Sandra Dodd

Some unschoolers got together in a place where there was a fridge
magnet that said "fat=happy" and the discussion went this way and that
and then:

"[S]omeone said they'd talked to a family who 'cannot unschool'
because of you; well, more specifically because your talk of food
freedoms is bullshit because your family is fat."

#1, my family isn't fat.
#2, my husband has been fat since infancy, and his mother has limited
and measured and shamed since before he understood English. We did go
out to lunch with them so Holly's boyfriend could meet them, and she
asked Keith at the table "How much do you weigh?" This suprised
Holly's boyfriend.
#3 I weighed 167 pounds or so before I was pregnant, and I was going
to weight watchers and then I broke my leg. Then I got pregnant.
Then over the next five years I had three babies, all (sadly and
frustratingly) by cesarean, and a few years later I broke my other leg.
#4 I weigh as much as Oprah Winfrey. She's wildly ashamed and noisy
about it. I'm busy helping people unschool.
#5 There are current photos of my kids at the bottom of this page:
http://sandradodd.com/kids


Both Marty and Kirby have at one time or another been pudgier, and
then got tall. So what?

WHAT IF my kids were "fat"? They aren't.
If they were, would that "prove" unschooling didn't work?

When a kid is thin, is it because parents limit foods or force them to
eat certain foods or any other thing like that?

If someone doesn't want to unschool, it's easier for them to look
around and blame something or someone, than to say "I've thought about
it but I don't want to," or "I tried to understand it, but I can't."

This is Holly:
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c111/SandraDodd/Holly/2009/kdk_0253.jpg
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c111/SandraDodd/Holly/2009/martyparty049.jpg

She has larger breasts than I had when I was her age. She's wearing
smaller jeans than I wore at her age. When I was her age I weighed 120
lbs. MAYBE that means she'll gain weight when she's in her 30's and
older too. Maybe it doesn't. What I DO know is that she eats better
than I ever ate in my life, and she knows what foods do what to her.
She never eats just because it's time. She doesn't eat things she
doesn't like. She likes things many adults don't like.

One of my lunatic stalkers (or my lunatic stalker, if they're all the
same person) once got angry and wrote that Keith was an ogre and Kirby
was a blimp. Somehow I guess that made her feel better. But
anyway... it seemed silly and it seemed very false, seeing as how
especially Marty and Holly are pretty lithe.

Sandra

Sandra Dodd

Diana Jenner, who knows my boys in person, sent this:

It's funny to see the progression of your boys' bodies... chubby then
tall, then chubby then tall, then chubby then tall, then beefcake!! <3
~diana :)

She also sent me this from the blog of a friend of hers, about "fat"
and many conceptions and misconceptions:
http://fourlittlebirds.blogsome.com/2009/01/24/fat-acceptance/

Sandra

k

>>>> -The tendency to store fat is not a dysfunction of the body, it is an
evolved strategy for survival. <<<<

I think everyone has very different energy levels depending on how their
bodies function best. I do well to be thinner than I am right now if I want
to be little more energetic and actually make it on time to things .... but
that's not true of everyone. Brian works for long long hours, and has for
over a decade, at the same job. At my most energetic I might be able to do
that for a time but nowhere near over a decade... I'm not as hardy as he
is. He's overweight by probably anyone's standards, but I personally don't
think he'd do well if he didn't have that stored energy to burn, all the
better to keep that job for years on end. I believe he needs it to
survive. He is rarely ever sick. Maybe once a year. I can't say that
though I'm not sick very much.

Thank you so much for the links to the fourlittlebirds blog! Very timely.

~Katherine


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Nicole Willoughby

Basicly it sounds like this skinny french lady is saying... I value my childrens' images and how it might effect my image over my caring about my childrens emotions and hapiness.

