my neighborhood. If they had football practice, I got a reprieve. Even though I danced 4 nights a week, my belly didn’t go away until I changed what I ate, and changed the emotional climate by changing schools.  I rode a different bus, put myself on a healthy diet and the belly was gone in 6 weeks.

As a 27 year old mother of 2, I was eating to feed my emotions once again. I was also chronically ill from Endometriosis, having racked up 4 surgeries to remove it. It kept growing back. A Lupron trial facilitated my weight’s alarming balloon to 195lbs. For a small boned, 5’ 6” person, that’s way too heavy. I was stressed out, overwhelmed by motherhood and spending lots of time alone with my young children. I was home schooling, exhausted, and angry at my husband’s lack of physical and emotional support. He worked 90 hours a week. My 7 year old son would repeatedly ask me, “What night is Daddy having dinner with us?”

Mint chocolate chip ice cream and fried chicken biscuits became my way of coping. It took a year of focused attention to regroup my weight back to 135lbs. I changed my diet, cut out many meats and processed foods. Much to my husband’s chagrin, I also changed up the emotional environment, and started doing more things for myself that didn’t involve him or the kids. It was a fight every time, but I was determined not to be obese for life. He was much happier when I was overweight, with no car and no way to get out. Obesity, diabetes, heart conditions, high blood pressure, female issues and breast cancer run in my family. I saw the connection between self nurturing for emotional reasons and obesity, and did something about it. That was 18 years ago.

We need to look deeper at the reasons why we eat and the things we crave when we are feeding our emotions. We also need to eat food grown and harvested as close to the source as possible. We waste a lot of time and energy in our nation trucking food in from afar instead of harvesting locally. We miss key relationship time working so much and relegating meals to the sofa instead of the dinner table. Taking the time to prepare meals and slowing down to eat them together is worth the effort. We will not have health care reform in our country until we take responsibility for our health individually. That means looking at both the reasons why we are eating and the kind of food we are mindlessly consuming.

http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/parenting/is-it-okay-to-talk-about-your-daughters-weight-if-it-s-for-the-national-good-579635/?posted=1#postcomment