Dieting and parenting

I knew taking care of a baby would be a lot of work and yet somehow I thought I might find time to blog occasionally. I suppose if I rarely found time to blog before she was born I should have expected to find even less time after.

Just recently SusanV posted an interesting story/recipe on her blog FatFree Vegan Kitchen about her 14 year old and very thin daughter saying she wanted "to go on a diet," not to lose weight, but because it was something she saw other mothers and daughters doing together. I remember that when I was in upper elementary school (5th or 6th grade) some of the more "grown up" girls started talking about going on diets in a way that seemed to link dieting to "being mature." SusanV handled it well by allowing her daughter to go on a "diet" that involved no food restriction and simply meant they would eat cabbage soup together everyday.

I've been thinking a lot about body image issues and dieting because I am a new mother. I have seen several sources (though I can't think of them at the moment, one might have been on this blog) say that the self image children develop can be tremendously affect by their mothers' self image.

My idea of a diet has certainly been shaped by my mother. Whenever I think "diet" I think "no or very little chocolate." My mother has worried about her weight at various times through out my life, but I always remember her resolutions being about eating less chocolate. She would say something like, "I'm going to lose some weight; I'm only going to have one small piece of chocolate per day and only on odd days of the month." She never restricted carbs or protein or fat in order to lose weight. In fact, she has taught me that often the best weight management strategy is to focus on eating delicious fresh fruits and vegetables and whole grains so that there is no room or time to fit in junk food. (She has struggled with managing cholesterol but discovered that the solution is to add flax seed and oat bran to her breakfast every day and to try to use "good" oils like olive oil.)

I really hope that I can model healthy eating for my daughter and that I will be able to be content with my weight and how I look so that she can learn contentment too. I want her to learn that her body is important and valuable, that food is a necessary and wonderful part of life, that eating is not about guilt but about taking care of her body.