Nicole

Don't worry that children never listen to you : worry that they are always watching you--Robert Fulghum


--- On Wed, 1/28/09, Sandra Dodd <Sandra@...> wrote:
From: Sandra Dodd <Sandra@...>
Subject: Re: [AlwaysLearning] the tale of how I kept someone from unschooling
To: [email protected]
Date: Wednesday, January 28, 2009, 10:40 PM











Diana Jenner, who knows my boys in person, sent this:



It's funny to see the progression of your boys' bodies... chubby then

tall, then chubby then tall, then chubby then tall, then beefcake!! <3

~diana :)



She also sent me this from the blog of a friend of hers, about "fat"

and many conceptions and misconceptions:

http://fourlittlebi rds.blogsome. com/2009/ 01/24/fat- acceptance/



Sandra



























[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Bea

--- In [email protected], Sandra Dodd <Sandra@...> wrote:

>
> If someone doesn't want to unschool, it's easier for them to look
> around and blame something or someone, than to say "I've thought about
> it but I don't want to," or "I tried to understand it, but I can't."
>



When I first about the idea of unschooling and was trying to find
people who unschooled (my dd was 11 months at the time) I went camping
with some alternative group in France (that's where I'm from.) A lady
who unschools academically told me she limited TV because "one of the
big unschooling advocates in the US" had unlimited TV and her kid(s?)
was (were?) fat. (I guess she associated TV watching with being a
couch potato.) I don't know who she was talking about (she didn't
remember their name.) At the time I wasn't convinced not limiting TV
was the best thing to do (I am now) but I didn't buy into her argument
even then.

I totally agree with you Sandra: it's easy to blame others and dismiss
ideas one is afraid of because of them than it is to look at one's
fears and face them.



Bea

eaglefalconlark

Hi there -- I saw on my blog stats that someone linked from here so I
thought I'd check it out. The story you mentioned, Sandra, originated
with me. The "fat=happy" magnet is actually an insert from a Tasty
Bite Indian food package, and it's referring to studies that have
shown that low-fat diets correlate with depression. Originally it was
titled "fat=happy?" but my awesome friend whited-out the question
mark. :p

The story I told was of reading a blog post by an unschooler about her
skepticism about intuitive eating or "unfooding" as I've heard some
unschoolers call it. I hear this in RU circles occasionally, this idea
(Alfie Kohn talks about it in his video Unconditional Parenting) that
people are fat because their food intake was controlled when they were
kids, ergo if you don't control kids' food intake, they won't be fat.
Well, the reason for this blogger's skepticism, she wrote, is that
Sandra Dodd doesn't control her kids' eating, and look at how fat they
are!

What I was dismayed by on reading this was the range of unthinking and
disturbing assumptions implied, that I would expect from a mainstream
source, but am always disappointed to find among people who seem to be
able to think critically about other issues. Like: Adipose tissue in
areas other than women's breasts is the result of uncontrolled and
unhealthy and psychologically dysfunctional eating. Thin people do not
eat unhealthily and do not exhibit psychologically dysfunctional
eating. "Fat" is defined as anything but stick thin. Children are
inherently bad and self-destructive and have no self-knowledge. I'm
sure you could come up with some more.

The ridiculousness of her targeting your family as evidence for her
theory aside, she's right that intuitive eating doesn't guarantee thin
children, although she's wrong about why that is, and she's wrong to
assume that the opposite -- controlling food -- will necessarily
result in thin, healthy people.

Alfie Kohn is wrong too. Yes, there is such a thing as psychologically
dysfunctional eating behavior that is caused by control and
expectations and judgment. But even in the absence of those things,
people will still not all look exactly like the current cultural
aesthetic ideal. The fact that he's wrong *doesn't make food freedom
and intuitive eating wrong*.

The truth is that controlling someone's food source doesn't (except by
starvation) guarantee thinness -- or any shape or size for that matter
-- and intuitive eating doesn't guarantee it either. But control
*will* guarantee mental and emotional issues with food to some degree,
and intuitive eating will make a normal relationship with food much
easier to achieve.

Linda

Sandra Dodd

On Jan 29, 2009, at 4:37 PM, Bea wrote:

> A lady
> who unschools academically told me she limited TV because "one of the
> big unschooling advocates in the US" had unlimited TV and her kid(s?)
> was (were?) fat. (I guess she associated TV watching with being a
> couch potato.) I don't know who she was talking about (she didn't
> remember their name.)

