You Don’t Want to Lose Your Girlish Figure: A Struggle with Childhood Obesity

By Mary Edwards EdD PhD

The book gives a real-life example of how people view a person who is overweight, especially women, when they expect you to look a certain way for your age and gender. Being female in American culture puts a lot of pressure on girls and adult women to present themselves physically as slim and attractive. In my case, I present my childhood experience of obesity and how it impacted my life and what women around thought about my physical appearance as a way to inform and help people become knowledgeable about the stigma people put on obesity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 10, 2018
• ISBN: 9781543471939

Mary Edwards EdD PhD

About the Author: The author is a PhD in education and an MFTI serving children and families. As a child I was subjected to ridicule because I was an overweight pubescent young girl child and adolescent in the 1960s, when child obsess did not exist – children basically grew out of their baby fat during their childhood years.

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Copyright © 2018 by Mary Edwards, PhD, EdD.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 03/28/2019

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CONTENTS

Preface

Chapter 1 My Childhood Food Experience

Chapter 2 Empathy for Obesity in Society

Chapter 3 Introduction

Chapter 4 The Onset of My Childhood Obesity

Chapter 5 Childhood Obesity in the 21st Century

Chapter 6 The Era of Plastic Surgery

Chapter 7 Food a Family Cultural Affair

Chapter 8 Loss of Self-Esteem and Self-Worth in Childhood

Chapter 9 The Pressure To Keep My Girlish Figure

Chapter 10 My Savor

Chapter 11 Cougar Appeal

Chapter 12 I am a True Foodie

Chapter 13 Physical Health After Abusing Food

Chapter 14 Society’s Real Concerns

Chapter 15 Food Media - Advertisements

Chapter 16 The Naturally Slim and Shapely

Chapter 17 Cosmetic Surgery to Preserve Your Girlish Figure and Looks

Chapter 18 Lip and Butt Plastic Surgery

Chapter 19 Fingernails and Hair Over Weight Control

Chapter 20 Medical Weight Control

Chapter 21 The Future of Weight Control

Chapter 22 Eating Organic

Chapter 23 Restricted Diet

Chapter 24 The Struggle with Weight Control

Chapter 25 The Holidays

Chapter 26 Taking Control of My Own Weight

Chapter 27 Food Hangover

Chapter 28 The Power of Exercise

Chapter 29 The Food High

Chapter 30 Eating and Weight Gain

Chapter 31 Healthy Lifestyle

Chapter 32 Emotional Overeating – Out-of-Control

Chapter 33 Acceptance of Plus Sized Women

Chapter 34 Miss America and Miss USA Pageants

Chapter 35 My Love of Food

Chapter 36 The Real Me

Preface

American society is seriously concerned about childhood obesity in our culture today. It is the 21st Century and America that face an obesity epidemic primarily with our children and youth, however, it extends to adults in our society as well. The cause of obesity is primarily focused on the abundance of our food supply in our society, and how easy and fast American children and adults can access salty and fat laden foods within minutes at fast food restaurants and hamburger joints. However, we also have to be concerned about the population of Americans who take advantage of a quick meal for convenience – not so much for the purpose of eating a nutritious and healthy meal, but to have food tasty to our taste buds to satisfy our appetite. Also, obesity has been blamed on our technological society, where we can have access to any kind of information, programs, and computer games at our finger tips, just by sitting still at the computer to access such information, and different television and video programs available to us at a fingertip with the remote control and the touch of a mouse. All of this is true in contributing factors of the obesity problem in our society, but the issues and reasons for modern day causes of childhood obesity should not only be focused and attributed to society’s abundance of food, convenient, fast food access, and technology.

I must stress to you that there is also the emotional pain and trauma that some children suffer during their childhood that can trigger a need to turn to food as a way to nurture, and feel safe, by finding comfort in eating to cope and to feel good and soothe themselves. This was my situation with my childhood relationship with food, and this was at a time in our American society where childhood obesity did not really exist in our culture, in the 1960s, parents were having all their dinners at home, and would eat out on only during special occasions and to give mom a break from cooking. Americans were still having primarily well-balanced meals, with Friday as fish day for dinner at home, and children were constantly told eat your vegetables, at every dinner meal." In present day American society our parents have found ways to sneak vegetables into meals, that taste good to children, I say sneak because it is done in ways that disguise spinach and other vegetables that children really don’t wish to eat unless it is hidden by pasta, cheese, and other food products that enrich the taste of the vegetables in the dish.

I think having creative ways in which to prepare dishes to have children eat nutritious veggies with their meals is a positive way in which to have children enjoy and eat more veggies with their meals.

Chapter 1

My Childhood Food Experience

Well, I was never told during my childhood to eat my vegetables because I was served a variety of different kinds of fresh vegetables with my meals every day. I actually liked all the veggies my mother put on my plate, and I also knew better than to not eat them, because it was something that I did naturally to eat my fresh vegetables, no problem I ate all my vegetables put on my plate and enjoyed eating them, even if I was served spinach and brussels sprouts. The one thing that my mother instilled in me was to appreciate fresh vegetables, I would pick fresh green beans and watch my mother soak pinto beans overnight in a huge pot for us to eat. Vegetables were very common in our household and coming from the south it was natural for my family to eat as fresh as possible vegetables, and there would never be a meal served without fresh vegetables – hot as well as a cold salad. Also, we always had fruit on the table, especially during the holidays, it was a custom in our family to have plenty of apples and oranges arranged in a huge centerpiece on the living room table, with lots of nuts as part of the centerpiece. Also, during certain seasons of the year, when cherries and strawberries were in season, our family would travel miles to the farm country to pick fresh fruit, because it was fun to eat and pick our own fruit at the same time, and it was much cheaper by the pound to get it from the source, the farmer. So, you must wonder why I became obese as a child, my compulsion with food and overeating did not happen