---------------------------

Wow. I wonder if "the word" out there is that my kids are fat? It's
not like I've been stingy with photos of them. It's not like I
haven't taken them with me to conferences. And as usual, nobody's
watching TV in my house right now except my husband who's working a
jigsaw puzzle and listening to the news. Holly watched an hour and a
half of sitcoms last night while she worked on shrinky dinks. But
what a deeply lame thing, to say "I will limit my children because I
heard someone who doesn't limit has fat kids. That's not even
statistics or correlation, that's just superstition or bullshit.

Sandra

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Sandra Dodd

On Jan 29, 2009, at 6:01 PM, eaglefalconlark wrote:

> The story I told was of reading a blog post by an unschooler about her
> skepticism about intuitive eating or "unfooding" as I've heard some
> unschoolers call it. I hear this in RU circles occasionally, this idea
> (Alfie Kohn talks about it in his video Unconditional Parenting) that
> people are fat because their food intake was controlled when they were
> kids, ergo if you don't control kids' food intake, they won't be fat.
> Well, the reason for this blogger's skepticism, she wrote, is that
> Sandra Dodd doesn't control her kids' eating, and look at how fat they
> are!


So what you reported was having heard that someone else read a blog
post? This is fun. <g>
There's someone who was writing a lot at unschooling.info/forum for a
while. Her name was Danielle and she was in Texas and didn't have any
children, but she wrote with vigor. Then she had a baby and wrote
with crazed vigor. She's the one, I think, who wrote (in a comment
on my blog, I think) that Keith was an ogre and Kirby was a blimp. It
was just vitriolic lashing out. If there's something else out there
about my allegedly fat family, I'd like to see it!

Sandra

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

k

There are many things that people can agree to disagree on rather more
easily than food issues. I was flabbergasted (pun intended) when meeting
mothers who assumed that it's at all possible to create health through
control of their children's food. And we're not talking about people who
are dumb or stupid but there's definitely major prejudice against anything
that remotely seems to promote fat. Ah well... poor kids whose parents are
against their body type. I was so upset when the family I had just married
into didn't see any problem with Brian's mom being cajoled about eating a
little too much (?) at a family gathering in front of new family members
(me). Everybody else pretended nothing had happened. :(( The really
ridiculous thing is that she wasn't even eating much but enjoying herself
and talking with her kids. The comment about eating a little too much was
incredibly snide and so totally unnecessary.

~Katherine


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

eaglefalconlark

> So what you reported was having heard that someone else read a
> blog post?

No, I was the person who read the blog post and I was telling my
friends about it, one of whom apparently relayed the story to you.
Sorry for the confusion. :)

Linda

Jenny C

> Wow. I wonder if "the word" out there is that my kids are fat?

Your kids, your whole family is most definitely NOT fat!!!! I have many
relatives that are. The whole idea of wether or not someone is fat, is
very very subjective anyway.

I don't like it when people call themselves fat. When people have done
that in front of me, I tell them not to. Wether someone is the weight
they'd like to be or not, it makes no difference. What makes a
difference is how an individual views themselves and wether or not they
are happy in their own skin.

One could be a very skinny and very miserable person. I know without a
doubt, I should excercise more to ensure long time health, I'm sure as a
side effect, I'd be trimmer. I have a friend that eats very healthy and
exercises regularly who will never in a million years be skinny. She's
beautiful and I'm sure her husband and her kids find her so, as well as
most people that meet her. She's perfectly comfortable with who she is
and it shows.

I love people who are comfortable with who they are as people, no matter
what they look like. I've found that the more a like a person, the more
beautiful they become. I've met people that appear beautiful, and after
I've gotten to know them, they become much less so, simply because they
aren't nice.

eaglefalconlark

--- In [email protected], "Jenny C" <jenstarc4@...> wrote:
>>>Your kids, your whole family is most definitely NOT fat!!!! I have
many relatives that are. The whole idea of wether or not someone is
fat, is very very subjective anyway.<<<

Which is why this woman (who thought that Sandra's family was such
good evidence that food freedom/intuitive eating is not a healthy
practice) and people who think like her are not going to be swayed by
photographic evidence or anyone's opinions. Besides, even if Sandra's
kids could be objectively deemed "not fat", there are still people who
*are* fat who practice food freedom and intuitive eating. What of
that? Does that invalidate it? They think so.

>>>I don't like it when people call themselves fat. When people have
done that in front of me, I tell them not to.<<<

I don't like it either when people disparage themselves or others. But
something to think about is that not all people who are fat see their
fatness as a bad thing or see the descriptor "fat" as necessarily a
bad thing. :) In fact, the size acceptance movement has been more than
happy to reclaim that word.

>>>I know without a doubt, I should excercise more to ensure long time
health, I'm sure as a side effect, I'd be trimmer. I have a friend
that eats very healthy and exercises regularly who will never in a
million years be skinny.<<<

You might be interested in the HAES (Health At Every Size) movement.
http://www.haescommunity.org/

Linda

k

>>>> Besides, even if Sandra's kids could be objectively deemed "not fat",
there are still people who
*are* fat who practice food freedom and intuitive eating. What of that? Does
that invalidate it? <<<<

I think many people believe "getting overweight" happens by eating what you
want and not *controlling* it. The main terrific selling point for diet
products/ advice, etc. What doesn't seem to make a dent in the argument is
that people *are* controlling (or trying to) what they eat and still not in
the "ideal" weight range for their height.

By the way, I have stopped cringing at the word fat since I saw a teen
friend wearing a hoodie that says "Fattie's Club" on the back alongside a
playboy bunny ... so fat is sexy to boot. ;) Counterculture sells too.

~Katherine


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

jaxfam96

--- In [email protected], k <katherand@...> wrote:
>
> There are many things that people can agree to disagree on rather more
> easily than food issues. I was flabbergasted (pun intended) when
meeting
> mothers who assumed that it's at all possible to create health through
> control of their children's food.

***************************************************


Not only did my parents control every bite of food that went into my
mouth, they constantly made comments about my "huge butt" and called
me "Baby Huey". Even now they say they were just trying to help me!
(Yeah, thanks! =oP)

Everytime we'd go out to eat they's say "God, look at that---Shannon
always orders the biggest thing on the menu!"
It doesn't matter how small my meal was, they always said that---they
still do!

I would never put my son through what I had to put up with. I have
food issues---he doesn't. We have never limited him in any way. If he
wants to try something (including wasabi!) he does. And we never force
him to eat something he doesn't want.

He makes really great choices. He likes to eat candy & cookies---but
his favorite thing is salad. He's a pescatarian (vegetarian who eats
fish). He loves yougurt, carrots, shrimp, and Miso soup.

Oh, and he's thin & healthy!


---Shannon =o)
shanona.blogspot.com

k

>>>> Oh, and he's thin & healthy! <<<<

This was recently said to Karl and I was a bit like "whoa nelly" because I
know he has genes on both sides of the family to be much heavier than he is
now, and the last thing anybody needs is the idea that as long as one is
young and thin, one is healthy by default. He *is* healthy but he may or
may not always be thin and definitely won't always be young. Dunno.

~Katherine


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Dina

food freedom is a no-brainer for me because of my upbringing as well. my parents would
leave the room and go watch TV and i wasn't allowed to leave the table until my plate was
clean. they would yell, "eat, dina eat!" from the other room. i was only allowed 1 glass of
water/juice with dinner and since i never liked the taste of meat, i would wash it down
with my drink. when my drink ran out i would chew on a piece of meat for a REALLY long
time but i HAD to eat it or i would still be sitting there. i told my mom over and over again
that i hated ham but it wasn't until i actually threw up on my plate during easter dinner
that she didn't force me to eat it anymore.

and they were shocked when i left for college and became a vegetarian! think they would
be surprised that i grew up and had an eating disorder in my early twenties? no WAY am i
doing that to my kid. no-brainer.

dina

--- In [email protected], "eaglefalconlark" <eaglefalconlark@...> wrote:
>
>
> > So what you reported was having heard that someone else read a
> > blog post?
>
> No, I was the person who read the blog post and I was telling my
> friends about it, one of whom apparently relayed the story to you.
> Sorry for the confusion. :)
>
> Linda
>

Robyn L. Coburn

>>>>> Besides, even if Sandra's kids could be objectively deemed "not fat",
>>>>> there are still people who *are* fat who practice food freedom and
>>>>> intuitive eating. What of that? Does that invalidate it? <<<<

Or conversely, if food freedom and intuitive eating were the cause of excess
weight then surely all or almost all unschoolers would then be overweight,
and that is not the case at all. Any crowd of unschoolers shows the same
wide variation in physique that any other crowd of the general population. I
suppose if we were being compared to a crowd of Olympic runners or fashion
models or Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, then we might be showing more mass
but so would any crowd of ordinary parents, kids and teenagers.

I think that sometimes people suspect that we ignore or hide problems, that
the whole unschooling thing is too good to be true. Then when we do report
how we manage problems, tough moments, the times when our kids baffle or
distress us, in ways that do not resort to controlling or limiting or
turning away from unschooling, the reaction can be unnecessarily "just as I
thought" viscious - as if the absence of perfection equals complete failure.

I would like to be slimmer, but I can tell you it's not what or how I eat.
It's how I don't exercise enough to overcome my genetics. I have been within
three pounds of the same weight, other than pregnancy, for around 12 years,
which I slowly arrived at over three years after I quit going to the gym for
(at least) 2 hours every single live long day. I think if I were simply
consuming too many calories, surely my weight would continue to rise. Jayn
has gotten pretty plump over the last year, and that follows the pattern
that both my mother and I did at that age - only Jayn is less plump and
started older than either of us were if photos are any evidence. If she
continues to follow the pattern she will lose it all over the course of
puberty, especially if she continues to swim and dance.

Robyn L. Coburn
www.Iggyjingles.etsy.com
www.iggyjingles.blogspot.com
www.allthingsdoll.blogspot.com

Laureen

Heay

On Wed, Jan 28, 2009 at 8:31 PM, Sandra Dodd <Sandra@...> wrote:
> Some unschoolers got together in a place where there was a fridge
> magnet that said "fat=happy" and the discussion went this way and that
> and then:
>
> "[S]omeone said they'd talked to a family who 'cannot unschool'
> because of you; well, more specifically because your talk of food
> freedoms is bullshit because your family is fat."

Whatever one thinks of fatness or health or whatever, I'm guessing
that, because of the use of profanity, the speaker is using the term
"fat" as pejorative, and as such, that converts this statement into a
logical fallacy (ad hominem)... which renders her argument invalid. Or
so say the rules of classic logic, yeah?

I'm sure we could probably pick out other fallacies if we put our
minds to it. It's kind of a hobby of mine; when confronted by
obtuseness so thick it makes me gasp, I use the tools of logic to pull
myself back off the edge. Before I learned that trick, I used to be so
maddened by that kind of thing that I'd fly off into gnashing rages.

And don't get me started on the female subjects of classical art
through the ages. IMO our obsession with twiggy is yet another example
of cultural pathology. YMMV, natch.

--
~~L!

~ * ~ ~ * ~ ~ * ~ ~ * ~ ~ * ~
Writing here:
http://www.theexcellentadventure.com/

Evolving here:
http://www.consciouswoman.org/
~ * ~ ~ * ~ ~ * ~ ~ * ~ ~ * ~

diana jenner

>
> they constantly made comments about my "huge butt" and called
> me "Baby Huey". Even now they say they were just trying to help me!
>

Somehow, when I turned 14 (about the same time I got boobies) my Aunt began
calling me Thunder Thighs -- She had gastric bypass last year and I remain
the 2nd smallest of the adult women in our family. I've given up my *right*
to those things I was deprived of in childhood; I cannot fill that emotional
hole with food, as did/do many in my family. I'm perfectly wonderful as a
satisfied adult :)

I'm proud Hayden's been able to go about his business of living and growing
without public input on his size (he's been doing that out/up/out/up/out/up
his whole life! *Soon* it shall result in a boy taller than his mama!) and
shape.
Just as when he was a nursling, he eats when and what he needs/wants/craves
and not a nibble more.

I was at a local gathering tonight where I witnessed TWO unschooled kids
turn down a second chunk of amazing chocolate cake with chocolate
buttercream frosting!! (and two non-unschooled kids shocked and amazed at
the adults *offering* a second slice!!!)
~diana :)
xoxoxoxo
hannahbearski.blogspot.com
hannahsashes.blogspot.com
dianas365.blogspot.com
>
>
>
>


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

eaglefalconlark

>>>>>>>>>>>

Shannon: He makes really great choices. He likes to eat candy &
cookies---but his favorite thing is salad.

Diana: I was at a local gathering tonight where I witnessed TWO
unschooled kids turn down a second chunk of amazing chocolate cake
with chocolate buttercream frosting!! (and two non-unschooled kids
shocked and amazed at the adults *offering* a second slice!!!)

<<<<<<<<<<<<

We were at an all-you-can-eat buffet recently and the kids all started
out with the pretty brightly-colored decorated food -- dessert. They
don't see this kind of stuff often, so of course they would be
attracted to that first. Well, they picked at it a bit, and pretty
soon put those plates aside and ran off to get the more boring-looking
protein-based foods my husband and I had on our plates. Last of all?
Salad. They all had to have salad. All this is really unremarkable as
far as they are concerned, but to me, with my past of food issues and
being aware of the wider society's beliefs about why people eat the
way they do, it's both hilarious and affirming.

Linda

Lyla Wolfenstein

i just realized i am something of an adult case study of 1 wrt to uncontrolled food and choices throughout life.

i never had ANY food controls on me at all. in fact, other than school (lol) my parents' approach was somewhat "unschooly" mixed with "continuum" style. none of it intentional!

i wonder how much of how kid approach eating throughout their lives has to do with what they *observe* in terms of eating habits and choices and reasons with their parents or caregivers. although i had no controls or even intentional influences/opinions imposed on me wrt food, my dad, in particular, was an over-eater (he had TONS of icky childhood experiences wrt food) and ate for many other reasons besides how his body felt at the moment.

i have done pretty well in my life wrt food, although certainly went through phases where i was eating for comfort not hunger, eating to the point of being overly full, or, for instance, in 6th grade, gorging on candy after school every single day.

but i have always liked and chosen a variety of foods, and been healthy both mentally and physically wrt food, and fairly contented with my own relationship with food.

i wonder if those phases i went through would be gone through by unschooled kids whose parents *don't* have a negative or unhealthy relationship *themselves* with food....impossible to know for sure, but otherwise it's hard for me to understand why i'd have had any issues at all. and worth it i think to inspect our own issues with food (as with anything) even if we think we are not burdening our children with our "stuff."

thoughts?

warmly, Lyla

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

JoyErin

I saw a TV show, here in the UK, a week or two back that seemed to think
that there is something in the brain that says when to stop eating and it's
different for people where that point is - determining our point of
satisfied hunger and how much we weigh. They started out with only 20?
thinnish looking 20 something's and gave all them equal numbers of calories
that would cause them to gain weight. 3 of those people couldn't eat past
that full feeling and therefore did not gain weight. All the rest did.
They showed us side profiles of the little bit of extra they'd gain. After
that trial, they let them get back to their lives and normal eating habits
to see what would happen. All of them went back to their weights of before,
over different amounts of time. Everyone they interviewed said they did not
do any dieting.

My own experience agrees with this idea but it also tells me that maybe if
weight gain goes on for a certain amount of time (longer than this trial)
then the brain 'thinks' that is what the body then needs. And maybe that
amount of time is different for some, like women who bounce back to their
old weight before childbirth while others carry more and more weight after
each birth.

I have a very, very similar story to Dina though and noticed just recently
in a photo from around the 'actually getting sick because I had to eat Fish'
time that I wasn't my usual thin self. It was right about then, if I
remember correctly my parents stopped making me eat certain things on a
daily basis, that rule continued on the holidays though. I had to have a
tablespoon size of everything. My mother has told me she wanted me to try
things that she didn't make at home - thinking I then wouldn't be a picky
eater. All my growing up years there was still the 'have to finish what you
took to eat' rule. I still slimmed down back down though. From photos I
have I'd say I was at my thinnest at around 16. I don't know my fathers
side of the family but my mothers side are all obviously on the thin side
and still are.

I have not been what one would call thin since my first child was born when
I was 28 (almost 14 yrs ago now). I've not worried over much about my
weight gain but it still doesn't feel right to me and every once in awhile
I've exercised more to try to shift the weight which has never worked for
very long. Around 10 years ago I started joining homeschool lists and the
subject of weight and health came up. I realized then that this, what I
felt, extra weight I had was most probably a psychological issue from my
childhood and not because I wasn't eating right or getting enough exercise.
All my life before children my weight had been able to self regulate. So
for me that show made a lot of sense too.

Joy








<http://geo.yahoo.com/serv?s=97359714/grpId=4410250/grpspId=1705542111/msgId
=41637/stime=1233424919/nc1=4025338/nc2=3848644/nc3=4836044>






[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

JoyErin

All my life before children my weight had been able to self regulate.

Correction: My body still self regulates on weight. I've been around the
same higher weight, since my last child was born, for 12 years now.






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eaglefalconlark

--- In [email protected], "Lyla Wolfenstein" <lylaw@...>
wrote:
>>>i have done pretty well in my life wrt food, although certainly
went through phases where i was eating for comfort not hunger,<<<

In this particular case, I think that what is regarded in our culture
as a dysfunctional behavior regarding food is actually very normal and
healthy -- when you consider that infants and small children are
comforted by being at the breast, and that social comfort often
involves gathering around food.

>>>i wonder how much of how kid approach eating throughout their lives
has to do with what they *observe* in terms of eating habits and
choices and reasons with their parents or caregivers. [...] i wonder
if those phases i went through would be gone through by unschooled
kids whose parents *don't* have a negative or unhealthy relationship
*themselves* with food....impossible to know for sure, but otherwise
it's hard for me to understand why i'd have had any issues at all.<<<

Oh, absolutely, and that applies to anything parenting-related, right?
It matters how parents treat their kids, but it also matters how kids
see their parents treating themselves.

Linda

eaglefalconlark

--- In [email protected], "JoyErin" <joyerin@...> wrote:
>>>I saw a TV show, here in the UK, a week or two back that seemed to
think that there is something in the brain that says when to stop
eating and it's different for people where that point is - determining
our point of satisfied hunger and how much we weigh.<<<

It's been known for some time that there are hormones that regulate
appetite and metabolic function. There are currently studies being
done to try to figure out if we can safely and effectively manipulate
those hormones. There are unfortunately a few things that are getting
overlooked in the excitement over this research. Overeating is not the
only or even necessarily at all the reason for fatness, and when that
is the prevailing belief, other causes aren't researched. That's a
problem, obviously. Also, it's concerning that in demonizing fat,
we're not open to researching the *good* reasons people have the level
of fat that they do, and the possibility that forcing their bodies to
not accumulate it will result in new health issues (which of course we
have already seen with dieting.)

Linda

JoyErin

-= Overeating is not the only or even necessarily at all the reason for
fatness, and when that is the prevailing belief, other causes aren't
researched. That's a
problem, obviously. Also, it's concerning that in demonizing fat, we're not
open to researching the *good* reasons people have the level of fat that
they do, and the possibility that forcing their bodies to not accumulate it
will result in new health issues (which of course we have already seen with
dieting.)=-

I really got the idea that this show was trying very hard to say that we are
not all made to be thin or skinny. It was a good show imo because that
information is finally getting out to a lot more people, myself included.
This particular show from my understanding didn't go into any reasons 'why'
a person gains weight or demonize fat. Hopefully it's a good sign of the
direction of future shows to come. The show might have worked better for
some people if all the subjects weren't thin to begin with but I can think
of lots of reasons why all thin subjects were chosen. Maybe in a couple of
years most everyone will know that the scientists and researchers don't
believe we were all born to be thin. :o)



Joy







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Nancy Wooton

On Jan 29, 2009, at 5:17 PM, Sandra Dodd wrote:

> But
> what a deeply lame thing, to say "I will limit my children because I
> heard someone who doesn't limit has fat kids. That's not even
> statistics or correlation, that's just superstition or bullshit.

Mine have unlimited TV, computer, video game and refrigerator access.
My 18 y.o. son is 5'11" and about 155 pounds. My 21 y.o. dd is 5'5"
and 124 pounds. The most restricted kids they knew growing up were
both overweight; the parents made them ask even for a drink of water.
Both parents worked in public education. I'll bet we could make a
bullshit correlation out of that!

Nancy (I wonder if my kids would be fat if I was a better cook? ;-)